Wow.

Been a while. Things have been moving forward. 4th year med. No more playing around. No more fooling around. You need to know your stuff, have your wits about you. No more procrastinating and sleeping late. Gotta get up at 6.30 to make it to the hospital by 7.30am for grand rounds. Yes, I drive.

Okay i have a rant here. I think I've been spoilt by Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, Captain Slow etc, and their beautiful car reviews. I just read the Life newspaper review of my 2009 Ford fiesta, and I feel very... annoyed, to say the least. I guess I understand, I was speaking with KL, that's how newspapers are run. You can't use big words, like humongous, splendiferous, you know, easy stuff. You can't write about the spirit and dynamism of a car, you've just got to cut to the chase. It's more than a bit annoying to see your car described as sluggish. Although that's not wrong, at 1.4L it's not going to win any races, it's not that much of a slouch either. You can really feel all 100 horses in that engine working to bring you to where you want to go, and the engine note has a really nice sporty timbre, a really cute growl. It's like seeing a fierce baby tiger that's never going to grow up. it's got the instinct but not the tools. That's how the ford fiesta feels like to me. But the handling, oh the handling. It's got that new hydro-electric power steering that lets your car turn on a dime when you're practically stationary, yet feel heavy at high speeds. It's got a nice stiff suspension that tricks you into believing you're in a large continental car when the truth is you're just in a little tiddling 1.4L. And you've got that sporty tip-tronic-like semi-automatic gearbox that lets you have the best of both worlds. As borat would say, very nice. You've got a car with an NCAP rating of 5, yet small enough to park in the shadow of an SUV, yet feel spacious and large enough to fool your senses. It's got all the electronic gadgetry you need, input jacks for your ipod, phone charger, that sort of thing. It's got a spoiler. It looks absolutely gorgeous next to the honda jazz, the mazda2, the hyundai getz, the toyota yaris, the small cars of its class. Fantastic noise reduction and although the tyre roar is a bit too much, but I put it down to the crappy australian roads. For a little car, it doesn't feel like a tin can or a little girly plaything. It's very much a drivers' car. Not for the economic buyer or for the uneducated consumer looking for the cheapest buy.

All in all, the fiesta isn't going to win any drag races with it's 11sec 0-100km performance, but it'll handily win the slalom, the beauty pageant and the driver's heart.

Anyway, rant over. Tutoring starts tomorrow. Yay?

The End of Dogs

Dogs used to be wolves, you know. They had dignity once. They had an aura once, a presence. They used to be tough, wiry, vicious animals, with a healthy dose of heart - they were bred for hunting, for companionship. For protection. For tracking. They were manly dogs, doing manly things. In their dreams, they still dream of those days in the wild - hunting in a pack, terrorizing the country-side. In their dreams, they are the hunters, the thundering of hooves behind them, the warm cloying scent of blood teasing them just ahead. Dogs are meant to be dogs. In their dreams, they eat meat, and drink from the river. They piss where they want, marking their territory. They snap at each other. They obey an order to maim, to kill. They were dogs.

The dogs these days - they aren't dogs. They're toys. Little, inbred toys with genetic defects. You like your little toy pomeranians, shih tzus, your poodles. You think they're cute. A few years down the road when they throw a fit, when they go blind, when they get paralyzed... you'll be crying and putting them down. Minutes later, you'll want a new one. And for every cute dog you buy... for every cuddly, beautiful, cute looking dog... at least a couple in the litter had to be killed because of their hideous deformities. Oh yeah, the price of cuteness. Sure. you get a totally emasculated, tiny... midget of a dog who'd be eaten up by rats.... has no function at all except to look cute... you dress the dog up, you humanize him. Can't stop you.

Stop the inbreeding. Stop the genetic horrors, the good genes being lost for all time... stop the recessive genes from being expressed. Wake up and smell the awful truth about inbreeding. Look. I have nothing against dressing dogs up - i mean, if you buy a toy, you would want accessories, right? But i have everything against treating dogs like toys. Mass producing them, customizing them, making them weaker, sicker, lesser creatures... just so they can look cute. And the dog clothing culture stems from that. It's all a package.

Yeah, "true dog lover." Sure. You wouldn't love dogs if they were actually dogs still. Wolves. Animals. Not toys. Not accessories. But proper dogs.

Sigh. As ever, the pleas will fall on deaf ears.

Wow.

After the torrid affair with Ladymelissa, i'm tempted to jump into another one with the Great high priestess of blogging herself, as she likes to call herself the morning star (lucifer anyone), miss wendy cheng. but because i know all the shit i'll get into if i do... i'll just do it in the relative privacy of my blog. because no one ever reads this anyway.

i've got a few points to make and I'll be brief.

1. wendy cheng THINKS she's smart. she's not as smart as she thinks she is. connecting my opinion about ladymelissa, i don't really like her either. call me conservative, but she's loud and rude and arrogant and brash. very much like ladymelissa but without the supposed cambridge education. just because you read something somewhere that sounded vaguely smart makes you smart too? for example, she recently bashed obama on her blog. okay, no qualms with that if you make smart comments, like, I disagree with obama's economic policies, he's too idealistic, i think he's not experienced, he's not qualified, mccain deserves it more, etc etc. But too quote from other blogs like she did? hold on a second. i have a feeling that those aren't really her own opinions but opinions that she's aping and copying just to be all "counter-culture" etc. you know me. I love to go against the grain. everyone raved about the dark knight, i was sort of cool towards it. everyone raved about quantum of solace, i went ho-hum. No, i'm not influenced by popular opinion. but everyone is raving about barack? yeah, i have to give it to him to. he had me at "yes we can". it's not the popular opinion, but it's that feeling, that vibe i get from him. watching his speeches and his interaction with people - it's the feeling. like i complain about books and movies, yes, technically perfect, technically excellent. but where's the heart? where's the feeling? you know?

Anyway i'm digressing and it's still my first point. Basically she linked to this site called the American thinker, which basically said that obama divided the nation like never before. Hello. the nation was already divided in the first place. imho, it was palin's hardcore hate words. and mccain's strategy of fear. obama never harped on the fact that he was black, he merely pointed it out like, once or twice? to say that he nursed greivances against white is natural and honest. how is that divisive? i think all he did was to illustrate, yes, there's a divide and we must bridge it! how is that divisive? basically, the blog author said that barack's divisive, because his worshippers and zealots don't permit other people to bash him. hello? that's normal? mccain supporters would stop other people from bashing him. what if i said, hey, so what if mccain was a war hero. no biggie. the internet mccain supporters would stomp me too. so ARGUMENT fail!

2. Wendy, if you want the fame and adoration, prepare to get some hate. i thought you were doing so well dealing with it. Why suddenly so petty?

3. wendy, you're not that hot. get over it.

4. i think people know my feelings about SPGs. She's sooooo one. unrepentant and unabashedly.

5. I find her blog entertaining... in a sense that i'm laughing all the time not because of her humour, but when she tries to act smart. not saying that i'm smart, because i'm not, i'm stupid, it's just that she's stupider than I are. :P and that's all on purpose - you know.

I shamelessly stole this questionnaire of Crystal's blog. But put my own answers in.

1. Have you ever been awake at dawn?

Yes. More often than any reasonable person should have been.

2. Would you be different if you’d been given a different name?

Yes. Imagine if I were called... Jennifer. Or Angelica. Or John. John is just as bad.

3. If a nut falls to the ground in the middle of a dark wood when no one is there, does it make a sound?

What kind of nut is it and is it edible? If it's a very soft and fluffy nut, then perhaps it wouldn't make much sound at all.

4. What is the meaning of a flower?

Transient beauty that soon bears fruit.

5. Why do people like the sea so much?

Because we can swim but we can't fly.

6. Have you been taught how to sew?

Not yet, but I will learn how to suture eventually.

7. Is the sound that the wind makes in the trees a kind of talking?

Yes, and the voices, they speak to me. They whisper all sorts of secret things to me.

8. What sort of bird can fly in the air, walk on land and swim underwater?

A penguin with a jet-pack.

9. What does the smell of cinnamon do to you?

It reminds me of homely little cafes and well-brewed coffee.

10. What happens at the bottom of the sea?

You eventually get crushed by the incredible pressure.

11. What sort of treasure could you fit into a very small box?

A very small treasure?

12. For whom does the bell toll?

I want to say Hemingway as well, but in the spirit of originality I will say Robert Jordan.

13. Why is gold valuable?

Because the amount of gold is finite. And it comes from the exploding hearts of stars light-years away. You and I are stardust as well.

14. Do you like storms?

Yes, when I'm indoors.

15. How many seconds of music can you hold in your head at one time?

I'm not sure if you would call it "music".

Somehow, I will find a way to procrastinate.

I've got a rant. Why are there so many famous female bloggers out there and not male bloggers? Cuz we're more boring? We don't cam-whore? We don't natter on about our hair and make up?

Hmmm.

Anyway.

Bimbos are shallow. another awesome timolosophy.

OBAMA! EPIC WIN! :P woooot.

Thanks! I'm going to try get published again. 3rd time lucky. :P Renaissance publishing house. But more than a little worried. I found this on their website.

"Work with a distinct local flavor; with lingo, settings, storylines, satires, or references that will only tickle or make sense to the local market are not what we are interested in."

I got this quote off the Renaissance websites "Author's wanted" section, and I have a quibble with it. Hwee Hwee's Mammon Inc was a best seller, and Daren's Heartland is now required reading for Literature students. Those novels are chock-full of local flavour.

However, there has since been a dearth of good Singaporean literature. I feel it's precisely because of this sort of attitude from publishing houses, and not just Renaissance.

If you look at other great authors and books, such as the Indian authors - Naipul, Rushdie, Desai, Roy - all their books were about India. It's all Indian references. Look at the latest winner of the Man-Booker Prize. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - it's all about India. The Pulitzer Prize winner? The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz? All about the Dominican Republic. In fact, it's written in spanglish. History of the Ned Kelly Gang? Australia. Look at the success of Tash Au, a Malaysian writer who wrote the Harmony Silk Factory, a story set in WWII Malaya. His book reached the Long List of the Man-Booker prize. Why can't, why shouldn't a Singaporean book about Singaporeans achieve such prestige?

The point I'm trying to make is that as Singaporean writers, we SHOULD champion local literature, we SHOULD write with a distinctly local flavour, and we should write it well enough so that it can have a world-wide appeal. However, what we gain in authenticity, we lose out in commercial value. After all, who's going to pick up a book about short stories set in Singapore? Or a novel set in Singapore? That's what people and publishers perceive.

The ordinary consumer would much rather buy a self-help book or the latest thriller/fantasy novel. But honestly, although I believe there is a place for the thriller and the fantasy novel in high art, discerning readers will smell contrivance and artifice a mile away. The problem is that thrillers and fantasy have been done to death. Eragon? Harry Potter? Dan Brown? If this is the sort of Literature that we are encouraging Singaporeans to aspire to achieve, I can only shake my head in futility.

"Work with a distinct local flavor; with lingo, settings, storylines, satires, or references that will only tickle or make sense to the local market are not what we are interested in."

I got this quote off the Renaissance websites "Author's wanted" section, and I have a quibble with it. Hwee Hwee's Mammon Inc was a best seller, and Daren's Heartland is now required reading for Literature students. Those novels are chock-full of local flavour.

However, there has since been a dearth of good Singaporean literature. I feel it's precisely because of this sort of attitude from publishing houses, and not just Renaissance.

If you look at other great authors and books, such as the Indian authors - Naipul, Rushdie, Desai, Roy - all their books were about India. It's all Indian references. Look at the latest winner of the Man-Booker Prize. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - it's all about India. The Pulitzer Prize winner? The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz? All about the Dominican Republic. In fact, it's written in spanglish. History of the Ned Kelly Gang? Australia. Look at the success of Tash Au, a Malaysian writer who wrote the Harmony Silk Factory, a story set in WWII Malaya. His book reached the Long List of the Man-Booker prize. Why can't, why shouldn't a Singaporean book about Singaporeans achieve such prestige?

The point I'm trying to make is that as Singaporean writers, we SHOULD champion local literature, we SHOULD write with a distinctly local flavour, and we should write it well enough so that it can have a world-wide appeal. However, what we gain in authenticity, we lose out in commercial value. After all, who's going to pick up a book about short stories set in Singapore? Or a novel set in Singapore? That's what people and publishers perceive.

The ordinary consumer would much rather buy a self-help book or the latest thriller/fantasy novel. But honestly, although I believe there is a place for the thriller and the fantasy novel in high art, discerning readers will smell contrivance and artifice a mile away. The problem is that thrillers and fantasy have been done to death. Eragon? Harry Potter? Dan Brown? If this is the sort of Literature that we are encouraging Singaporeans to aspire to achieve, I can only shake my head in futility.