Mishaps and not so righteous fury.

Has anyone ever face a situation where they just turned belligerent for the slightest incident? I had one this evening. It was so bad that it was almost funny.

After work this evening, I received an sms from a friend. It went: "Got first aid box? Fell from bike... no handiplast even ;p" Being very concerned, I called and arrange to meet up.

Naturally upon picking her up, I asked what happened.

A :"Oh, I was riding past a bus stop when a bus came rushing out of the bus bay. I braked too hard and fell off the bike."

Me:"Ok, the road was wet huh."

A :" Yeah. I fell, tumbled and spun on the tarmac. I picked myself up and sent the bike to the workshop for repairs."

Me:"Ok, so the bus driver apologise and you went on your way."

A :"Huh? The bus was long gone when I picked myself up."

Me:"WHAT?!"

Everything went downhill from that moment onwards but wait, it gets better.

Me :"You ought to demand an apology from SBS or that particular driver. You had the 'right of way'. Besides, driver should ensure that you are ok before moving on."

A :"No lah.... Never mind. I'm not even sure whose fault it was. Besides, I'm ok now.'

Me:"Oei! That's wrong! You had the right of way, then the bus that moved to block your way and causing you to fall. What's worse, he/she didn't even bother to check if you are ok!"

A :"No lah.... Never mind."

Me:"NO?! ... No your head ah!" The Richter scale must have registered a 7 then.

A :"er... why you so angry? Can you drop me at Jurong Point Shopping centre, I need to buy something for my mom."

Me:"Allo, ur injured. Another day la."

A:"Cannot. Today sale last day liao. Must use my card then got discount."

Needless to say, I felt like strangling her there and then.

It got to the point where I was driving away and someone was pointing at my car while jaywalking right in front of my moving vehicle. I didn't know why. 25 metres down the road, I realised I didn't even switched on my headlights which was probably why he was pointing. I'm sorry Uncle and I'm sorry I 'involved' your parents too.

Went for a quick lunch cum dinner (at 2145hrs) and accompanied A to get some plasters and antiseptic. Am feeling pretty exhausted now, I suppose a side effect of rage. Think I'll go sleep it off. Sometimes, I'm a righteous goon.

Life's a bitch!

More idiotic news! (ehm... about idiotic people)

Did you see the recent article about a woman crashing her car because she let her dog do the driving? Click!

How about this article about a man who insisted on giving his DNA sample to police?
See!

Such news don't fazed me anymore. You get them on a regular basis nowadays. And you wonder about all those reports/claims that people are getting more intelligent over the years. For the sake of improving the system, or at least impression of trying to, I venture to propose a reverse brain tax. Ah! Truely Singaporean way of resolving problems. For every dumb act, the persons involved would be penalised and credited to their accounts. While smart actions incur a tax rebate, of course.

Going by the statistics and universality of dumbness, such as the above mentioned, Tammy (think NYP), etc etc, we'll have enough to match our budget surpluses than to raise GST, ERP and other assorted 3 letters money siphoning devices/methods.

What do you think? ^_^

In the valley of the blind...

the one eye man is king... Not definitely. It would seem that in all social relationships, the dynamics and fluid (& obscures) exchanges of power, prestige, wants, needs, etc are all inter-mesh with each other resulting in an entangled mess. Brillance or foresight alone is a neccessary but insufficient trait by itself. Suitable but subtle touches are often needed to nudge seemingly minuscule elements into place. It might seem cliche but EQ appears fit the picture here.

Before the various factions with differing opinions about Intelligence start to bicker, let me expound on this term EQ. Not only must the person be sensitive to individuals' motives but also their irrationalities. They must genuinely care for the others as well, while bearing in the mind the overall interplay of conflicts between individuals. And still taking into account of the fact that humans are social by nature.

I still remember a close friend of mine while at training school together with me, one look at the various defence moves taught to us, both of us shook our heads in unison. The look was similar in its disdain and mirth of the lack of technique and usability by the average person. I choose to keep quiet but somehow I was found out (poor acting skills maybe?) and one trainer challenged me "XXXXX, you think you TKD black belt very good ah!". My reply was somewhat sombre but direct "I'm not a TKD black belt. I don't think I'm very good." With that he puffed up his chest and left. To be fair, the trainer is a nice guy but somewhat inflexible and unable to explore alternatives. Of course the system which trained him limits him as well and with all the legal and technical restrictions placed on us, I don't blame him. But I reinterated my stand later, "This will NOT save you in life threatening assualt cases." By the look on their faces, they understood... somewhat. But i felt no elation as I knew that they didn't get it completely or maybe they saw the conviction on my face when I spoke out gently but surely, and that conviction shook their belief.

Today, my superior said something profoundly simple. "XXXXX, you cannot pull others up to your level. You can encourage them to grow to their maximum but you can never pull them up." With that he encouraged me to work on my people skills. Zirconia or Diamond, only a gemologist can tell them apart.

How will I do that? I care but they aren't aware. I don't know but I'm not giving up.

Idiots galore!

Sad to say... some really need to experience stupidity for themselves!

Eventful weekend!

The past Friday, Saturday and Sunday were simply gorgeous. Spend a lot of time training with Laoshi, fellow students and went out with friends.

Friday Morning

Went to Oriental Hotel to assist Laoshi in his Qigong class/seminar with a 100+ Australians. They were quite fun but their bodies were quite stiff. Al, Greg, Jaclyn, Xianwei and I were his assistants.

After that was a tea session at Outram Market, it's behind the Mrt station... Outram obviously. Unknown to us, there were at least 02 masters working in the Market there. One was a Spear champion in the 70-80s and the other in Shaolin Wu Zu Quan(Five Ancestors Boxing. So never pick a fight with Hawkers, it appears that many are masters. Besides, there are many weapons there. Think butchers, fishmongers, assorted sharp objects and a whole world of pain.

Afternoon

Went to visit Master Tan under the Zheng Zi Taiji lineage together with Laoshi. He brought a whole new level of uderstanding to what is Taiji Quan and how it works in combat. The principles of Sung and Chen (loosely translated "relax and sunken") were embodied in most of his moves. Unwittingly I was one of the priviledge few to experience it for myself. Wow! A simple demonstartion left my forearm aching, no prizes for guessing what happens if it landed on the neck. Greg and Alvin also got thrown around a few times like weightless ragdolls with flailing limbs.

Alvin who was injured got some tips on improving his condition while the rest of us got a few bottles of medicinal oil. Got to try its efficacy soon, on others. Am trying to maintain an injury free training regime. Hehe!

Evening

Did some blood donation to miscreant mosquitoes in Home Team Adventure Camp where the NTU Wushu club were having their orientation camp. I drove Laoshi there and looked at its facilities. It's sorta 'back to the basics', no frills kind of semi-detach housing. Not my idea of fun though but I thought a camp would be fine there, too bad not enough people turned up so the chemistry wasn't really there.

Saturday

Drove Laoshi down to the campsite again as he was teaching some self defence. The moves were quite simple but maybe most were beginners, they couldn't really catch it yet. Gotta work hard! Jia You!





(Jealous Joe twisting the poor guy in a show of brute strength!)

Sunday

Went down to Sentosa to train a bit. Check this out!







(Forces of nature!)

Spent quite a while typing this. Time to sleep! Night!!!

Great Day!

Today was great, almost everything was smooth and my role as parade commander was completed and I didn't fumble when hiccups occurred. When they say you're loud, that means you're good, in parades at least. Even the boss gave the thumbs up via email.

I have always believed in Teamwork. And preparation for this really showed me the importance of having strong and reliable team members. There is only so much you can train and coach. And when they start bringing their monkeys to climb all over you, you realised that there's a lot of shit all over. What's worse, you allowed it to happen. This did not happen with this team, everyone knew their roles and while not all could do their respective jobs, they came up front to admit readily and another team member just chiped in. With ample time to spare.

Now I've just got to engineer a devious plan to get all those members back in my team for other projects and my working world would be much more enjoyable. Of course, the rest would suffer. Bwhahaahahaha!!!!
(Star Wars OSD: 'Entrance of Death Star' - starts playing!)

Chivalry dead?

Today at lunch, a couple of my female colleagues doing the usual PLG (Post Lunch Gossip). They mentioned words like "ungentlemanly" and "rude". And that was all it took to steer my pointy feline ears honing into the rest of their conversation. The rant was how this certain guy did not escort a certain lady home and therefore he is labeled with a bumper sticker "Boorish Cad".

I didn't catch the full story but I wasn't too interested in the cause and effect of such relationship scenes. To sum it up, this only feels like one thing to me.

A wedgie.

It feels darn uncomfortable but you can't adjust it in public. So you just have to live with it. At least till you move to a discreet corner or do it fast and smoothly enough for others to mistake that as a groovy retro dance move.

Don't escort = Cad, Escort = groovy dance move. Either way, you lose. Whatever happened to free will?

This myopic idea of what constitutes Chivalry and escorting ladies home suffers from astigmatism as well.

what is Chivalry? And what does it mean to them... the ladies here at least. It's apparent that it's very different from this. Courtesy is fine and great but when it extends to unreasonable demands, my fur gets ruffled, my claws unsheathed, etc etc... You get the drift. What were they expecting? Limo ride completed with 5 course dinner?

To me, Chivalry manifests through your attitude and worldview. It is a warrior code with a key aim to help those in need or weaker than thou. Of course they would have to be deserving and willing. My two colleagues aren't weaker nor were they in need. So it doesn't apply here. But i'll go as far to suggest that they felt slighted somehow and this is a direct manifestation of weakness. How strong can you be if someone didn't give you a ride home and you moan about it?

Shattered Glass!

Just the other night, glass shattered on me. Yes, that's exactly right.







This lowly cup had the audacity to shatter while I was in the midst of watching TV with it securely held in my right hand. The shards fell nicely into my plate of Hokkien Mee and blended into a nice but deadly dish for those uninitiated to Glass Munching.

Am obviously exaggerating here but the glass did shatter and I was surprised. The nice uncle selling coffee quickly offered me another brew of tea to compensate, I think he used a cup that was still cold and poured boiling tea into it.

Morale of the story? Stainless Steel.

Men and Politics

There is a term Death Spiral in economics. Simply put, things get progressively worse till you've sucked in and suffocate to death. Now what I didn't learn from management theorists is how to get out of one. Short of sacrificing chickens and resorting to voodoo, preferably headless... er... I mean the chickens, I'm at my wits end.

There appears to be no escape from Politics and hiding isn't an option either. Been playing the part of the hidding ostrich while taking the time to recover what's left of my battered morale. Even in training today, some schism is taking place and I'm secretly worried about the performance on 26 Aug when our Polish friends drop by. It's not nefarious, merely the usual sort of interpersonal conflict i.e. I hate your guts, smile, You hate my penile size, balls, etc. It's irrational and juvenile but we do that all the time albeit subconsciously.

This conflict is perhaps too timely and coincidentally mirrors the crux of my problems. More about that later, need to rest adequately for tomorrow's challenges.

Illness and a new beginning

Today is the day where I'm supposedly starting a new life and yes, ironically... i'm sick. I wonder if Murphy keeps personal vendettas.

I have written quite a few bits of scarcasm, maybe I'll use them as satire later on. Now rest is a must. *sneezes*