A Happy Human Being

Inner Demons, What kind of Hypocrite are you?

2012-01-17T02:59:00.006+08:00

Each of us has in our minds inner demons that spurn out thoughts that are hateful, lustful, and deluding, harmful, shameful and plain bad.

Each of us also has in our minds inner angels that spurn out thoughts of love, contentment, wisdom, helpful, praiseworthy, and plain good.

The struggle in daily life then is to deal with these inner thoughts, of good and bad. Sometimes we let the bad thoughts slip, and create enemies for ourselves. Sometimes we let the good ones pour out, and we make kind, good friends. People also started to label: Our friends would think us as "this is a good guy", our enemies would think us as "this guy is just plain bad, or a hypocrite, only showing their good side towards some people, they dare not show their true colours."

The game is to show as much of your good side to as much people as possible, and show as little of your bad side to as little people as possible.

This game is the world were our social system works in. That is the origin of fake smiles (people trying to be nice even when they are not having good thoughts), of common courtesy, of social norms, of being polite to rude customers (even when we are angry at them), of many other things......

For me, I started early on in life to make sure I am not trapped by this social system, of this meaningless struggle. I make sure I show my true colours, most of me anyway, most of the time, to almost everyone. That way, no one can say I am a hypocrite, except me, for the few things I kept hidden, or revealed to only a select few.

Therefore I did not acknowledge the existence and importance of social norms, and the like. In fact, by breaking most of these norms at the exact right timing, I was aiming to educate those around me not to play this game where you might be called a hypocrite, but to play my game instead, be frank and bare all.

I thought that I was not playing the game of showing only our good sides. I was showing everything all the time! How could I be a hypocrite? However, I was wrong.

I did not notice this before, but I was quite harsh on myself if I ever had any bad thoughts. I would bash them out of my mind before I had the chance to say what's on my mind. I also generally tried to be as good as possible, to most people as equally as possible.

Try as I might, I am playing the game, even when I think I am not.

I do mind that I still can't be pleasant to everybody, that I am not fully free from bad thoughts, that I am not fully able to generate good thoughts to everyone equally, that I am not able to be 100% perfect and pure of heart despite my reputation.

Maybe those people who dislike me can see me fooling myself, playing this game and deluding myself that I am not. Then they have good reasons to dislike the big hypocrite I am.

Usually, the people who wrongly calls you a hypocrite are your enemies, and they have hate towards you. Hatred generally gets their mind working in fast, intelligent mode, "how to make the person I hate suffer the most?" And they might misuse the term, clouding it in convincing-like arguments that make you guilty for things that you are not supposed to be guilty for.

Now, I decided that I do not regret playing this game. The game as I play it, guides me to be good to everyone I meet, my good thoughts tend to dominate my entire social life. My bad thoughts, still there, are reduced to pittance, and they are weak, most of the time. The game works, somehow or another. Social norms works, and are worth adhering to (with wisdom to discern too of course). The game is no longer a trap, no longer a meaningless struggle.

It is the training ground for all to be good.

That's it. This article ends here. The main point has been stated in the last paragraph. The rest below are extras.

Now I am no longer qualified as being a hypocrite.

Hypocrite:
1.
a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
2.
a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, especially one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.

The people who rightly calls you a hypocrite, those are your true friends and should be regarded as your family. Those are the people who wants to see you change and grow to be better that who you are now. Those are the people who sees your good and bad side, yet decided to be good to you anyway. They are good to you not because they are playing the game, but because they truly meant it.

2011 December Adventures

2012-01-04T00:10:00.001+08:00

Continuing from my last update, I went for Om quest the day (Saturday) just before going to NUSBS Dharma Camp. I had to pack on Sunday and when to Cheng Beng Buddhist Society that night itself. Thanks to Tzyh Haur for letting me put my stuffs in his room. Well, Om Quest, Johan, Wen Xin, Jason, Shi Jie and I went for it, we got the last position, yet I find it to be very nice, as some of the places we went to was new to me.

I had joined in the NUSBS Dharma Camp, behaved myself properly most of the time, and enjoyed it in as much as I could inspire others. The camp was the smallest that I had been to, with more than half of the people are 2nd or more timer. However, as I said in facebook, best (in terms of activities, Dharma content, atmosphere, personal experiences, and thus overall, oh ya and the best people!) NUSBS Dharma Camp in my 4 years of joining! I was involved in making one of the games. Oh ya, and my group got the best sketch!

Yup, the sword and Nintendo DSi was part of the props. Hehehe.

After the camp, I went to Johor with Wen Xin to join in a Vajrayana Puja, of Karmapa linage, the temple of Pertubuhan Penganut Agama Buddha Goshir Dharma Negeri Johor. That temple alone organised a huge 3-4 hour procession that saw over 1200 participant walking and promoting the Buddha Dharma Sangha to the city of Johor Bahru. Wen Xin's family was heading the organising team, and I had the good fortune to be witness to a culture so different from the usual Theravadan one I was used to and to learn a lot of the many cool things that needs some explanation. I find myself searching about Tibetan Buddhism too.

After 3 nights of staying over and helping out, I went back to Singapore and had a meeting with my FYP Prof before going back to Petaling Jaya using a Konsortium Bus straight from Singapore. I was carrying my bagpack, laptop bag, and a heavy luggage bag. With the luggage bag at the bottom of the bus, I went on the bus and played Pokemon on my Nintendo DSi for the remainder of the trip. When I came to my destination, the bus was only stopping for a while in KL. They called me out and I barely got my bagpack and laptop bag ready, stepped down of the bus, and someone asked me if I required a taxi.

Then the bus when off. With my luggage! I chased the bus for a while, and then after realising that it is not stopping anywhere near, I realised that I once again lost something and had to learn to let go. Well, thinking back, I am glad that I gave the Buddha statue I got from the Vajrayana puja to Hung, and put only clothes in the luggage bag. Including a lot of Buddhism shirt. 4 years of NUSBS Dharma Camp T-shirt, 2 years of NTUBS Dharma Camp T-shirt, the new T-shirt I got from the Vajrayana puja, and some cool long pants that I had to wear during the Dharma Camp (inside a temple). Well, it’s just clothes, I left not so sad… even less effect than that time I got cheated 20 pounds in UK. I’m glad that I left a pant in Wen Xin’s home (did laundry there), maybe I should had left more there… Oh well.

However, just to make sure that I do my part in my responsibility to recover it, I spend a lot of the time on the 14th December to call up the company and found out that the bus was going to Hatyai, Thailand. It’s a scary thing to know that I am able to let go so easily and not feel sad or motivated to find it back. If I hadn’t learn Buddhism, I might had been very anxious to want to find it back and that would be a very good motivation to call and make sure I got it back. Instead, now I call because I think I have at least that responsibility to try to track down where my stuffs are. That night I when to the D2Y (Dharma Duta Youth) Camp with my parents to see my sister, Ching Yuan to perform in a sketch (their camp sketch was on the 3rd night, and open to the parents of the participants!). That night the Singapore office called me and told me that the driver will be bringing the bag for me tomorrow, near midnight again.

Well, tomorrow I was in another camp. INCOVAR Camp. It’s the second time I joined in and I really was looking forward to re-experiencing the wonderful experiences I had the first time (refer to this blog somewhere on the 31st INCOVAR Dharma Camp which I went to). Ok, so my parents will have to find my bag for me. I had to leave the camp early too, to meet my friends in Melaka, to bring them around Melaka.

INCOVAR Dharma Camp, the 35th, was the smallest camp I had been to. On the first night, there were 10 participants, most of which where not first timers. Plus the organisers, we were about 10 people less than NUSBS Dharma Camp. Ok I am used to small camps by now, yet as the days when on, (the first day was draggy and not so enjoyable, as before), I started to like the small camp more and more, for the interaction that we have, the noble silence that is automatic, although not compulsory, during meal times, and there is Bante Kumara! The same Bante I just meet less than 3 weeks ago, just after my exam, and before the NUSBS Dharma Camp. That made me like this camp, plus the sharing of Buddhist Societies later that night…and of course the singing of The Phantom the Opera…we even sang the Lazy Song! The IXP this time was that we had to make our own tang yuan, with insides filled with different stuffs, representing the good and bad experiences with our family. Then they cooked it and we eat it. Amazing! Not much fun and games, but there was a Guardian Angel game. Joe, from UM Buddhist Society was my guardian angel, and I was Ka Yin, Ken Juin’s sister’s Guardian Angel. Some people from D2Y Camp came over to join in INCOVAR on the latter days as well! I had to leave early as I said, so I left in the middle of the sharing session after IXP.

My parents (who came to fetch me) told me that the bag was taken in Hatyai by someone who claimed to be my relative. Well, so long bag! Haha, nothing much I can do about it anyway. I done what I could. We went to Melaka the next day, I brought Tzyh Haur, Hung and Minh on a trip to visit the Historical city! Well, I wasn’t really a good host, my family was a better one. They came on Sunday leaving on Tuesday, and I was going back to PJ on Monday because I’m going to Penang on Tuesday for a family trip. On Monday morning, I brought them to visit Hutan Rekreasi, taking photographs of Dinosaurs!

At Penang, we reached late at night, with the 5 of us in the family. Dad, Mom, 2 Younger sisters and me. 3rd aunt’s home was just not the same without Jia Long and Ting Hui there. I slept in Jia Long’s new room and well, had to do some work for NUSBS! Haha. The next day was a booked van to Hatyai. Yup, the place where my bag was supposed to be lost.

At Hatyai, we got 2 nights and 3 days, my dad, mom and sis wants to shop most of the time. Well, I was “I don’t want new clothes…” and prefer to walk around the hotel (Lee Gardens) we were in, seeing the temples, playing pokemon, rather than shopping. I was rather a bit sad to lose so many long pants, I had to buy them! And I don’t like having new things, not when there are people suffering without new clothes elsewhere. This whole culture of buying is just promoting waste!

Second time in Thailand, I visited this:

And realised finally why are there so many people of other nationalities who come to NUS but from Thailand, I only met a handful. The whole culture is in Thai language! From Harry Potter to religious books. Barely found anything English there.

But I like Thailand, a whole country full of Buddhism! Just look at this! It’s found in the bookstore as a normal offering meant for the public! Nice…

On the night of the second day, I went down the hotel to

a store I happen to pass-by and then was surprised to find it right in front of the hotel. Well, I just realised that I could had called them to make sure they had the bag in Hatyai, asked them to wait and then when we went to Hatyai, I go and collect the bag. Well, I didn’t had the strong enough motivation to think of that then. Now instead, I was walking into the store, to check on the bag, just to satisfy my urge to be responsible for my lost. I was expecting nothing. No bag. Just in case of the off chance that it… it most probably isn’t there.

On the off chance, I managed to communicate myself to them and fortunately one of them remembered me calling and quoting the bus number. She asked me to come and see and then there it was!

A miracle.

Lost 8 days ago, and I found it. Well the trip was worth it. Whatever else we did there. Buffer dinner to celebrate! It seems that my family was wayyyy more excited at me finding the bag back than I am myself.

Then we went back to Penang the next day, spend Christmas eve there watching TV, going to eat Cendol… And Christmas morning walking around a dam, visiting Kek Lok Si Temple, and then back to PJ, with William and Michelle visiting.

Then finally I could rest and sleep for 10-12 or more hours straight for a few days at home.

Until 24 Hour Metta, which I volunteered for the timing of 12pm-4pm on the 31st and 12am-8am on New Year’s day. It was a meaningful way to get into a new year. I met Joe, Wong Dan Yi, and some other people from the Malaysian Buddhist Circles there! NUS representative! Haha.

NUS Module Review: SSA2218 / TS2238 – Singapore Film: Performance Of Identity

2011-12-26T20:52:00.002+08:00

Workload: 2 hour lecture, 2 hour movie, 2 hour fortnightly tutorial.

Module Content:
Some movies entertain, some shock you into thinking differently about Singapore, some are just plain disgusting, some are really funny! Enjoy the spectrum of these movies which you might not have seen otherwise! The group work is by teams of 5, chosen based on tutorial groupings and which show you want to present on. If you're not taking it with a group of friends, who has the same tutorial timings, then be prepared to make new friends along the way. Sometimes, you get really good teammates. I had a teammate who is experienced in short film making, so the film part was easy.

Teaching Staff:
One of the most patient teachers I've seen and the only arts teacher I had outside of USP. Beautiful lady too!

Assessment Details:
The only hard thing is to score well in the module, with close to 200 people taking it, and the need to have lots of analytical mind involved in answering the papers, it is just not easy. But oh well, I enjoyed it cause I took this to S/U it.

Overall Experience & Feedback:
I like the module as in there is no need at all to read up after lectures, before lectures. Just pay attention during the lectures and enjoy the movies. Don’t worry about missing the movies too, cause most of them are available inside the NUS library. Most of them, so some of them are really hard to get, and you’ll have to fork out some time to see the movie on your own anyway, so better to stay back after lecture and enjoy the show.

Winner of NaNoWriMo!

2011-11-30T22:52:00.003+08:00

This is the one moment I had been waiting for a whole month! 50k mark is passed. About 133 pages of Novel is done, and it is halfway through.

I'm quite lucky for being able to write it without exam pressure as I had only Japanese 1 exam, and I planned to S/U it. So there was a lot of free days in which I just devoted the days into the novel.

There was three periods in which I stopped for a few days through. The latest being because I became a Kapiya for Bante Kumara in Poh Ming Tse temple for 2 days and then join in his Adult Dharma Course Lite for 2 days.

It was a worthwhile use of my time, both at the ADC Lite and the novel writing. And today I also did a very brave thing. I felt so relieved and happy after doing it.

Anyway, the important thing to learn here is that mindfulness, meditation can be applied in daily life no matter what you are doing. And I am not writing consistently anymore as NaNoWriMo demands words over quality, and not to delete anything you wrote. Ah, well, there are somethings in life you cannot finish sharing. Here I shall finish the novel up by next semester, and then let it go, not going to write a sequel to it. I got to live my life now instead of 3 years ago! How much has I matured, yet still so immature. Haha.

Sheldon has a girlfriend

2011-11-18T22:08:00.003+08:00

Haha, the lastest episode of the Big Bang theory, The Flaming Spittoon Acquisition was the best one so far in the episode.

Thanks to that, I understand the psychology of a girl's mind more and really amazed by the ability of anyone, regardless of geek or nerd level, to have a girlfriend.

NanoWriMo

2011-11-17T15:33:00.002+08:00

Hey guys and gals,

It seems much easier to write on a blog than to write a novel. 50k words in a month! Now November's more than half finished and I am still only on the 20k mark, less than a quarter of the novel in chapters and getting tired of rushing so much, writing stuffs that I'm not sure anybody would read.

Maybe it's better to write here, not much people read this, but at least it's free and people don't mind reading this.

Ah, anyway my novel would be about My NUS Experience, Semester 1, 2008. I wanted to write down this to let those who are interested in coming into NUS (or Singapore to a certain extend) to know what NUS life is like. This can even be used for people to know what University life is like. It is a varsity novel, an autobiography written in my way. Sometimes I think I may had been too detailed in it. Using my gmail, blog, and facebook, I am reconstructing my past, bringing me back to 3+ years ago. It was not easy seeing all my mistakes and blunders and arrogant self back then.

Especially with this blog that is full of spelling mistakes. And I am not sure if anyone would bother to read this, this mundane boring life. Ok I'll do my best to put in my quirkiness inside it, however, there is a limit to how detailed I can make my novel to be without wasting too much words on it.

20k now and school has not yet started! Amazing! These past few weeks has been full of obstacles to writing:
Zen Conference
Cyberarts website
Now I only got Jap 1 to study for, that's good.
SPS Congress, IRCC presentation... etc...
Now after 24th, I'm going to be a Kapiya, so 2 more days gone.... ahhh. so many stuffs to do...

Nope, now I feel very very free. Much more so than previous semesters, as I am now not chasing any anime/shows/movies/games/NUSBS (ok, just a little on this) to catch up with and just mainly concentrating on writing. I am amazed by how much I can just write here and when I need to write the hard parts of my novel, I can procrastinate a lot.

Typicals of Semester 7 life

2011-11-02T03:59:00.003+08:00

This is yet another post about updates on my life. I think that I had better post this up for the future me to be able to recall what it was like to live in NUS back in Semester 7. I am currently writing my NUS Experience, Semester 1, 2008. It will be a novel, kind of a memoir. And in order to write it, I had to refer to my past emails, this blog, calendars, pictures on facebook, diary, and my memory.

Looking back at my previous posts, I did wrote a lot during semester 1, making it easy for me to be able to reconstruct my experience back then. So realizing that recently I had not had a lot of posts for the year 2011, I do think that I had better record down some parts of my current life for easier reference in the future.

Btw, looking back at my old posts, I detected a lot of spelling errors. It seems that my English wasn't so well. A deserving B- I got indeed for my English module.

Now, let's see, we'll start from Monday. 8-10am, I had Japanese tutorial A, I missed a lot of the tutorials and really can't catch up anymore. 10am-12pm I was supposed to have group meeting in SPS too, mentoring Rong En's group. Then 2-6pm is the Singapore Film module. After 6pm, it is MDC time! I keep on asking people from SPS to come with me. I thought that having no night classes on Monday and more interested Buddhist in SPS is going to make a difference. But it seems that I had to continue being the lonely figure going for MDC then. Wonderful. Then they bring me back to Utown, where the dinner which was until 9pm (now 10pm), was skipped, and I had another meal to treat someone else. It is hard to keep track of how many meals you had already. So far I had treated: Cai Yu, Shan Shan, Barry, Chin Xia, Si Hao, Minh, Tzyh Haur, Hung, Yun Zhi, Chang Jian, my parents, NUSBS people, and various other people.

Tuesday, morning breakfast are from 7-10am. I missed a lot of these by now. So I'm taking 2 breakfasts when I could wake up in time for it. There is an even week tutorial of Singapore Film at 12pm-2pm, I was almost always late for this, except for today, when I had to present too! 4-6pm is the Japanese Class. So during the middle 2 hour, I had gone back to SPS to eat at the Science Canteen, stayed at the Central Library to read comic, or to catch up on sleep. 6pm onwards, there used to be nothing except for Door to Tibetan Buddhism every 2 weeks. However, after recess week, I got myself involved in the Random Walks in Science, so I as the Group Coordinator feels a bit more responsibility to attend the Tuesday nights talks and seminars from 7-8 or 9pm. However, I had previously signed up and paid for a Tai Chi class from 6:30-8pm, 6 sessions for $55. Therefore I do feel wasted if I do not go for the Tai Chi classes. Which ultimately was too basic for me anyway, the others in the classes are really beginners level and I am tired of having to wait for them to catch up. I was the only undergraduate there too. Just now I had my last class and I am not signing up for another session again. Just nicely that this would be Random Walks in Science's last Tuesday activity too, taking a break for the exams. And amongst all these, 3 weeks of these features NUS Interfaith Group giving talks from Christianity, Taoism, and Hinduism. The rest of the sessions got cancelled and thereafter I was kinda glad that I had less competition for Tuesday nights.

Wednesday morning, 8-10am, Japanese Tutorial B. This is the one I had rescheduled just to make sure I can make it for a meeting for SPS mentoring. Then 10:30am I have a meeting with Dr. Kuldip Singh, my FYP supervisor. We usually meet for half an hour to one hour, and I am still making very little progress on this, due to not doing much work on my part mostly. Man, if I want a good record, I do better behave myself. 2-4pm is Wednesday IS. There was quite a few weeks that there wasn't an IS going on for the year 1 SPS students, for they had experiments to do. My IS then contains: Chammika, the staff, John, me and Pang Long, the mentors, Er Ning, Pei Hwa, Kripa, Yithing, and Xipias as the students. No physics students in the module of Atoms to Molecules, so most of the time, my IS is quiet, with a lot of prodding before they would talk. Chammika had to take lots of control because there is a structured syllabus to cover, and the mentor's role are very very very limited. Sometimes, we don't need to talk for the whole IS. After 4pm, there is the Meditation Course from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Still hard to believe that I am the only one going from SPS. Maybe it is determined that I will not have a truly good spiritual friend from SPS who is also an avid Buddhist? Haiz... Now that the meditation course had finished, there is now a writing course by Jay Bernard 5-7pm, teaching us how to make poetry. It was she who introduced me to NaNoWriMo, moving me to write the novel I am writing now in a month. That is sooooo coooL! I must thank her later on today.

Then on Thursday, there an SPS meeting with Quang's group from 8-10am. After that, I come back to Utown and have the Cyberarts Class from 2-6pm. After the class, I go for Exploring Buddhism from 6:30pm-8pm. Met Kaellyn there too, who was doing research on Buddhism. This time around, the people attending it varies. A lot. This coming week, there will be a presentation on 100 years star ship. Amazing topic to attend by the Random Walks in Science too!

Friday, morning 10-11am Japanese tutorial C. I was getting used to memorizing the script 15 minutes before class. The rest of the day is free. I usually waste this day way until the fortnightly Dharma Circle, and sometimes I joined in the new MC's meeting, disrupting it a lot. So I do not wish to join in anymore of their meetings. Next up are the weekends.

My weekends are so varied. I think it is from the London experience, that I went for SPS NOC camp with Hannah once, and then gone to help Bro. Piya move the Minding Centre to a cheaper place with Katie, and also helped out NUSBS 33rd MC retreat, joining in a Meditation group that is super good and conducive, joined in Tzu Ching's activity, FGS Musical Night, IRCC, SBYM, Buddhist Youth Leaders Network, Fo Guang Shan Youth Dharma Camp, sleeping early, going to my uncle's home to visit my grandparents who were there at that time, visiting my fellow residential faculty's home or just spending most of the time at SPS, doing various stuffs. Stuffs that I usually do. Homework, dramas, socializing, missing someone... etc...

So that's about it. Upcoming is SPS Congress. Looking forward to the end of this semester and the beginning of my new life as an author. And I'm applying to MIT too. And Utown is really getting to be really nice! I'm loving it, despite it being so expensive. Look for more information about weekly and daily differences in facebook!

FGS Musical Night 2011

2011-10-30T01:56:00.001+08:00

I just came back from it and you’re going to get a real treat of pictures!

First time I went to One Marina Boulevard and it was very cool! See the two girls in green over there?

They guided me towards the Auditorium at level 7.

Going up the glass lifts:

I got my free ticket from FGS, thanks to Nelson! There’s even my name at the back!

There’s Hui Juan there too! Nicely showing me my seat.

A lot of people!

Performance started:

These are little kids, 18 to 3 years old!

And a cool dance below!

I slept through the opening speech by the Guest of Honour, but for the performances, I was perked up.

The schedule started with Talking all that Jazz by FGS Youthians Dharma Class.

Then it’s the Welcome Speech by Ven. Jue Cheng, Abbess of Fo Guang Shan (Singapore/Malaysia), the same one in the Youth Dharma Camp!

The Guest of Honour…Dr. Janil Puthucheary, member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC.

Then I perked up for the video: vision of FGS Education and started to wear my glasses to read the things there. Not only has FGS University, it is going back down, to produce Sec, Primary and Kindergartens!

Finally the Sole Mio, by Harmonica and Electone solo. A nice starting of sunshine, followed by “Give” and “Appreciate Life” by FGS Children Dharma Class, Youthians Dharma Class and the Electone. The lyrics was super touching. It made me think of giving without expecting anything in return. Which should be my attitude towards all my friends. Non-conditional giving, non-conditional leading to non-attachments. And during the Lyrics for the second song, I realised how nice it was to be mindful of gratitude not just once per day (which is my current project in facebook, peer influenced by Carmen and Tiong Han…) but during every moment of waking life. It just touches me until I was crying… crying because I was appreciating the good things I have… the good friends that I have.

Then there’s 三好歌 by the little kids (18 months to 3 years old) you see above! I am really really impressed on the effectiveness of the Dharma on those kids that you can see directly with your own eyes.

The coolest thing of Harmonica performance, showing Baby Elephant Walk! Now I know the old baby shampoo with elephant song. Thanks to Singapore Broadway Harmonica Ensemble.

Jackson Teo, (cool singer of the old-type songs) sang 2 songs next. First one was about his love towards his wife. The lyrics is that he would choose her again in his next life. This is a very beautiful, cool love song that all couples should know! The second song is about Longing for Consolation, singing out the frustration of being not in love and placing hope on the pretty girl.

Next is the Children Dharma Class you see above, with a Dance Performance. Singing Gratitude Song. I cried again. It was soooo good. Touched, and finally knowing how to appreciate myself, to know and to tell myself that I appreciate how hard it is to keep me on being good, to make me adopting good habits. (Tai Chi, Meditation, doing homework, and Writing, early sleeping, early waking up, one good deed per day, one wise quote per day, one thing to be grateful about everyday, to not get angry easily, to be able to appear calm, no matter what deadlines I am facing, never showing stress on my face, to keep on supporting NUSBS, to keep on being normal, and not acting weird or crazy like last time, to be able to keep track of myself, not going overboard by cursing and shouting in anger and despair or falling in love again, not even in the slightest bit, in facing, almost everyday, the girl that rejected me, to be able to smile no matter what…, to be able to resist flirting with the other girls…) All these are not easy. And I appreciate how hard it has been for me. I forgive myself for the occasional slip and the temptation of the dark side to win over being so strong. I am placing a strict condition on myself. I am training myself very hard. Kudos for being able to keep on training and keep on being sane and not go weird people out. Kudos for juggling so much and yet remain relatively ok. I love you, myself. Thank you.

I was still full of tears when the 20 minutes intermission was announced.

I hadn’t had dinner, so I scooped all these up! Haha thankful for them too! Found out that these were for VIPs later on, well, no one else was taking them anyway… I took 2 full plates. The amazing thing was that Ven. Jue Cheng recognised me! She got me to sit behind the VIPs and I didn’t speak much, mouth was too full of stuffs to stuff in.

A lot of FGS people recognise me too, and me getting used to seeing them more often now.

Came in a bit late later on, I came into the HNHK Harmonica Orchestra. Playing Ju Hua Tai, Romantic Guitar and Sway. All beautifully done and nicely captivating. I swayed along during Sway!

Then the Fo Guang FanYue Choir came and joined in, making this a wonderful way of singing with the Harmonica group. Kindle was nice, but I really like 佛光山之歌 where I sang along. Listened to it so many times now that I really really enjoy singing along!

While keeping it all up, there was a girl who shared how the Dharma has changed her life. It was soooo nice and touching.. I think I cried here too.

And then they saved the best for the last: Pei Jie, a Malaysian singer of Buddhist Songs!

We last saw him in the Youth Dharma Camp, and now he’s back with the exact same style of music presentation. The clapping, the talking, cheering, the joking, the asking us to sing along. The songs even! Haha. So I really can follow him through. Song of “Three Acts of Kindness”, Journey Medley, and Eyes.

Ok I cried again. Remembering the gratitude towards my parents and opening up my heart during Eyes… I can’t help but to sing along and cry. The ending was cool, they use this song as a backdrop while everyone who performed got on stage and sang the last few lines.

There was a surprise ending where while everyone was on stage, the Venerables sang tribute to the Triple Gems song.

Then it was a good end. Venerable Jue Cheng even commented to them that it was a good job, and that they should come again, after completing homework requirements to join in FGS stuffs!

I met one of the FGS Presidents and he was telling me about this new idea, of TIBS and YAD to join in the IRCC and show the Nation how TIBS has a bigger role in Singapore. It will give the much needed publicity and attraction for people to know and join in the TIBS as we desperately need more manpower! Hope that the TIBS are able to do it!

And at the ending scene, I got to buy 2 original CDs from Pei Jie and Jackson. Got their autographs too!

Then as I was walking back, the group of Venerables were driving past and offered to drop me off at one of the MRT stations, City Hall. Venerable Jue Cheng indeed did recognised me… Haha.

So now I’m here, finishing this blog post and lovely captured most of it. Done.

Advices for people going to UK

2011-10-29T03:22:00.001+08:00

Hi,

It seems that I've an entirely different reason to post online so often now. Loneliness.

Oh what shall I talk about this time? This becomes kinda like chatting with an old buddy. Just that the world is my friend. Part of metta? For sharing it all out?

Well, since I've some topics I want to settle and post about anyway, might as well start with the United Kingdom.

I've just recently came back from the UK and thus I should be able to recall all the things that I did in UK... and give them as advices.

First things first. It is expensive in the UK.

The biggest currency around, pounds. The most expensive things, I think is the food. Convert it back to Sing dollar, you'll need to times by 2, back to Malaysian Ringgit, you'll need to times by 5. And a typical sandwich can cost 2 pounds, with a minimal of 5 pounds to get a decent meal. Fast food seems to be the ones that is almost the same after you convert it, but it is much cheaper compared to the others. The food over at France is even more expensive!

However, since the currency is so big, other stuffs looks much much cheaper there. Books costs less than 10 pounds, having lots of discounts a lot of the time, with yard sales going as low as 1 pound or even 50 pence (decimal system)! Electronic stuffs looks much cheaper there too, numerically. I've brought my Nintendo DSi there with 3 Pokemon games!

The cheapest stuffs there has got to be Primark's. Also there’s the 20% VAT refund that one should get. It comes with an admin charge and only refunded in the airport, within 3 months of departure, and you can’t go back to UK for at least a year. So buy a lot of expensive stuffs, electronics etc, make it all in one bill, then it’s very very worth it to get the refund. The admin charge is per receipt.

Soooooo…… here are some tips to save on $$$$$

Bring a rice cooker: you can cook anything inside a rice cooker, from rice, to porridge, to noodles, to even stir-fry it (takes longer). Buy the small, one person size rice cooker to bring to UK. Reduce the amount of clothes you’re bringing. One week’s worth is good enough, the others, do laundry there. You’ll save 1-2 pounds per meal, and it adds up to a lot. I average about 1 pound per meal, cooking non-meat meals, and to any amount that I like. Sometimes bloated full.
Walk to most of the places: If you’re in London or Cambridge or Bristol, then the city/town is small and you can walk to most places in the vicinity to get your food, entertainment, and to the train or bus station that brings you to other parts of the UK. However, if you’re travelling from the Airport to the place you live, it is recommended that you go for the tube/local buses for the first time, especially with all those heavy luggage. If you Cab, you’ll incur a very very very heavy fare. Heavy especially if you count in the exchange rate. Tubing in London, you’ll need an Oyster card. It gives you discounts and thus it is worth it. For the Tubes in London, the fare is counted by Zones. Zone 1 is within the centre of the centre in London, flat fare throughout. So don’t tube if your destination is just 2-4 stations away, cause the distance from one station to another is so near that it is soooo not worth it to take the tube for that short distance. If you’re tubing from one end of Zone 1 to another, then it is worth it to take the Tube, and then walk the 2.5 hour walk (if you know the general direction) back to your starting point).
Book and Plan every weekend very early on if you plan to go for sightseeing on weekends. The buses are cheaper the earlier you book it. I booked a 42 pounds bus that goes overnight to Paris to and fro. The bus boards on ferry in the middle and then continues on to France. (Warning, you don’t get to sleep much, and don’t just give one weekend to Paris, give a week! Paris is a bit more smelly than London too, for not covering their drains.) If you drag on the bus buying thing to that day itself, then… Be prepared to pay about 5-20 times more the price that you could had have if you buy it online weeks earlier.
Have a credit card to be able to pay for stuffs online. It is really convenient to shop for tickets online. And many other stuffs too, they’ll just ship it to a UK address for free or some fee. (I got Pokemon Soul Silver shipped to me for free from GAME.uk and a free earphone that I’ve to pay the shipping fee of 3 pounds.) Also apply for the Sainsbury card or Tesco Card and keep on collecting the points for the groceries that you shop for. You can redeem the points nicely. Plus do bring your own plastic bag/ environmental bag, for they give extra points for that!

Secondly, travelling.

Megabus is one of the cheapest bus you can get. However, only National express has the trip from London to Paris. So go to their website and do your research well. Trains are almost always more expensive and less of a price variable. For Birmingham, the International Airport is directly connected to the train station that connects to the rest of UK and also the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) where Pokemon National Championship event had been held before. It is not the same as the main Birmingham City, so there’s some travelling involved. Bus or train, find it out online.

For Bristol, the main city is Bristol University. Not any other University. So do not stop and get down randomly anywhere. Always bring your handphone, camera and the charger for both too anywhere you go. Lest you become like me, who got low battery in my handphone and almost got lost in Bristol.

Next in Cambridge, the maps are nice to read, and the whole city’s the University, so do know which place you’re staying in and take your time to read the map, photograph it if needed. For Paris, their train is insanely low tech near the edge of Paris. You should press a button and lift the catch to the door to be open when it arrives at the station. Some station doesn’t even have a ticketing pass, so some of the people could had ride for free. Just don’t get caught.

Walk to the bus station first before you’re supposed to go there on the first day that you use the bus station for travelling. Especially in London, the Victoria train station is not directly connected to the Victoria Coach station, they are near, but not so near. (Made me miss one bus over that point, Bristol) So do walk there before boarding it for the first time. Record the time you need to walk there and then plan to reach there at least half an hour before departure. Just in case. For the London-Paris Bus, reach at least 1 hour before, or else you’ll be wasting so much more pounds. They’ll need to verify your ticket and passport and therefore you should not reach there at 9:55pm for a 10pm bus. (Like I did, and I made it for the 11pm bus, luckily there’s a 11pm bus! Paris) Also remember to bring your printed or mailed tickets to your trip. Not just the to, but also the back. (Not like me, forgetting to bring my back tickets…, having to rebuy it. Birmingham) So do buy your own ticket, you’ll feel more ownership and therefore will not likely to forget about it.

There’s also the bike for hire, Barclays in London. Do use it for one day (needs credit card) for one pound and save the walking time. But remember to dock in every 30 minutes or else get charged extra.

Thirdly, Safety:

Do not move out of your dwelling at night. Drunk people hang out at night and drunk people are scary. Not that they might steal/rob you but they most probably will shout at you. Be cool, avoid eye contact, be in a group and then you’re cool. But better not to hang out after 9 or 10pm. It’s not as safe as Singapore. Oh ya, and riots can happen suddenly. I just left the day before the riots would had stroke at the place I would go to.

Be aware of the people in bright daylight too. Especially those that dressed with a bright vest. It doesn’t mean that they are the authorities and thus trust-worthy. Don’t borrow money to anyone. Give it to a begger if you want, but don’t borrow money, not even when they offer you to keep their car keys, flash their identity card on you, etc… (20 pounds gone because of that, not upset, but still, worth to be vigilant ).

Don’t simply talk to strangers too, they are generally bigger sized than you are and thus may physically do some strange things that are not of Asian culture (rude even in our culture) so, until we got used to the Western culture, don’t simply talk and reveal of your tourist nature.

Fourthly, Weather:

It’s cold. No kidding cold. Even in Summer you’ll need jackets that are thicker than what you are used to wear in aircon rooms (even SPS room). Imagine Winter. Dreaded cold. Wear an inner vest, 2-3 layers of T-shirt, a thick, winter jacket, long enough scarf, and thick gloves, thick jeans, thick socks, good shoes, etc… and then you might feel just a bit cold outside. I dunno, dreading winter now. Haiz…

Also as a side note, Imperial College London has a Science Fiction Library and a Buddhist Society! Get to join them when you’re in Imperial! That’s all from me now. Have a nice trip to UK! Feel free to add a comment if you think I missed out something.

Chasing girls algorithm (What kind of wanna-be-lover are you?)

2011-10-19T04:37:00.002+08:00

Here's an algorithm for chasing girls, I generally adhere to this. However, I rarely get to use it now, not wanting a girlfriend. Not that I ever did got one. Ok let's concentrate on the moves:

Find a girl, it should be someone you can talk to. A celebrity whom you got very little chance to meet out of the question then.
Talk to the girl, it should lead you to be able to talk to her again. So a one time talk to a pretty lady who's queuing behind you for food in the canteen doesn't count. Not if you can't get her phone no. or learn that you are in the same class/work/society/interest as her. A girl you meet regularly can count!
Be friends with the girl. Not just facebook friend, real friend as in you can be comfortable with each other, not having the nervous thinking of "what does she like?", "should I say/do this or that to impress her?" Be a friend with her for at least one year, to get to know her personality, habits and character from the idle talks you'll have as friends. Don't steer the conversation to one point or another just to gather the information, it'll be too forced and fake.
Make sure the girl is single and available. As in she doesn't have a boyfriend or a husband. Someone else chasing her doesn't count, well, unless you are have too low a self esteem. In fact, you should know this sometime in the first few meetings with her. It's to make sure you don't waste time and energy on something unethical. Also available is a key word. If she's single and do not wish to have a relationship, then you may melt her heart with your sincerity or wait until she is ready. Of course, you can remain friends with her if she has another significant one, just don't harbour second thoughts about her. Do not even think of a way to make her single again. She'll hate you for it once she finds out.

From this point on, it's more of a preference style, I'll tell you my style.

Observe to see if the girl likes you more than a friend. If so, she might drops hints to you that a normal friend who's also a girl would not. So it's important to have more than one friend who is a girl. Sorry if it sound very manipulative. If there are those hints, start asking her out for more personal dates, instead of just hanging out with other mutual friends.
If the girl doesn't drops hints, you can. See if she picks it up and respond. If she still treats you like normal, just start asking her out on personal dates then. Make her fall in love with you, etc... and then eventually, when the mood is right, confess. In confessing, be ready for rejection and acceptance. Remember, rejection means you can still be friends, if you don't make it too awkward to remain friends, but you'll have to root out the feelings you have for her, or else it'll be suffering on your part, and your friendship may suffer too, if you have a moment of weakness and broke the trust of "just friends". And acceptance maybe a worst fate. Acceptance means there's only 2 possible path from then on: Marriage or breakup. Of course marriage is not happily ever after, but requires constant effort to keep the relationship strong and healthy. A breakup is just a stronger version of rejection, with deeper attachments comes deeper hurts. Especially if you have to meet her again, almost everyday. You'll have to find something that is neutral to say and redefine the relationship to friends, which is not easy if you're used to being intimate with her. Sometimes the things you see might remind you of happier times in the past, it might make you realise that there'll be no way this will happen in the future again, therefore causing sorrow. Or you'll desire for the relationship to be salvaged and saved, and if you don't handle it well and solve the incompatibility that caused the breakup in the first place, then it is just making things worse.
If for any reason, you do not wish to have a girlfriend, just ignore the hints that the girl drops for you, and do not initiate any hint dropping yourself. This is important so that you do not send mixed signals to the girl and avoid possible rejections that you'll have to otherwise do.

Also for a bit more details:

I take the words of a girl literally, so if you say you're busy when I asked you out, I'll assume you're really busy. If you do that for each of the 20 times I asked you out, then I'll infer that you really don't like to hang out with me.
If you really want me, but is just playing hard to get, giving the same excuses, I'll not be able to infer the hard to get part, and take it the same as point 1.
I fall in love too easily. Just put me together with a pretty girl that I fancied, and I'll be trying to flirt with her within a few hours.
I like to give the girl the authority and leadership role in defining the relationship. This is because I respect the girl's feelings and would not force anything that she doesn't like onto her.
I do not have the courage to initiate holding hands with a girl even on a date due to point 4.
When I chase a girl, I kept on asking for tips from various sources, therefore keeping an inconsistent standards of which is what on a relationship scale. One should have a consistent standard for which stage of the relationship is suitable for which actions to take. As a result, I mistook the action of giving a stuff bear as an acceptable close friends action, when it is inferred differently from the other side.
I do tend to be shameless in asking questions like "do you like me?", "is this a date?", "what are we?". However, I tend to be shy to voice it out too, especially when I sense that this will be damaging to the friendship that we have.

Lastly, I do wish that parents would pass this kinda information on to their children before the child gets their hormones fired up to want to seek a significant other. Hmm... maybe with examples too. That would be very helpful instead of just a general guideline: be yourself, be friend with the girl first... Aye, and since you're not my child, I'm not sharing my examples here.

Grateful 2

2011-10-16T19:20:00.001+08:00

2:
I'm grateful for the hospitality of Martin Henz and family for the open house today!
Good deeds done: mentioned NUSBS to a Cambodian exchange student.
Wise words: Go check out your future university before deciding to go there and study.
Meditation: yet to do
Writing: none
Homework: none
Tai Chi: nope, didn't do.

Grateful 1

2011-10-16T19:19:00.001+08:00

1:
I am grateful for Tzu Ching's wonderful event every 2nd and 4th Saturday night at Pasir Ris. It's my first time attending the event!
Good deeds done: Listen and learn more about the Dharma, Buddhism in Action.
Wise words: Even those who are interested in Buddhism needs the right conditions and encouragements to come and then to continue on.
Meditation: didn't do...
Writing: none
Homework: none
Tai Chi: nope, didn't do.

Intervarsity Youth Leadership Dharma Camp

2011-09-29T05:18:00.005+08:00

The Intervarsity Youth Leadership Dharma Camp was held at Fo Guang Shan (FGS) on the 24th and 25th September 2011, after much preparation work by the Young Adult Division (YAD) of the Buddha Light International Association Singapore. NUSBS, NTUBS, NYPBS, SIMBB, NPBS joined in. The idea started a few months before, back to around February 2011.

FGS was inviting representatives from the various Tertiary Institution Buddhist Society (TIBS) in Singapore to come together for a tea in FGS to discuss about a camp that they were planning and wishes to invite the TIBS to make this part of our integral activity. That's the reason they invited us, the Presidents/Vice Presidents of the TIBS to come and be part of the organisers. My initial feelings for this is that this is too much, first Camp Lions, then Awaken Challenge, now comes this which involves the TIBS. Even through we have a Public Relations Director, it is too taxing for NUSBS (at least) to be able to send people to attend these events. Then, as I see that they are quite determined and made lots of preparations for this camp, including having the camp conducted in English, designing the T-shirt of the Camp (done by Nanyang Poly Buddhist Society), and making it free and just for 2 days, as well as asking us to put in the activities we want to be in there to make the camp ours too, and not something that is thrown in from outside. As I saw all that, I decided to suggest that we put in a leadership training and structural sharing inside it.

I've been to lots of AGMs/Anniversary/ Investiture of the all 6 of the TIBS now, and I've gathered enough maturity during the 1 year+ time I was going to all these to see that we can all benefit from each other's sharing of how we run our society. We all have the same structure of the Management Committee lasting only for 1 year, and we all have to study besides running the society. What came as a problem is our different schedules. We discussed about which is the best time to have this 2 days camp over a weekend to be. We happened to have stumbled upon holidays, avoiding exams and finally fixing it on September, after the AGM of NUSBS, NTUBS and NYPBS (all 3 would had relatively new MCs for 1-3 months). This is good too, to let the new MCs of the TIBS to get to know the people from other TIBS, to know that they are not alone in handling all these workload, and to train them up in terms of management skills, and structural sharing so that things can change immediately if required.

So the initial plan was for everyone in the MC of every TIBS to come together and have this camp. However, perhaps I was too harsh on NUSBS's side that I let the weekend be the end of our recess week (bad timing, as people tend to want to still study during this weekend and the previous 7 days wasn't enough), to fit in with everyone else. At least 3 other MC members in NUSBS stayed overnight, 8 MC came to the camp, making it 10 from NUSBS in total.

Well, then we had a meeting about once every 2 months from then on. I just missed one of the meetings there. (It was at Punggol, and I didn't mind the travelling distance) Still, I hadn't done the calligraphy over there yet. There was some effort from YAD (main organiser for the camp) to include the TIBS as facilitators and we even had a facilitator training. However, the facilitator from YAD themselves are more than sufficient in handling the camp. This is what I think can be improved on in the camp: How to involve more of the facilitators from the TIBS?

For the camp itself, in order to cater for the English speaking, they had 4-5 venerable specially flown into Singapore from various parts of the world to come and be our facilitator. Before that, I proposed for the TIBS to send in slides of how each Buddhist Society works, and we all did. I send in NUSBS's one for reference. It contains no picture, but there wasn't initiative to put them in from the latter people. And the venerable had a short briefing of what TIBS (that's our slides) is on Friday night before the camp itself and the venerable are not even familiar with Singapore and our situations! That is what I call as dedicated, super, nice, and cool. One of the YAD commented that the Venerable are really really good, in teaching, facilitating and everything. Looking back now, I think I agree too, there wasn't much of a constrain even with venerable handling most of the events. They let us talk enough!

Well, let's skip to the camp then. NUSBS and NTUBS booked a bus together to get to FGS, we had a good time interacting in the bus! I was, as always, the social mixer... We arrived early, earlier than 8:30am, the time for reporting. And so we had a good breakfast! I was amazed at NYPBS to bring 16 people to there! We were separated into 8 different groups, each containing about 10 people.

We participated in morning chanting, and had the Buddhist society: roles and responsibility talk first up. The conference room was just awesome! I like the style of the venerable conducting it, prompting us to think about our duties and then go back to the basic. That's the message for this activity: back to Dharma. Back to why are we doing this, why are we promoting Buddhism? It is to practise the Dharma. Even after Uni, even after we go back to our own countries, even after the year ends, and we step down from the MC. To let go. We even had a game session where we partner up and then say good things about our partner. It was easy for me. Too easy. Well there's a saying of Do good deeds, say good words, have good intentions. 做好事，说好话，存好心。Also we had a game where we grab the right thumb of our partner with our left hand and then try to grab the right thumb of our partner with our left hands. It teaches us to reflect: are we more focused on grabbing or on letting go. For me, I am more of being ignorant until the things had happened and then I see that I can't grab my partner's thumb (use her body to block me). I had to let go later on, because it becomes too hard, too not worthwhile seeking on, and time was running out.

The next activity is Buddhist Etiquette. It was nothing much I haven't learned before. However, I do relearn how to do a Mahayana half-bow, full prostration, and the FGS style of eating. This style of eating is to be brought over to our next session: luncheon. We had a chanting before the lunch, slow chant at that, but it was over within 10 minutes. I think it maybe even 5. Well, anyway, the eating style is that we get to have one main plate for dishes, one rice bowl and one soup bowl with only chopsticks. We had to eat in noble silence, and make as little noise as possible. First, we had to move the main plate to our front, and move the rice bowl from the right to the left, the soup bowl from the left to the right, criss-crossing them. And finish up all the food! I asked for more (by putting them back to original position). This is an efficient eating method, especially for hundreds, or thousands of people eating together at the same time. It lets us finish within half an hour. Also trains on our mindfulness.

After eating, we had some free time, where we see where are each of us going for the individual group sharing. Most of us had a temple tour, grouping by our Buddhist Societies. I do think that this can be improved upon, it should had been by the 8 groups of the camp. And later on, we had a good meditation session. Walking meditation first, followed by a sitting meditation. The teaching was nice, my meditation... not so good, still can't concentrate immediately, Meditation was from 1-2pm. Then the group sharing sessions began!

The group sharing is one of the best features of the camp! It features 5 groupings:

Presidents/Vice Presidents, with focus on how to lead the society,
Secretary/Welfare: Admin
Treasurer: Finance
Dharma/Public Relations: How to attract people
Events/Publicity: How to improve events

Each groupings discusses on the problems and shares on the solutions. The venerable who facilitate each small group were very good too! They managed to give lots of relevant ideas and solutions for our problems. I was in the Secretary session as there wasn't a representative from NUSBS. In our group discussions, we shared on finance, membership, admin, interfaith, publicity, events, etc...It was a rather fruitful discussion from our end. The other groups shared lots of things too, the full minutes are complied by FGS, and will be send out soon.

Now the time has come for the Tea Zen session. It was the first time for me to use such a minimalistic design for making tea. Nice. Mindfulness during the whole process, of warming up the tea cups, cleaning the tea leaves, brewing for 40 seconds, pouring to the other tea pot, pouring into 2 cups for ourselves. Then the tasting tea part is to sip and breath out, sip and immerse your mouth with the tea, and then the 3rd sip is to feel the feeling of the tea going down our throat. I had a lousy time practising mindfulness then too. Haha. Too distracted. Well, we get to pour into the next 2 cups to exchange and share with our neighbours, left and right. Well the problem is that, we get to do the whole process 3 times. So by the second time, the cups would had already been contaminated by saliva... Oh well I didn't mind. (Strange for me, as I am sensitive to no saliva sharing.) Oh and before doing it for the 3rd time, we get to meditate a bit. I got to cool down and relax a bit too. This is to see what do we feel, tasting the tea after calming down a bit more.

We had the power point presentation sharing of our individual Buddhist Societies after that. That's really cool. Each person are given 3+2? minutes of sharing on their whole Buddhist Society. History, Objectives, Events, MC structure, problems, and solutions found. Really felt nice about this session. Mostly about this session! Haha. Dinner was afterwards, with the same style.

Then it's movie time! The movie was really nice! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113089/ Fluke (1995), explores about Karma and living life to the fullest. Letting go and the danger of greed, hatred and ignorance. The movie was 96 minutes long, and we had a 45 minutes good discussion afterwards with the venerable in charge of this. Cool one I say. Currently ranked the best activity so far. Really really nice analysis of the film in the lens of Buddhism. We all enjoyed it tremendously.

Next up is the candle light ceremony where it involves candles, chanting, offerings etc. The highlight of this I think is when we read Master Hsing Yun's night prayer. It was long and meaningful. Nicely composed overall, don't remember much other than these. Then it's supper time/shower time! Oh and before that, we had a photo session because 5 of NUSBS are leaving to go back to school to study and 4 of NUSBS are staying back. Good photo shoot!

Now on to supper time! I had a very nice chat with a few good people talking until very late... and then the next morning, we had a splendid breakfast, after a good morning chanting. We also cleaned up our sleeping quarters and getting ready for the next session, which is the sharing of the individual group discussions!

Then there was a session on Humanistic Buddhism? I wasn't paying much attention here, too sleepy...

And after that...we gone down and waved hello to the usual crowd of Sunday morning people, which is a lot I saw for FGS, nice... and then lunch. Finally we have some group structure, following the group to lunch and chatting with our respective groups! The next one is an introduction to Buddhist Hymns, and we had Buddhist Hymns songs, featuring a singer/composer who flew in from Malaysia just for this session! He grabbed every single minute he has! Austin Woo of Circle Media Group. Really nice songs! Speaks Chinese to the masses, so we had some fun time listening to the translation. I ranked this as the best so far now. FGS even gave us a copy of the songs CD & DVD each (that's right, 1 CD & 1 DVD)! AMazinG!

Next up, we had a 8 realisations of the great beings, http://www.drewking.com/8Great.htm. It was one of the best Dharma lessons, deeply making us spiritual! Ranked higher than the songs.

A tea break.

Now the cool stuffs starts to come in. 1 representative from each Buddhist Society comes up to the front, the panel discussion and we are to present on what's the future direction of our each Buddhist Societies. 3 Presidents came up, NUSBS was represented by me, NPBS by Angela. After some talk by the Venerable to wrap up the sharing session earlier on, there was a video of the new University by Fo Guang Shan. And then we all shared. I stated that I am just an ordinary member now, ex-VP, and therefore no power to set any new future direction for NUSBS, so I shared on NUSBS's 3 goals for this year:

Grow in Dharma Knowledge amongst the MC.
Maintain current active members, increase 20 more new faces as active members by the end of this year.
New avenue of getting Dharma Knowledge.

After I shared, they asked me if I feel the umpt of these goals. I say, I'll support the MC as an active member and senior. Then the others shared. It is nice to see everyone going nicely forward!

And then before it all ends, I took the mike and shared on the long term goals of TIBS which I think we can decide upon, since we were all there then.

Long term goals for the next 10 years:

To have the ex-committee members of all TIBS to continue contribute in any arena of Buddhist work even after graduation.
To have the TIBS to be well managed, well financed, well publicised, events organised to be smooth and slick.
All members of TIBS to be exposed to a good Dharma learning.
TIBS and other Buddhist Organisations work together, so that the youths who are studying in any TI joins in TIBS, and then after graduation joins back the Buddhist Organisation to continue to contribute. (solves manpower shortage problem)
Membership double every 5 years. (to address the declining Buddhist in Singapore)
Active membership more than 50%.

Vision: Strong Buddhist Community, at least at TIBS level.

Short term goal (1 year)

Get SPBS in the next Intervarsity Youth Dharma Camp,
TIBS meditation retreat
Sharing on the Standard Operating Procedure, list of temples, list of speakers, how to organise specific activities/events etc....
Keep current membership pool. (not to reduce)

Then the camp ends, we got some cool souvenirs, NTUBS gives cheer, we all sing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WwafquXxUk Harmonize, and Charlie called for a cheer! Then we all eat steamboat and gone back. Discussions to be continued on facebook.

Samyutta nikaya 37 Connected discourses on Women:1& 2

2011-09-21T04:16:00.002+08:00

1. Agreeable and disagreeable (1)

Bhikkhus, when a woman possesses five factors she is extremely disagreeable to a man. What five? She is not beautiful, not wealthy, not virtuous, she is lethargic, and she does not beget children. When a woman possesses these five factors she is extremely disagreeable to a man.

Bhikkhus, when a woman possesses five factors she is extremely agreeable to a man. What five? She is beautiful, wealthy, virtuous, she is clever and industrious, and she begets children. When a woman possesses these five factors she is extremely agreeable to a man.

2. Agreeable and disagreeable (2)

Bhikkhus, when a man possesses five factors he is extremely disagreeable to a woman. What five? He is not handsome, not wealthy, not virtuous, he is lethargic, and he does not beget children. When a man possesses these five factors he is extremely disagreeable to a woman.

Bhikkhus, when a man possesses five factors he is extremely agreeable to a woman. What five? He is handsome, wealthy, virtuous, he is clever and industrious, and he begets children. When a man possesses these five factors he is extremely agreeable to a woman.

Ever felt that life is just perfect?

2011-09-20T14:31:00.002+08:00

I hadn't felt like this for almost a year now. Ah... such a nice feeling. Yet attached to this feeling I must not. Continue to live a balanced life, in the present moment I must.

Updates on my life

2011-09-10T00:35:00.003+08:00

Hey guys and gals,

It has been a while since I've updated about my life here.

After coming back from the UK, I've been loving the things I've bought there. Pokemon games, Sonic screwdriver of Doctor Who, my red leather shoes, etc....

I've also selected 3 modules to enjoy other than my Final Year Project.
LAJ1201 JAPANESE 1
SSA2218/TS2238 SINGAPORE FILM : PERFORMANCE OF IDENTITY
UAR2201 CYBERART
PC4199 HONOURS PROJECT IN PHYSICS

These are my official modules. However, due to various other commitments, I've got a lot of other stuffs in my IVLE now.

SPS mentorship:
SP2171 DISCOVERING SCIENCE
SP2173 ATOMS TO MOLECULES
SP3173 INDEPENDENT STUDY MODULE

USP residential college (at Cinnamon College, Utown)
URC1013 USP Residential College Floors 10-13
USPRWS Random Walks in Science (new cool USP stuffs)

Previous commitment, now not anymore.... The one I missed the most... Haha.
NUSBS2010 NUSBS

So 10 modules up there in IVLE, just when I am feeling the slackest.... The most I had was 8 modules up there when I took 7 and a half modules. This breaks the record!

CAP: confirmed Second Class Upper. Sadly, but it's worth the fun. I still didn't choose to rerun. Double sadly? I shouldn't make NUSBS too dependent on me. I should let go. That's what I tell myself at least. Even through it is not entirely true.

Believe me, I've entertained this possibility, even wanted to make people persuade me to do it. But I didn't. I controlled myself, told people I don't want to run, make up various bunch of excuses and stuffs to make myself and others around me not to persuade me to rerun. I needed to stop. I needed to get out. The truth is I needed more space and time for myself to heal. Am still healing. Am still glad that I didn't rerun.

A lot of times when I interact with the Management Committee or go to the weekly activities, I see a lot of things that should have been done better, a lot of people that should have been there. These times makes me sad, and glad that I didn't run (again), but also makes me realize that I am placing too high a standard on them... possibly. That I should back up and not interfere again. Again and again. It's kinda like breaking up (although I've never experienced it before, not properly) in a relationship.... there are times when I feel like getting it back again. Many terrible times when I miss the good old, interesting, cool, vibrant, door to my best buddies: The nusbs email.

Tonight marks the start of their first MC retreat. I would have loved to be in there. Would have given a lot of things to be there. To share in their deepest secret, desire, wish, motivation, together. However, sadly I am not part of the 33rd Management Committee, I am not going to interfere with their bonding session. I am putting a closure to this. An end to my previously "would have"s. There is no need for me to crave for something that I cannot get. To attach to that craving too. No need to suffer more, again.

That's about all for now. I'll be able to talk much more freely here again from now on. What a nice feeling! Anything you want me to say, just comment.

I love myself

2011-09-07T23:27:00.004+08:00

Collection of my facebook status over the past 7 days.

I love myself because I'm special, unique, and I'm not afraid to be weird. I can even be normal at times if I want to. You know which word my friends has to use to describe me? There's only one. My name: Xin Zhao.

Day 2: I love myself because I am ok with everyone. Even through there were some social tensions (both of attraction and aversion) in my life, now, I am ok with everyone.

Day 3: I love myself because I am in SPS. Special Programme in Science, where the nights in SPS room can be very fun, studying and rushing homework together with a bunch of good friends.

Day 4: I love myself because I'm learning to get used to everything being different from last semester quite nicely. My best friend Hariom Jani not being my roommate anymore, staying in Utown, not being in NUSBS MC anymore, not taking 6 modules per semester anymore, not being lovesick anymore, and learning a whole new language Japanese.

Day 5: I love myself because........................I can spend one whole day on religious activities, more than a week on meditation retreats, 15 days as a novice monk, 2 years as NUSBS MC, 20-30 hours per week doing NUSBS Vice President job, go represent NUSBS in most of the outside activities, and the rest of my life practicing Buddhism — with Yap Cheng Seng and 33 others

Day 6: I love myself because I am suffering. Instead of hating myself because I am suffering.

Day 7: I love myself because... I am in Physics. I love Physics and I live Physics.

Feeling

2011-09-02T06:54:00.002+08:00

There is a feeling of being in love, and there is a feeling of not being in love. Only recently has I had a chance to explore these feelings. There is nothing inherently good nor bad in choosing to be in one or another. Just that there is a path of less suffering, and a path of more suffering. I used to think that I had no choice, being inducted into Buddhism at so young an age that I am brainwashed to think of renunciation, that it is the only choice I have for what I had seen and heard.

Now I am sure that it is not the case. My choice is still open. There is room to navigate and decide. It seems that I needed this in order to fully determine which course of action I would want to take. And preferably making this choice again without the influence of being in love. Only then, will I be able to accept my decision in my future whole heartedly, and thus not faced with this choice again in more dangerous and damaging positions in the future.

For that, maybe I needed to explore more of what does both life entails... which can I stand living in for the rest of my life? Looking forward to any retreat now during the holidays time.

Vice President of NUSBS 2010/2011

2011-08-18T02:23:00.003+08:00

Hi,

That's me. Vice President of NUSBS 2010/2011. This is the last 2 days of my term. 2 days before AGM. Now I am beginning year 4 of my undergrad life, and yet I still remember the sweet memories of attending my first NUSBS AGM back in 2008 when I was a freshman.

One of the things I do not like is that most of the posts have no competition, and yet we still have to vote. I even remembered that I asked so many questions to the candidates who were running. And was a bit annoyed at having to reintroduce my name, faculty and year before asking it. One of the questions was: why are year one people not allowed to run for MC?

I guess I didn't noticed Carmen back then. It was late.... very very late..... I was getting hungry and do not want to miss the last bus. It might be that when it was her time, I was a bit frustrated and was not concentrating on the event anymore. It turns out that she was the only year 1 who ran that year. I was just too busy feeling sad and sorry for myself to notice that. Well there were lots of things I think I could have done better, chosen better, cause it will affect the rest of my life.

Why did I missed matric fair? Or else I would had joined in NUSBS earlier..... why did I choose Friday night IS in SPS? Or else I would had attended the whole Welcome Tea, instead of bolting off after paying the $5 membership fee. Then after Welcome Tea it was AGM. And it will be too late to apply for a position now. Well, I didn't asked myself why did I go to Vietnam for IPhO instead of joining in Camp Ehi Passikho...... Nope, silver medal was worth it.

Ok, back to the story. I then wanted to be close with the 30th MC. I had gone for almost every Dharma Circle on Friday night if not all, changing my IS timing in order to do that. I've tried to join in as much BS activities that I find to be free, interesting, and when I am free.

That time, I had Monday nights of classes (SPS), then that ruled out Discovering Buddhism and MDC (both on Mondays), and then there is the Tuesdays Meditation course which is not free, but a Wednesday Meditation interest group which is (I've joined this, or tried to come). And Saturday mornings Welfare visit. Well, having waking up late (after a Dharma Circle, I usually go back to SPS to hang around until very late), and needing to travel outside (money....) I don't go for that one.... not much....

Well, came INCOVAR, I decided to increase more Buddhism in my life, wanting to attend every single activity we have. And during the first Camp Ehi Passikho in East Coast Park...... there was a prep talk by the 30th MCs to the subcoms (including me), briefing about the positions, and the roles that they need to fulfil. Someone jokingly asked me to run for President. I was thinking of only Dharma Director. Then Jacinta said: "maybe next year lah". And then... Carmen, who's the same year as me.... got to become the president, and I got to become the Deputy Dharma Director.

Well, seeing another round of "not much choices" by the voters and the President role only having one candidate.... I was frustrated again. And determined to aim for that post.

I had rescheduled Discovering Buddhism to Thursdays, tried to reopen the closed downed... Meditation Interest Group...Got the Meditation Course which moved to Wednesday, got forced to join in because I'm organising it.....Still going very little for Welfare Visit....or none at all.... joined in MDC finally.... oh and generally, joined in 4 of 5 weekly activities, making me one of the most, if not the most, active member (MC or otherwise) in the society.

One hard long year.....had passed, I've managed to survived, and had a generally bad time in the MC. However each and every activity charged me up... I've experienced becoming a novice, and even joined-organised a retreat! I do like being in the activities a lot.... despite being only me, alone, most of the time. I do like to go out to represent NUSBS too... a lot.

A bad time in the MC, mainly because we were all overworked, I didn't know how to utilise subcoms more efficiently, and I didn't get to be considered as potential President material.

I was aiming for Dharma Director..... again.... then comes a lot of various stuffs, I wanted to quit.... then came other various conditions..... and I came back.... to want to become the President or Vice President.

Eventually, it was decided that I become the Vice President...... I gave up the Pres. for wanting to stay away from Singapore for the whole 3 months of holiday... for summer research.

Well, that year, I ran for President, and Vice President. I wanted a competition, a choice for the voters to make. (Although I keep on telling people not to vote for me as president, and there was only Wai Kit and me running for these two positions, and... I made a speech that does not suit the occasion, talking to bridge the gap between the mindset of having Dharma/fellowship balance, which I saw them arising hand in hand due to people attending activities regularly).

Then I got in. During an intimate sharing session where no words uttered there goes beyond the walls of the temple we had MC retreat in.... I shared the above.

And what happened next.... was that I got to do a lot of things that I wanted to do..... helping to do the President job for a lot of the time, since Wai Kit was so busy with lots of other stuffs. Taking up any job I like and do it the way I like....... utilise and engage the subcoms to much greater and deeper levels than ever before, giving out and distributing jobs to people....

And no one distributed much of any jobs to me.... cause I volunteered for almost everything. Almost all TIBS involvement, all weekly events, etc..... and there really was not any need to give a job to me.... I find them.

One of the things I'm very very glad of was that Wai Kit passing me the president email to take care of for 2-3 weeks during the December holidays when he went to Thailand and India for Buddhism in Asia trip. I felt.... honoured.

I did not get MIT, Caltech and other Universities' Summer research Programme. So having thinking that.... well, it is likely that I'll have a long summer break.... I started to let go..... of the feeling that I didn't get to be the President of NUSBS and yet didn't managed to get to go for Summer research anyway.

Then came London. And I had started to push a lot of the jobs I used to do to Wai Kit.... making him work more and more.... more than me..... I see that as my way of making him deserving of the position that he holds. And right now, I feel, he is a very very good and capable President!

And then I came back from London.... it is all almost over now. Well, as a last wish come true, I got to be the presenter for Prezi Presentation of NUSBS at the Welcome Tea. Something that Carmen did last year.

Just today.... earlier today.... I was in a bus, with Rong En... asking him if he is running for President at Astronomy Society.

He said no. I asked why.

The reply is that Vice President lets you do what you want to do. Not everyone turns to you for what to do and you're not in the spotlight all the time.

I immediately reciprocated well, and finally realised that.... I do not need to be a President. I've gotten what I wanted, and more. I've gotten 14 spiritual friends, 14 special people whom I shall appreciate and treasure... as the whole of the holy life.

Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get. I'm not successful, I'm happy.

NUS Residence Admission Scheme (RAS)

2011-08-01T05:09:00.003+08:00

NUS(National University of Singapore) has been using CCA (co-curricular) points as a standard of judgement to decide who gets to live in campus. That is until this year.

After a year long warning, NUS has finally implemented the Residence Admission Scheme (RAS) and abolish CCA points. The goal is to do away with all the abuses of CCA points by clubs and societies and to promote students to have a genuine interest for joining CCA, and not joining in just for the points. It also serves to balance some overly zealous students from joining too much CCA until it affects his or her studies.

The RAS is based on Categories.

Category A, Executive & Management Committees of Student groups : other than the confirmed stay of 10 NUSSU Executive Committees and all 4 of each constituent clubs's Committee; the 4 of each societies and interest group's committee are to be balloted into 200 places. Assuming the information at
http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/activities/svcs/societies.html and
http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/activities/svcs/interestgrps.html
are updated and accurate, this translates to 46% chance for each of the selected 4 inside societies and interest groups.

Category B, Special Schemes: Varsity Athletes (the Sports Club alone has 26 member clubs inside it) are selected, limited to 100 places, CFA (Centre for Arts) groups (24 groups) are selected up to 50 places.

Category C, Halls of Residence: Hall masters selects 50 students who offers vibrancy to the hall, all members of JCRC (Junior Common Room Committee), and selection of Hall residences by SCRC and JCRC, based on contribution, subject to senior undergraduate quota (assumed to be half of total hall places in the estimates below). Practically it means some spaces are opened up and it is easier to get into a hall, but most are still controlled by the halls.

Category D, Members of Student Groups: This allows NUSSU & the Constituent Clubs to select amongst themselves 300 guaranteed places. The societies and Interest Groups has to squeeze again, 10 members from each balloted into 200 places. This translates to 18.5% chance of each recommend students to get a place.

Category E, General Student Population: General Senior Undergraduate population (Local - Yr 2 & above, International Yr 3 & above) students in this category will ballot for the remaining places at residences and halls, after accommodating SEP students, the guaranteed students mentioned above, and the first and second year international students. The students who did not managed to get spaces via the two 200 places above will fall to this category too. The chances then depends on how many local students would want to apply for campus accommodation next year, assuming that all international students would want to.

So, in a daring estimate of 20% of Local students would want to live in campus (for living too far or not having a home in Singapore), the chances would be 30% for each student. This is of course if all the figures for the accomodation and no. of students at http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/housing/undergraduate/rates.html and
http://www.nus.edu.sg/aboutus/factsfigures.php,

are correct. Plus no students illegally harbour other students in their rooms, also taking into account the places that University Town which helps to reduce the competition, and one on one exchange for SEP, assuming 1000 SEP student a year, for both semesters, also 20% of all students are international students, which splits half-half into undergraduates and graduate students. If all these figures are correct, then 30% is a pretty good estimate, with an estimated error of 3% or less.

So this means that for societies and interest groups, the 4 in the Committee gets a total of 62% of being selected to live in campus, the 10 amongst the members gets a total of 43% chance, while the vast majority will remain with 30%. That is if there is still a vast majority left.

For those who are used to the CCA points and sees on campus housing as a reward for working hard at CCA, this spells trouble, not only for societies and interest groups (which compromises the majority of non-Hall CCA, but also for CFA, Athletes, NUSSU & constituent clubs, and even the Halls!).

If humans are logical programmable beings with no interest in CCA other than to get on campus housings, the number of people at all these CCA will decline to a bare minimum of those places guaranteed by RAS. And all students, especially those who plans to go through university without joining CCA and yet wants to stay on campus for the convenience, will apply for NUS accommodation. If that happens, then the 30% chance drops to as low as 7% when all students apply for accommodation.

As if that is not bad enough, the random balloting means that there will be cases like a very hard-working Vice President at a very active society, spending 30 hours per week on CCA, does not get a space in campus despite having 50% chance (selected for top 4 and all students apply for on campus housing) compared to someone who does not do anything in CCA but is successful in applying for accommodation despite the 7% chance.

Imagine the amount of complains OSA (Office of Student Affairs) has to quell down early next year as the accommodation results are released. Imagine the number societies who had to cut down their activities due to lack of manpower and members. Large scale activities gets harder for societies and interest groups to undertake if they lack the spirit of Halls and Clubs (those who are able to produce rag floats). Even the Clubs and to a lesser extend, the Halls will have to cut down on their activities as the competition for the members to get the highest position available increases.

Talented members for a particular society or interest groups may decide to join in CFA, Sports, NUSSU & Constituent Clubs, or stick closer to their Halls despite being second best at all these. Just because if they are selected in all the others, it is 100% guaranteed. This spells a really big trouble for all societies and interest groups (Remember they are the majority of the non-Hall CCAs). Each society and interest groups then has to either develop the spirit of "togetherness" resembling the halls or perish. This might be easier for the religious societies as they can rely on spirituality to bind them together, to work for a greater goal than material things.

Each societies and interest groups are required to submit their internal recognition scheme to OSA yesterday and are advised to announce their respective schemes to the members so that the members can plan it all properly.

It seems that the rise or fall of a society or interest group then depends on how cleverly they present and decide on their internal recognition scheme. This year's Welcome Tea season will witness many freshmen comparing each society's scheme. Being the clever students who managed to come into NUS, if they inherit the mindset of "CCAs are for housing", then the societies who are unskillful will perish on the day of their Welcome Tea itself.

How then, can everyone avert this crisis?

Are the Management Committees of each societies and interest groups supposed to compare the internal recognition scheme of everyone else and set theirs to be lower and easier to get? No matter how easily one can get the recommended list, the fundamental problem is that there is too little spaces to give. The competition is too high, too tough, too unfair.

What is the solution then?

Here I present a humble suggestion:

The most honest approach is to really recognise this fundamental problem and tell the members to scrap the outdated mindset of yesteryears. Sincerely ask them to join in the CCA purely based on interest sake and because they see the inherent benefit (learning about how to run a society, more about the particular subject etc...), nothing else. Expecting for anything else will cause suffering. A realistic project to work on by each CCA group is to develop the social aspect of their respective group to become closer, nicer, warmer, and more desirable to be in. That is to make the members feel that there is more to the society than the materialistic aspect.

Also everyone has to discard the old mindset of "on campus Housing is reward for CCA", especially amongst each and every Management Committee members in each and every CCA group. Let this change not cause trouble but to bring about change (of mindset) that will empower each CCA groups. This can only happen if everyone in a CCA group thinks in the same way. So you are welcomed to read and pass this on.

Note: image is taken from http://nussupru.org/openhouse/, the estimates for the chances are done by the author. Email ngxinzhao@nus.edu.sg to request the Excel sheet calculation if you are interested, improvements and corrections to the calculations are welcomed.

BERSIH 2.0 aftermath

2011-07-22T06:38:00.000+08:00

On the 9th July 2011, many Malaysians, regardless of races, language and religion, numbering up to 50,000 (estimates vary depending on the source, 50,000 claimed by Bersih 2.0,
6,000 claimed by police) walked out on the streets, supporting the call for free and fair elections.

They were walking towards a Stadium previously granted by both the King (Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin) and the Prime Minister (Dato' Sri Haji Mohd Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak). However, the Home Minister (Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein) still refused to acknowledge BERSIH 2.0 and declared that Bersih is illegal. Thus they were not able to obtain a police permit to gather at Merdeka Stadium. Despite this, the supporters of BERSIH 2.0 marched down the streets on that day only to meet a well prepared police line of defence which had been on the street blocking the road to the Stadium since the day before.

What followed was internationally condemned for police brutality and violating human rights. Police thrown tear gas into the peaceful crowd and splashed water cannons at them. They evenattacked a hospital after cornering the citizens into it. One citizen died after collapsing and only receiving help from an ambulance after one and a half hour. His family blamed the police for withholding medical aid to the victim. Over one thousand demonstrators were arrested that day.

The aftermath came down hard on the government of Malaysia, Barisan National (BN). Not only does Amnesty International denounced the crack down, they supported a small group of BERSIH 2.0 UK in London doing street protest (by giving protest signs) while the Malaysian Prime Minister visited London from the 12th to the 15th July. Even Queen Elizabeth wore a yellow dress in greeting Najib and his wive. The author personally joined in the protest on the last day on the 15th July and had a great time singing "Yellow Submarine" outside the Intercontinental Hotel where Najib was to have his dinner.

Yellow being the colour of BERSIH 2.0 T-shirt is banned and deemed illegal in Malaysia. While submarine was for the sandal case involving Najib. Even the United Kingdom police supported the call for democracy as they recognise that democracy involves having demonstrations from time to time. (In fact even having just been in the United Kingdom for only 10 weeks, I had already witnessed 3 other demonstrations held for various other reasons.)

Before the demonstration on the 15th July, there was a short briefing for us, reminding us of the peaceful spirit of demonstration and non-political involvement of BERSIH 2.0. The main message of that particular demonstration was to demand the release of six person still being withheld by the Emergency Ordinance (dubbed EO6). After the demonstration, the organisers for the BERSIH 2.0 UK debriefed us, saying that the movement for free and fair elections does not end with the 9th July rally but to be continued on. Having a presence at London is important as well as the unprecedented numbers of Malaysians having spoken up. Also, in a play of words, they said that the government of Malaysia only banned BERSIH, not BERSIH 2.0!

Following up on continuing the movement for electoral reform, BERSIH 2.0 has released a guideline on their website asking individual Malaysians to take the spirits to the core and initiate their own events. This is relevant in view that the Malaysian government has been busy covering up (via local mainstream media) almost everything bad about what happened in the 9th July rally and trying to win over the hearts of the common people. One report in the Economist on the BERSIH 2.0 rally was partly censored before distributed to the people and the police released their own version of what happened on that day. In my personal view, it all seems to be a foolish attempt that will succeed only if the internet did not exist or that fewer Malaysians cared.

With the next General Elections in Malaysia coming up before March of 2012, the outlook does not look good for BN. In a facebook page unrelated to BERSIH 2.0, more than 200,000 people liked "100,000 People Request Najib Tun Razak Resignation". One blogpost said that the Malaysian Prime Minister should learn from Singapore Prime Minister "to share power".

As for the global view, the author must apologise for the previous article for not being able to find anything about Singapore BERSIH 2.0 rally at the time of writing the previous piece. According to the facebook page Global BERSIH 2.0, more than 4000 people in over 38 cities around the world joined in the 9th July rally at their respective local time. These included Singapore Online (63), Singapore Picnic (200). "The organisers in Singapore, aware of the restrictions on public gatherings posed by the Singapore authorities, quite cleverly decided to do an online show of their love for Malaysia and their support for the Bersih 2.0 campaign. However, there were some folks who decided to gather informally for a picnic at a popular park."

It is impressive that there are so many Malaysians out there. As a Malaysian student in NUS, I can say it is unsurprising as Malaysia has been allowing brain drain to continue for a long long time by now. The latest case can be seen with the First Malaysian Gold Medallist in the International Physics Olympiad 2011, Chew Kok Wei who is going to Peking University to study Physics. Hopefully, whatever government comes to power next in Malaysia can fix what has been long broken in the country.

London, the Internship

2011-07-20T07:02:00.002+08:00

This is the post that I will review what my feelings about this Internship at the United Kingdom.

Coming to an overseas summer research project has been my dream since I knew about Caltech SURF from Tao Ye who just came back from there to continue on her year 4. A bit late for the usual schooling time, but just nice timing to catch up very fast. I was a freshman then.

I planned so many modules and programmes for myself that I had to take at least 6 modules in NUS every semester, and no way I'm going to go for SEP (Student Exchange Programme). A summer exchange programme is too expensive, and the two other overseas trips (BIA and CHIP) I had the fortune to join in while in NUS are too short (2 weeks).

So this is truly the first time I've ever spend so long overseas (I count Singapore and Malaysia as my home by now) and living alone. It's 10 weeks now, 2 more weeks to go. And thus I have achieved one of my dreams. Thanks to NUS, Imperial College, Hariom, SongHan, and my parents!

In this summer, I had also fulfilled one of my childhood dream of playing Pokemon for real (using the official handheld device) at least before I eventually lose interest in it. Well, seeing that adults rarely play games, I take it that they are a boring species to grow into. Part of the reason I'm still so childish. Now I kinda understand that some adults do play games too, while most seek their pleasure from romantic encounters and a life partner.

Currently I have largely finished Pokemon Black, starting on with Pokemon SoulSilver, and ordered Pokemon Platinum. That's the 3 games I'll play.

Also I've not expected to meet so many friends that I've already known in the United Kingdom during the period that I'm here.

First off it is Carmen.... I guess I didn't realised or care that she when to United Kingdom for SEP. I just knew she's in SEP. So I was kinda like, oh Carmen is in UK too right? Will I get to meet her there? Only after I got the Imperial offer for some time.

Strictly speaking this is not considered as my friend that I knew before, but.... Then my dad's friend, Uncle Kok Heng invited me for a dinner! It was nice. I went to his home too!

And now for the more Imperial side of the story, my cousin, Jia Long is still an Imperial student but.....just nice that he's in USA doing one year exchange and we completely miss each other while I'm in his College....... But then.... his sister, Ting Hui had graduated from Manchester's University and is coming back for work just before I leave. So at least I get to meet one of my cousins.

Then there's of course my Secondary School friends. Ming Wang, who is an Imperial guy! He just when back and introduced me to Franciscans in the UK. Amazing, just how much link there are. And then I found out (embarrassingly) that two other of my Sec School friends who are Franciscans too are in UCL and LSE respectively. (Haven't meet them through)

And now closer to NUS again, Wei Ling came with her parents to London and then to Cambridge for a similar summer intern (shorter than mine). And I get to meet her here at London and at Cambridge when I visited her.

This is not in United Kingdom, but I'll say it still..... Also the SPS gang (including Wei Ling) where I've met my previous room-mate, Hariom, IPhO buddy, Mukhtar, pre-IPhO friend, Tuan Beng, the usual handsome Sandoko, the eating champion Raymond, and tall Wei Guo. Didn't get to see Barry, Yee Ann, and Chern Hui..... but it's cool. Oh and it's during my two days weekend trip to France!

And now I got word that Tzyh Haur (fellow SPS senior, friend) is coming to London! Haha... nice....just amazing how nice a timing I had here.......

Speaking about timing, here are a few amazing events that I've visited since coming to UK. They are just so near and timely that I can't miss it!

Pokemon National Championship UK at Birmingham.
Rubiks Cube world record (London), 330 people solving in 1 hour at the same place, I was one of them, got a free cube too.
Flash mob meditation in London. Went for 2 already, going for the third one just before I leave.
BERSIH 2.0 rally (London), just sending our Prime Minister before he goes off to Rome. This is where I met so many more Malaysians in the UK!

Cool timing huh? I didn't expect these to happen while I'm here. But since they did, it's just amazing to join in!

The experience of guarding my wealth and not overspending, in fact, recording down all my expenses so that I don't have to transfer money from Singapore is just harrowing and offers a real insight into what does it means to worry about money. Now that I can clearly see I'm successful in saving lots of money, I'm a bit less worried about this part.

Taking about saving money, cooking meals has been a wonderful experience. However, cooking the same thing for the same person (me) can get boring easily. So, not only do I keep on improving my cooking skills and materials (now my soup taste so good, you'll want some), I'm looking forward to cook for others to enjoy! I kinda understand how a housewive/husband feels like now!

Travelling on foot is one more thing I get to do a lot in the UK. I get to rediscover the passion for travelling (on foot) in me. This is one thing that I love about London!

On the negative side, (to balance out too many perceived positives here) I am interacting with Buddhism far too little here........in favour of comic books..... read almost all the Marvel Ultimate Universe comic books already!

And I'm a bit lonely, didn't make much friends here. Anyway I needed some time for myself. To think, to talk to myself. This is important for the things I'll need to face when I come back to Singapore.

So with three more weeks to go before school reopens, I need to focus on what's up ahead: To finish my work in Imperial and to prepare for my Final Year Project in NUS!

Malaysian Call for Fair Election: BERSIH 2.0 is on 9th July 2011

2011-07-08T16:56:00.002+08:00

Singapore's neighbour, Malaysia is having one of the biggest Demonstration in recent years.

BERSIH (clean) 2.0 is the follow up of the 2007 Bersih Rally. It calls for free and fair elections in Malaysia with 8 demands (more details at the website, http://bersih.org/?page_id=4111):

Clean the electoral roll
Reform postal ballot
Use of indelible ink
Minimum 21 days campaign period
Free and fair access to media
Strengthen public institutions
Stop corruption
Stop dirty politics

Lead by Dato' Ambiga Sreenevasan, BERSIH 2.0 has so far gathered over 50 thousand likes on it's officialfacebook page with strong calls for Malaysians to be brave enough to come and join in the planned street rally on 9th July 2011.

The street rally is meant to be peaceful and non-political, just civil movements of 62 Non Governmental Organisations asking for greater democracy. However, the response to this rally turns out to be tremendous. Perkasa (a non-governmental Malay Supremacy), and 56 Non Governmental Organisations are asking BERSIH 2.0 to call off their rally and are launching a counter rally against them. UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) Youth also calls for a counter rally, separate from Perkasa against BERSIH 2.0. The opposition to BERSIH 2.0 claims that it is a political movement (as it contains the political opposition party,Parti Keadilan Rakyat, Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, and Democratic Action Party) out to topple the current government.

Not only that, the Malaysian Government has declared BERSIH 2.0 as illegal, declined gathering permits for all three parties involved and the police are out to arrest the people who are wearing the BERSIH 2.0 yellow T-shirt and several leaders of BERSIH 2.0 . There is also a threat that the rally may lead to a declaration of a state of emergency and wide ensuing violence. This lead to the United Nations human rights office to voice concern about measures being taken by authorities in Malaysia, including restricting freedom of expression, ahead of a peaceful demonstration.

Malaysia's ceremonial head of state, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong had to step in and call for all three parties to resolve their differences with the government peacefully. BERSIH 2.0 leader, Dato' Ambiga Sreenevasan met with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and agreed to stage the rally in a stadium instead of having it on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The Home Ministry said that meeting the King doesn't make the BERSIH 2.0 rally legal.

Meanwhile, Malaysians in 24 cities around the world are planning to gather at the same time to show support for the BERSIH 2.0 rally. Notably, Singapore is not in the list. With it's closest neighbour being in such a rocky ship, one has to question does Singapore cares?

Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow, we'll just have to wait and see.

The Middle Way

2011-07-01T07:09:00.002+08:00

Looking at the life of a monk now, most layperson (including Buddhist) would immediately comment that the lifestyle is too extreme.

Waking up at 4a.m. in the morning, 227 precepts to keep (311 for nuns), wearing only robes all the time, meditating most of the time, keeping mindfulness at all waking times, learning the Dharma everyday, even having 3 months long of rain retreat each year. Not only that, a monk does not eating after noon time, does not indulge in entertainment, no money, no marriage, and certainly no sexual activities.

Try a small taste of that for a day (in our 8 precepts day) and see if you want to continue it for a week (in our meditation retreat). More than half of the participants dropped out.

Yet are not the monks supposed to live life according to the Middle Way?

Of course it would be deviant from the Middle Way to judge everyone via the standards of the monks. There are standards for laypeople too at Digha Nikaya 31, Sigalovada Sutta, but we are not talking about that here.

It would be easy too to say that most of the middle class citizens are very indulgent in entertainment thus consider a community of monks to be extreme without the other end of the spectrum like war-torn people (who are elsewhere) to compare. This realisation is meaningless to this article too.

When I started learning Buddhism on my own, reading the books without joining in a Buddhist Society or having Kalyana-mitta or a teacher to guide me, I had gone so deep and so fast into the theoretical ultimate reality and accepted what I see as obvious truths, that I decided to have "monk" in my email. And thus thinking this is how an enlighten being should view the world (impermanence, suffering, non-self) , this is what an enlighten being would not have think of (greed, hatred, delusion), thus deluded myself into a serious state of depression every moment I discovered myself to deviate from perfection.

That put me out of touch with Buddhism for a while in order to regain my sanity.

It took me years later on to realise “All things in Moderation. Including Moderation.” The way to Enlightenment is not the extreme way that gets you there faster. It is not a intermediate goal to achieve and get rid off so that I can get on with life. It is rather to realise that life itself is impermanent (still don't realise it, just putting it here to say I don't realise it). Now, from my involvement in Tertiary level Buddhist Societies, I am going back into Buddhism, gently, calmly, (sorry I still won't use slowly), practising it step by step with my Kalyana-mitta here and teachers to guide me.

So what is the Middle Way?

The Middle Way is also to be learned first, before practising, realising and sharing. And to learn is to have right understanding and right thought.

The Middle Way on the line between two extremes end of love and hate is not the indifference in the middle, but rather to rise above the line and to have Universal love, loving-kindness, thus naturally right speech, right action, right livelihood comes into play.

Knowing causes, knowing eﬀects, knowing oneself, knowing how much is enough, knowing the proper time, knowing individuals, knowing groups of people: these Seven Noble Virtues constitute walking the Middle Way. (Refer to Anguttara Nikaya, Book of Sevens, no. 64, Dhammaññu Sutta: One With a Sense of Dhamma) Using discernment, wisdom and compassion in living one’s life, thus explaining the constant right mindfulness, right effort, right concentration to keep on walking on the razor edge of the Middle Way.

Not taking ourselves too serious nor too flippancy, when one can laugh at oneself, then one is taking moderation in moderation.

Analysis of Weird People

2011-06-22T08:41:00.001+08:00

In this post, I am going to present my views of why weird people (personality wise) are weird and how people generally treat them.

Think of Einstein, think of the typical mad scientist image, think of the various successful people who are weird. Think of the reasoning that if you blend into the crowd, how can you standout in your future? How can a normal person make a huge impact on everyone’s life?

When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way you will command the attention of the world.

-- George Washington Carver (1864-1943)

Think now of Bugs Bunny, the Mask, The Pretender, Stephen Chow, Dicky Cheung, Animaniacs, and you can see that there are so many inspiration to be extraordinary.

Well, weird people may also be weird just to make people laugh. To not make people laughing at them, they laugh together too! Making a clown of themselves. Or they might know all the social norms and just decided not to follow them, but to break all of them in a skilful way so that life gets more interesting.

It is also a way to repel girls (mentioned previously) and to make oneself famous (or infamous) extremely fast.

Now whatever the reason is, the weird people are certainly not (not always at least) criminally inclined, crazy nor are they guaranteed to be a super genius. However, they are certainly human beings. Humans with feelings, perception, mental faculties, consciousness, and (for this case) a normal body.

Now let’s concentrate on other people’s responses to weird people. Generally, people who do not understand these weird people will be exactly predictable, as what these weird people want them to behave. For example, if they want, they can portray a super qualified image of them, “humbly” letting information of their past glory leak out so that they become the centre of attention and famous. Or they can move their hands during conversations with others, nodding their heads obsessively, bringing an overlarge accessory (like a 2 litre water bottle), just to freak people out from talking to them a second time. They can even say “You are pretty”, “Are you single?” etc… to a beautiful girl as first greetings. This guarantees no future with any self respecting girl.

So these people who only had to interact once or twice with the weird people are described above. And there are those who had to interact more and frequently with weird people, eg. neighbours, school/work colleague, relatives, normal friends and are not really close enough with these weird people. For these people, they had to develop a defence mechanism in dealing with the weird people (let’s just shorten it to weirdos).

Defence mechanism

Interact as little as possible. Making both sides very quiet and awkward silences happen a lot of the time. Practically ignore them. (But then we ignore most people most of the time, and we ignore the fact that we do)
Bully the weirdos, just because you can’t understand them, means you got to fear them. The only way to deal if this if you can’t run away is to establish superiority. Once you established superiority against these weirdos, you don’t have to care if they had superior intellect or anything else. Bullying here can extend to a wide range of things. Forgive me for not being politically correct, but it can range from a friendly nudging question like: “You plan to be single all your life?” (the common assumption that you had to be normal to get a girl/boyfriend) to denying work opportunity (discrimination has largely gone against women, races, the disabled, etc…, however, there are wide spread discrimination against weird peoples).
Tolerance, we should not discriminate against anyone. So what if they are weird? As long as they are human beings, (or living beings) we should treat them no different from others. This response can be from a religious group that the weirdo joins in, other weirdo themselves. It ranges from smiling at the weirdos, to becoming friends with them (because they can’t stand the rudeness of rejecting/ bullying or ignoring the weirdos), and giving them opportunities to integrate with the rest of the society. Generally, they are seeking to understand the weirdos and help the change weirdos in order to live a more normal or happier life.

Which one of the defence mechanism activates depends very much upon how annoying the weirdo is and how innately good the people who responded are.

And now for those who live their lives with the weirdos, roommates, family, close and best friends. These people know that behind the collection of unusual behaviour, the weirdos are just people. Humans with feelings, perception, mental faculties, consciousness, and (for this case) a normal body. These people treat the weirdos as what they are, best friends, family, close friends, etc… giving the sense of social fulfilment to the weirdos (even if some of the weirdos do not recognise it as social ignorance maybe part of their specialty). These people are the real angels of the weirdos’ life, accepting the weirdos for who they are. Helping them as the tolerant people are and gently steering the weirdos into a society that accepts them and where they can be happy.

However, that said, it is just the personality of the weirdos to seek out the crowd that recognises them as weird and thus they might purposely go to find and manipulate the first group of people a lot. They might also be unlucky enough if they were very annoying then and some of the first group of people became regulars in their life and starts to bully.

Whatever the way it is, the lack of a consistent and coherent fight against the discrimination against weird people may stem from the following reasons:

It is difficult to define weirdos, by definition (Ok I know it is contradictory to use these words…), weirdos can exist in every possible society just to break the norms and increase the diversity of the social situation.
If a society of weirdos form, it would not boast a long or consistent enough form to have a legal representation as any society that forms from the weirdos will turn the weirdos into beings that does accept the rules of the normal people who joins in societies and have lawyers etc…, in other words, the weirdos has to become normal to join in the weirdo club (weird huh?)
This group stagnates https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=211949258701&v=wall , maybe due to the low density of weirdos that makes the members there unable to ask their friends to join as the members are probably the only weird ones amongst their friends. Also some weirdos are not proud to be weird thanks to the tolerant group who tries to change them.

Well, anyway here’s my contribution to the lacking research and writing materials on behalf of these weirdos. Thank you if you feel weird after reading this.

Meditation Flash Mob in Trafalgar Square on my Birthday!

2011-06-08T07:04:00.002+08:00

On my Birthday, the 2nd June, I happened to join in a cool Meditation Flash Mob in London. Spot me if you can!

At 2:12.

At 5:40.

Ok ok, I was 5 minutes late and did not bring my camera.... but the meditation was too short! Anyway, in the cold summer day and turning into night, I did took a long time to go back.

Back to the topic, I hope to bring this to Singapore! (And later on, if I stay in Malaysia for some time, to Malaysia!)

SP2171 and 72: Time travel, is it possible?

2011-06-08T06:40:00.002+08:00

In the year 2009, three SPS (Special Programme in Science) students investigated the previous research of time travel and made a small discovery of their own. They found that time travel, allowed by the General Theory of Gravity (GR) because of curved spacetime, is self consistent in curved space time itself!

The tale of time travel may seem absurd and discarded by most as impossible due to the Grandfather Paradox (you can go back in time to prevent your own existence if time travel is possible). However, there are solid Physics behind time travel. It started when Willem Jacob van Stockum first showed that one solution of the GR equation by Einstein allows for time travel. The whole van Stockum Universe was just an infinitely long rotating cylinder whereby the spacetime outside is so curved that the light cones tipped and allows one to move back to where one started by travelling around the cylinder.

The vertical axis is time. An observer in any point in spacetime can only travel to the future of his or her light cone (as no one can travel faster than the speed of light), and thus when the light cones tipped sufficiently, one can travel around the cylinder back to the exact point in time and space where one started.

This provides a way to create a Closed Time-like Curve (CTC), a physicist way of saying time travel. With GR producing potential time travel paradoxes, there are four ways that the physics community are dealing with it.

The Radical Rewrite Conjecture: from multiverse to saying time can be rewritten, this is the radically rewriting the laws of physics and causality conjecture. (Science Fiction series Doctor Who falls under this category)
Self-Consistency Principle: the basic tenet is that whatever is recorded down in history cannot be changed. So if one travelled back in time, one would have already done it. It also means either restricted free will or no free will.
Chronology Protection Principle: all the ways of allowing time travel cannot yet work in our universe because of the impossible requirements like: infinitely long cylinder, negative energy etc... there maybe a deeper law, like quantum gravity that will protect causation and prevent all forms of time travel.
Boring Physics Conjecture: time travel has not been shown to be practical or possible yet with 100% certainty, so there are better things to worry about.

Obviously Science fiction writers has explored the first way, physicists like Novikov had proposed the self-consistency principle using wormhole as the time machine (in flat space-time background), while others likeStephen Hawking had proposed the Chronology Protection Principle and most of the rest of us chose to adopt the boring physics conjecture. However, until 2009, no one has yet tried to see if the self-consistency principle could work in fully curved spacetime itself.

There comes our three students, Han Weiding, Jani Hariom Kirit, and yours truly who investigated this case for the van Stockum Universe. What we had found was that there exist at least one self consistent path for a billiard ball inside the van Stockum Universe to go back in time and hit its past self so that the past self can go around the cylinder, back in time, to become the future self that did the hitting in the first place.

Therefore, we concluded that time travel is still possible under the self consistency principle and that GR has not contradicted itself.

This however does not tell us in absoluteness if time travel is possible or if it is, will it require the radical rewrite conjecture or self consistency principle. The search for an answer goes on.

Note: at the time of literature review and research, the three students were in their 2nd and 3rd semesters in NUS.

Pokemon Video Game United Kingdom National Championships

2011-06-06T00:38:00.001+08:00

Ever since the introduction of Pokémon, and me getting to play with Pokémon Blue inside a PC (can’t save at that time, so each time I had to replay it from the beginning), I wanted to own and play a real Pokémon game on a video game handheld console itself, at least before I lost interest in it.

I thought I did at one time, even when I got good grades at SPM or STPM, I didn’t asked for it. Maybe I was a bit disappointed at the number of Pokémon you have to get to catch em’ all. The fourth Generation being introduced and having to have both Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advanced to get all Pokémon.

Then came Pokémon Black and White, still on Nintendo DS, and also the 4th Generation can be self-sustaining, independent of the third generation. And me being able to come to the United Kingdom, finding cheap offers on the game, and finally this pushes me to the decision: http://www.pokemonvgc.com/uk/event/124.

Pokémon video game National Championship right in the United Kingdom itself, at the time went I am in the UK, on a Saturday! Right when I know I can easily go there! Nice opportunity like this can’t be missed out. So on the first weekend in the UK, I brought Pokémon Black and Nintendo DSi to start training.

And in two weeks I had finished the game for the first time (you should at least finish the game twice to go through everything that is offline about the game), and just starting to seriously train up my skills in double battles for one more week.

A lot of the features of the game requires you to go on Wi-Fi connection. Or having at least another player with Pokémon Black or White. Then one can enter the Union Room (or use infra-red) to battle with each other, trade, or just having fun interacting with another player on your console!

With only three weeks of training, and still cannot win against all the trainers inside the game with perfect scores, I knew there was virtually no chance at all for me to win the Championships. But still look at the first two Prizes:

1st Place:

• A National Championships 1st Place Medal
• A Nintendo 3DS system
• An invitation to compete at the Pokémon Video Game World
• Championships in San Diego, California, U.S.A., on August 13th & 14th, 2011
• Airfare and 6-day/5-night hotel accommodations for the winner (including parent or legal guardian for players under 18) to attend the Pokémon Video Game World Championships
2nd Place:

A National Championships 2nd Place Medal
A Nintendo 3DS system
An invitation to compete at the Pokémon Video Game World
Championships in San Diego, California, U.S.A., on August 13th & 14th, 2011
Airfare and 6-day/5-night hotel accommodations for the winner (including parent or legal guardian for players under 18) to attend the Pokémon Video Game World Championships

At least there is some 1/256 chance of getting there (assuming random probabilities and 0.5 for each player to win).

Well, it is also a fact that half of the 512 (maximum) players will be knocked out on the first round, and I happened to be in the lower half.

And so, on the Friday, I went on a 11:30pm bus to Birmingham International Airport. Tried to sleep on the way there, in fact, I didn’t play the game on the way but really try to relax myself… Anyway, didn’t work.

So right on arrival on 2 a.m., I was getting a bit stretched out on the no. of hours I have woken. I trained up my top six Pokémon until 5.00 a.m. , bought breakfast and lunch to eat while in the queue, and off I went once the mini-train from Birmingham International Airport to the Birmingham International Interchange starts. The sky has brightened by then too.

I spend some time exploring the train station before going on to NEC. I was looking for a way out to the National Exhibition Centre Hall 8 where the Pokémon Championship is being held, it was opposite the NEC. But since it was 6a.m. then and the time for registration was

I went on to the NEC, right on a the first minute starting to walk this long corridor there, I realised, NEC=National Exhibition Centre. Haha, and I printed a map on how to walk from the Airport to the NEC! It was all inside and well connected, I don’t even have to go on a road! So on to a few walkways I saw this

And then this when I finally arrived!

Some even slept overnight there! Wow! The line was not that long when I arrived, but in a few minutes that I was there, it got twice as long! And of course I started playing with them! Trading, battling etc… It was heartening to see parents bringing their kids (from dunno where their home is) at so early in the morning and line up with them, buying breakfast for them etc…some family even has a lot of children as brothers!

We waited (and play while waiting) for about one hour and a half before the door opens and those aged 15 and below have their hand being marked by a colour sticker. Once inside, I knew immediately that even if I didn’t win anything, it has been a worthwhile trip from London. A very very worthwhile trip. Immediately the photo-taking and playing at various places takes place! Enjoy!

First thing that greeted me! Wow! Air balloon inflated btw.

The juniors and seniors are lining up to register! And some pretty staffs too there was!

This is where the real battle commends! With a four pin plug in the middle.

The most famous Pokémon of all time!

The final battle of the day, the finals of the master division is to be held here!

While the younger kids compete, the older people are enjoying various other stuffs, including a knock-out friendly battle. The loser gets out for the next in line and the winner won three times in a row gives up his place for other players. Oh yes, don’t be surprised by the cool way they put the battle on the big screen!

The three starting Pokémon in Unova region in Pokémon Black and White! I chose Snivy, the grass Pokémon in the middle!

The hall is very big! And for the right, I tried to battle a special download for the battle institute over at the event!

Here’s the place for trading card promotion/introduction to the kids and people who never played it before.

And now, to review just how long the line was:

Despite their saying the line will be closed once the cap for player is reached, I think they did not reject anyone. The registration is still on-going even after the first few battles started! It really is a very nice place to be!

Here’s the battle scene, where parents see as their children play in this great battle! For those who had won, they proceed on to the right, so there are marked sections showing which area are for the first battle, which are the second etc…

As the battle goes on, the parents and other players are relaxing in the hall.

And finally I was satisfied with the pre-competition playing, I lined up with the rest of the people in the Masters division. Well, there are a lot of cool people there too! See this:

From earrings to hoodies (Pikachu hoodie), this gal is full of Pokémon! She even treated us to a packet of rice (for small luncheon)!

A Snivy hoodie, and is that Misty? I traded friend code and done feeling check with her, and only now I realised there is some resemblance of her with Misty!

Team Rocket, Pikachu (seriously, she has red dots makeup on her face!), (unknown green guy), and bug catcher!

Ash’s cap!

I was doing the survey (a feature inside the Pokémon Black and White game that automatically collects survey results from the players around with who enables their C gear, or Wi-fi enabled and has done their internal survey) along the way all the time I was there. Here are some interesting results: (I’ll select them as I see which is most interesting, as there is a lot of them)

Which version do you play? Total number: 198 people.

Black	White
99 (50%)	99 (50%)

Amazing!

What’s your starter Pokémon? 297 total

Tepig	Snivy	Oshawott
99	99	99

Even more amazing!

How long have you been playing (hours)? 231 total

100+	99 (43%)
90-100	5
80-90	22
70-80	18 (I’m here)
60-70	21
50-60	18
40-50	16
30-40	6
20-30	9
10-20	6
0-10	11

So there are some not so serious players in the competition too (those less than 50 hours or so…, ok maybe those less than 100 hours, including me…)

Are you male or female? 127 total

Male	Female
99	28

Wow, overly male dominated!

What kind of job do you have? 157 total

Student	99
Artist	15
Office Worker	12
Creator	12
Job-Hopper	8
Self-Employed	4
Public Official	4
Homemaker	3

So adults do play Pokémon too!

What kind of people do you like best? Total: 222 people.

Type of People	No. of people who likes them
Fun	99
Kind	99 (my answer)
Cool	24
Rich	0 (this is funny!)

What kind of movies do you like? Total: 210 people.

Comedy	99
Action	50
Sci-fi	28 (me here!)
Horror	22
Suspense	11
Romance	0 (Another amazing fact!)

Ok that’s all for surveys. Now I do think that the purpose of the survey is for people like me to put it in blogs! Haha.

Hmmmm… an observational fact is that whenever a category goes up to 99 people it stops there, so maybe the survey is flawed due to it not being able to record more than 99 people for any category!

Now for more pictures. After my defeat, I take the time to hang around and take pictures of these:

As Carmen commented: I love how they put details into these things!

Then there are three more surprises!

Snivy, Oshawott, and Tepig! All cheering for those who are still in the competition!

Then I had some trades and battles and wrote this:

At the time of writing, the semi-finals of the Masters Division of Pokémon Video Games United Kingdom National Championship is on-going.

At Birmingham, UK, the spirit and passion for Pokémon brings together many kind-hearted and nice young boys and girls from all over United Kingdom and perhaps even the world!(me for example)

What strikes me most is that the staffs here does their best to care for everyone, despite having kids as young as 6 years old in the competition, you cannot hear any sound of crying. What you have instead is trainers as old as 22 years talking to and interacting with trainers as young as 8 equally and having fun battling and trading Pokémon even through they didn’t know each other the minute before.

The spirit of fair play and accepting defeat is clear amongst all the participants too. A handshake is exchanged before and after a battle (which is a knock-out game, loser gets out). And even in the final moments of the competition, many trainers who are not in the top 4 stayed back to keep on watching the battles screened and learning the techniques that will help them become better trainers for next year!

Being here, just attending an official Pokémon event makes the 2.5 hour journey from London worth every pound. The atmosphere is so friendly and pleasant that one doesn’t mind losing in the championships. It is as they say in the Pokémon world, as long as the trainers care for the Pokémon, we all live in harmony and joy together.

As such, the idea of Pokémon has produced great success in not only to provide a lot of (almost) endless entertainment, and the challenge to catch em’ all, but it also promote a sense of sportsmanship, of universal friendship, and of kindness towards all, humans and Pokémon (I would interpret this as animals and plants in our real world) alike.

And now the finals is starting, I’m not going to miss out on this one!

So are all these people!

A few moments before the finals!

And the result is:

Congrats! But as far as we are concerned, they are both winners as the prize for both are virtually the same.

Before I left, I just wanted to take a thanking photo of those who had worked so hard in making this event a great success for everyone!

See ya next year! And it was time to go back, passing through nice things like this,

I managed to get back to London before the sky turns dark!

Nice sunset at sweet old London!

Pokemon Black and White

2011-06-03T10:29:00.002+08:00

Most of us would feel a little nostalgic when we hear the word Pokémon. Back just before the beginning of the 21st century, Pokémon was a very big hit all over the world. It started with the slogan Gotta Catch Em' All! And captured the attention of most of the kids at that time. Back when it was just 151 Pokémon to collect, this task is easy to fulfil. Just trade with your friends who has the other version you don't have and you have 150 Pokémon, with the elusive Mew to be obtained via an Official Nintendo Event. For the first generation of Pokémon games, it was Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow on Game Boy.

Then to keep the hype of Pokémon up, the producers introduced another generation of Pokémon, totalling the number of Pokémon to 251. This is a very great success in the strategy to have the players to buy new games (Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal) for the Game Boy Colour and attending more Nintendo Events for another elusive Pokémon, Serebii. In fact, the hype is getting so great that songs like They Don't Understand by Dream Street are being performed in these Nintendo Events.

However, as all things are impermanent, the great hype steadily dwindles as the kids yesterday who played Red and Blue becomes teenagers and say to each other: "You still play Pokémon?" As if to say grown ups cannot play Pokémon.

Meanwhile, Nintendo keeps on releasing new generations of Pokémon and new consoles to play them with. 2003 saw the release of the third generation of Pokémon totals up the number to 386 with Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen to be played on Game Boy Advance. In 2007, the forth generation of Pokémon brings the number up to 493 and a brand new handheld console, Nintendo DS (Dual Screen) featuring, (that's right) two screens, the bottom one being a touch screen. Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold and SoulSilver are the complete collection whereby it is supposed to be possible to catch all Pokémon within the game (of course barring a few special legendary Pokémon that still are only given out during special Nintendo events).

Lost your hope yet on trying to buy them (the games) all and play them to catch them (the Pokémon) all? Well don't do that just yet, just earlier this year, Singapore (and the rest of the world) saw the release of the English version of Pokémon Black and White for Nintendo DS. That's right, the fifth generation is now out, making the world of Pokémon containing 649 different species.

Now for the good news: You just need the games from the forth generations and fifth to catch them all and to attend Nintendo events (mostly based in United Kingdom and United States) to get the more elusive ones. So you just need one console: Nintendo DS. Since the first generation, the game's graphic has improved tremendously. Not only there are:

a lot of 3D effects to complement the 2D Role Playing Game (RPG),
there are also time system, reflecting the real time when you play the game,
the four seasons which changes each month,
wireless communication for online trading, online battling, multiplayer battles, double battles, triple battles, rotation battles,
breeding Pokémon,
planting and harvesting berries to make Pokémon food,
Pokémon competition (not battles),
tough trainers just to sharpen your battling skills,
Pokémon Dream where you play online (using PC) inside your sleeping Pokémon's dream (and transfer Pokémon and items to the main game),
video and voice Chat between real-life friends (DSi and Pokémon Black and White only), etc.....

You get to download/befriend those special give-away Pokémon online too!

So if you are like me, a Pokéfan right from the start, and could not afford to bug your parents to buy you new Pokémon games every time a new one pops out, this is a very good time to start playing them. Using money from your Internship, or from your starting salary, those Pokémon games are very affordable and worth it! (Apologies upfront for coaxing hard-working students to waste their money on playing games.)

Why buy now? Because if you have any interest or intend to play Pokémon, now is a much better time to do it before you get caught up in the hassle of growing up and spending more time into developing family and career, your one last shot at being a kid again. Pokémon however, is by no means only for kids, adults of all ages are welcomed to relax and enjoy their time training and catching brand new Pokémon. In Pokémon Black and White in particular, the Pokémon available before battling and winning the Elite Four for the first time are only the Unova (the new region) Pokémon, making sure that you can start afresh with the experienced player and relearn and re-experience the fun of knowing more about each Pokémon.

With online trading and random online battling, there is no fear of playing your game alone any more! What's more there is a dedicated teamof Pokémon players right in Singapore itself !

So knock yourself out and reward yourself for all those years of hard work getting you into NUS and into the workforce!

FYI: The author is going to participate in the Pokémon Video Game United Kingdom National Championships 2011 on the 4th of June 2011 under the Masters Division (age 16 and above) after 3 weeks of buying (and training) Pokémon Black video game featured in the picture.

Doctor Who (proper introduction)

2011-05-31T10:02:00.002+08:00

Hello, I am the Doctor.

Doctor Who?

Just the Doctor.

The above conversation can be heard in various episodes of the famous longest running science fiction series, Doctor Who (no, not Star Trek). With 776 episodes in total, and having started from 1963, the central idea in Doctor Who still fascinates old fans and attracts new fans alike.

What in the world can withstand ideas fashion changes of almost 50 years? Time Travel. Specifically, time travel inside a time machine that looks like a blue police box (in case you have not live in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, a police box is one shaped like a telephone box, but you put a criminal in it like a temporary jail). It is called the TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.

So what if the Doctor has a TARDIS? What does he do with it? Who is he in the first place?

Well, who is the Doctor has been one of the greatest mystery since the series is created. Up until now, we still do not know his true name. We do know that he is not a human (obviously), but a time-lord. Well, humans do look like time lords (they came first), but the most significant physical difference is that time-lords have two hearts and they regenerate.

Regeneration comes when a time lord sustains mortal wound, so the body regenerates itself..... into another completely different body (most of the time younger). This is how the series gets to survive that long. Each time an actor quits, or got too old, just have a regeneration in the story, and we get the next Doctor. So do not be surprised that it has now come to the 11th Doctor.

With so many episodes of Doctor Who, who in the world would have time to catch up with the series? Or even want to have the motivation to start watching it? Don't fret my dear science fiction enthusiastic, the old series, starring the first to the seventh Doctor runs from 1963 to 1989, and then the series was suspended until a movie starring the eight Doctor in 1996 comes to try to revive the franchise. However, it wasn't until 2005 do we get to see the ninth Doctor on screen again.

So the new series, starting from the ninth Doctor in 2005 runs for the 6th season now, has currently only 80 episodes to catch up on. This is a good place to start, as the new fans are reintroduced to the Doctor and the TARDIS and a companion or two to join the Doctor in fantastical adventures for each episodes. Well, the Doctor having lived for about 900 years (or more) gets bored and lonely travelling through all of time and space alone, so the series features companions to the Doctor, mostly humans from earth, during the time that the series is aired. So the current companions, Amy and her husband Rory, are from the year 2011, United Kingdom, but may appear in various moments in time and space with the Doctor to save the day.

Sorry, I haven't told you just what does the Doctor do, what makes him so amazing, so wonderful, so strange, and yet so human, so...... heroic. It is just that whenever and where-ever the Doctor and his companions landed, be it an asteroid outside of the Universe, a parallel universe, World War II, the forth bountiful human empire, the end of earth, on a planet orbiting a black hole, or just contemporary earth, something goes wrong, someone needed saving. Sometimes, it is just an alien civilisation, or just a few individuals, sometimes it is the whole earth, even the whole universe!

And the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver (does what it says, a screwdriver that uses sound to screw things), and his brilliant alien mind and alien know-how to save the day. So essentially it is a story about a hero. But with a time machine, and all of space and time to play with, the producers can make some any genre out of any episode. Want to meet Charles Dickens? William Shakespeare? Vincent van Goth? Marco Polo? The first colony on Mars? You got them and more.

Science Fiction wise, Doctor Who does a great job in making the improbable or even the impossible becomes believable. Witchcraft, space police, teleportation, robots that wants to convert you into them, emotionless aliens bent on destroying the whole universe, war-thirst alien species, ghost and more are all in Doctor Who, and they are all believable, the way they make the episodes. It is just a wonderful time enjoying the acting skills of all those involved and the sense of realism the produces inject in a series.

Well, if that is not enough to get you move out of your lazy chair and go out in search for Doctor Who, I do recommend reading this.

So to quote the tenth Doctor, there is an old Earth saying, a phrase of great power and wisdom and consolation to the soul in time of need:

Allons-y!

Bristol

2011-05-28T08:18:00.003+08:00

Windmill, I was on my way to Bristol, from London.

Expensive trip, mostly because it is last minute. No plans, no prior experience in travelling in the United Kingdom. Just going there to meet my friend (ex-boss) Carmen.

She’s in University of Bristol for Student Exchange Programme for one semester, and I am in Imperial College London doing summer research. Due to the difference in the term timing in UK and Singapore, we can meet up, just before her finals.

The picture above seems… to have a poster effect, cause the camera is in that effect. Carmen immediately take the burden of teaching me how to use my (newly acquired) camera.

Testing out the Marco effect.

Well, anyway, even through we didn’t met for quite a long time (a few months), we keep on knowing what happened recently to each other. The wonders of facebook.

I knew she went for an Europe tour recently, she knew about my new camera… etc… still, there’s a lot to talk with your former boss… (ok seriously I don’t see her as my former boss, just a friend!)

First thing we went to is to visit the University, it is right in the heart of Bristol. And I couldn’t resist having a photo by the Physics Department.

It was a long walk (more than an hour) because we were talking and sightseeing and taking our time……… On the way, I was the Downs, a big grass field with a beautiful sunset.

I arrived around 8pm, it was about 9:30pm by then. Summer, still not used to the long day time…….

Generously, she let me stayed in her room, with meal tickets purchased too (I’ve paid for the meals), but she did treated me one dinner (later on)……

Ya, the first reaction is (if you’re used to staying in Singapore), “Your room is soooo big!!!!”. Got a sink in it too, and a previous fireplace. We had a late night discussions about many stuffs… talking about Bristol, and NUS…

Ok again…I don’t think I need to add this, but… oh right… I won’t add this in. Those of you who knows me, knows me.

The next day, Saturday. After a good brunch, we went out and explore the whole of Bristol city centre. Or at least it seems to be a lot of the city centre……

On the way, this is the Downs again! Beautiful big tree!

Nice sky, notice the flowers. Carmen said that when she came here (on Jan) there wasn’t the greenery to appreciate.

And so off we went…… from the day market of

which features:

To seeing various war monuments, churches, brands, statues and BBC…and a cool looking car.

Our first real stop was to see the Bristol Museum, lots of display up there to see and be awe in (I haven’t visited the Natural History Museum in London yet…)

Pictures of Natural scenes (and wild-life) competition…

Believe it or not, they are all real, even through they look like they were painted/computer generated cause it is wayyy too beautiful. Little wonder that Carmen spends all the time in the Museum reading the descriptions (lots more other categories there). I went on and see fossils:

Right, by now you guys are skipping the photos and looking for what will I write next, isn’t it? Haha…

Sorry, alright not too much photos now, you can see the whole deal in facebook at here.

I got to confess, I’ve been a bad guest… I got late to Bristol, missing a hunted tour on Friday night, missing a bus ride back to her room and back again (she borrowed her friend’s card for me). And I let her wait for me while I’m in the toilet… several times… (waste her time…) Because I didn’t bring my hand phone charger… It was a relieve to find her the day before, before my phone battery ran out…

Well, let’s get on to the fun part. We went down to the docks and saw many many ships. Did you know that Bristol had been a floating harbour until recently? We were exploring so much of Bristol on foot (oh the cold wind) and sharing so much stuffs that I kinda make the comparison that Bristol is a lot like Malacca. (Lazy to compare details) Well, the most important thing is, that I’m bringing people to visit Malacca on foot from now on! Carmen is amongst the list of people who wants to visit Malacca!

Why on foot? Cause, as Carmen said: you get to go to places unplanned. So after the museum, we saw went as marked in red.

In the floating harbour, we saw these:

A car with a Pirate in it!

Railroads…

And then we went off the trail and followed a river that eventually leads to a famous suspension bridge in Bristol.

We were so happy to found out that our hunch was true! The river did lead to the bridge and we were thinking of how to get there?

Carmen let me decide, and we went for the greener road there (from the left),

We soon got relieved that we had chosen this path because the other road is just beside a car road. This path we were walking on is a cycling/walking route. Due to negligence I didn’t bring my camera charger too, and the camera battery is starting to run low by now. So sorry, but for the really exciting part, there’s no picture from me.

We went on the road, and it doesn’t seems to be leading upwards, and we thought, uh oh, we just passed the bottom of the bridge, how do we get up?

Luckily, there was a couple walking in front of us, and we can always ask them for directions if we really get lost. (Amazing that I don’t write as much about the cold as I’ve complained to Carmen that day) Anyway, there was a jungle path leading left into the land that holds the bridge. We travelled on and did climb higher and higher. And eventually after going from the jungle path into the main road (which features this cool home:) we got into the Clifton suspension Bridge!

It was a scared smile…… I kinda fear heights…

We went to both sides of the bridge, got cool photos, and then walked back to the city centre where we eat at “Start the Bus”. A pub’s name, don’t ask me why.

On the way, we talked about Pokemon and that we constantly amaze each other of the ability to walk this far (in the cold for me, Carmen got used to the cold, having gone through winter) and still have the energy to bounce about.

Carmen once again being the generous host, treated me to a hamburger. I tried on the various additives they had and indeed, it is nice (and filling too). Well, we bid our farewells to the city centre as Bristol (finally) gets dark and gone back to Carmen’s room and talk, again!

We talked about NUSBS, PhD or other alternatives and shared lots of stuffs and about this blog post (that’s long overdue, sorry!) and then we got tired and need some good night’s sleep.

Next morning, we had a good breakfast and visited the mall area of Bristol along with Castle Park, whereby I commented: “Malacca also has ancient ruins.” And this time, the exhaustion and cold get to me and I had to rest quite a few times… along the road.

We went back for lunch, and then I said I was too tired to go on for another trip outside. And so, we rested. I had a good afternoon nap, and about one hour before my bus arrives, we walked the half hour walk to the city and bid our “See ya later in Singapore…” Oh and here’s THANK YOU CARMEN! *virtual hug*

One last picture on the way back, cause I saw so many livestock and horses along the bus back to London, it was Sunday. And I cooked for dinner!

Extreme

2011-05-20T05:45:00.006+08:00

Ok now, too much playtime.

This is perhaps one of the ways I realign myself after going too extreme in one direction or another. Blogging.

I always tend to go to extreme measures of what I believed in. (Extremely long post too.)

First thing off my head is going Vegetarian. Back in my early secondary school, I've read a book about how humans can choose to not eat meat for the sake of compassion for the animals that were killed for the meat. I've gone cold turkey vegetarian then. If it wasn't some resistance plus persuasion that I need meat during this period of physical growth, I would have been vegetarian for a long time by now. Update: currently, I'm pro-vegetarian (for environmental reasons plus compassion), that means I mostly eat vegetarian food, but I do not forbid myself from eating meat. By the way, London is a very good place to be a vegetarian, lots of choices for vegan food here (compared to Singapore).

A few years later I had known Buddhism. Read the books, gone so deep so fast into the theories and accepted what I see as obvious truths, that I decided to have "monk" in my email. As usual, the teachings preach of the middle way, not the extreme way. And I took the extreme way. I decided to be a monk, no I swore to be a monk. A vow, without regard that I have not yet even tasted most of what lay life can give me. If it isn't for the lack of spiritual friends and wisdom, I would not have been out of touch with Buddhism for a period of my life. Of course, it took me years later on to see that the way to Enlightenment is not the extreme way that gets you there faster. It is not a intermediate goal to achieve and get rid off so that I can get on with life. It is rather to realise that life itself is impermanent (still don't realise it, just putting it here to say I don't realise it). Update: Currently I am the Vice President of National University of Singapore Buddhist Society for the academic year 2010/11, going back into Buddhism, gently, calmly, (sorry I still won't use slowly), practising it step by step.

The period of my life that I was out of touch with Buddhism comes Physics. Or should I say science fiction? I've been inspired by the science fiction authors, Asimov, Clark, Leinster, whose (some) stories predicted the future of technology and in some cases science itself! Inspired to be one of the science fiction writers, I took to the science part seriously and took some non-fiction science (physics) books to read and enjoy. My interest in Physics paid off when I got selected to represent Malaysia for the International Physics Olympiad 2007 and 2008 (ya, twice). It was the highlight of my life (up to that point) and it determined my university degree choice. Although I have yet written a science fiction book nor published any short stories in a science fiction magazine, I still do know that part of the reason I took to physics is that I want the science in my science fiction stories to be foolproof, to be real and not discredited by future knowledge and not to mislead the majority of the world who doesn't know the intricacies of consistency of physics (example, any stories that have wormhole, faster than light travel technologies must have a way of explaining away the grandfather paradox. Ya, faster than light means time travel, most science fiction disregard that, and it is not right.)

Let me take another paragraph (or two) to tell you why it is not right. If there is a proof (due to the ultimate quantum gravity theory) that time travel of all sorts are impossible, or at least chronology is protected. Then it is a guide for how much can humans hope to conquer the stars. If time travel are impossible, we will have to stick to the hope that we can go close to light speed and use the time dilation as a practical means of space travelling (like Orson Scott Card's Ender series). If not, then we will have to stick to building a whole world for generations to live in for a trip to the next star system (like Rendezvous with Rama, only the first book, by Clark). And all science fiction stories should follow their example to set a realistic outlook for the general public to know that the future is going to be much harder than we thought. Therefore we need to stick together and aim for a bright future for humanity, and not frown upon petty disputes, wars, allow our planet to warm up too much too fast, and concentrate on what matters to the survival of the species (least we meet the same fate as the Earth in Asimov's End of Eternity).

So in a larger sense, theoretical physicist, even mathematicians are contributing to the world. In fact, when humanity turn back and look upon this period of time, they would credit them most for being the base and the backbone for space-travel to be real.

Ok, back to the issue, so Update: I am still reading up on science fictions (after a break, recently read the main Dune series) and knowing what do I want to write about. By the way, Imperial College London has a great Science Fiction Library! It's cool to hang out there!

After getting into NUS and studying what I wanted to study, two important changes came into my life: Laptop (with high speed internet) and living away from parents. This brings us to extreme entertainment. (Maybe I should include the relief of having gone through so many exams and test to come to University only to repeat it every semester.) I had seen so many series, superhero cartoons, played so many video games that I was gradually getting my laptop to be free from computer games and try not to get hooked up to more than one series (of drama/anime/comedy/etc) per semester. Update: I just brought Pokemon Black with a special edition of Nintendo DSi, and I have been on it for about 30 hours now. By the way, in London, the game looks cheaper, and lots of pokemon events are in United Kingdom! Including a National Video Game Championship!

With the lowering down my concentration on games and getting back on my feet with Buddhism and Physics, I've stumbled upon the thing that most songs, movies, layperson, books mentioned or based upon. It is the single essential thing for the continuation of the human species and for most people the meaning of their lives. It is love, Boy-Girl Love. Initially I didn't started out extremely in love, in fact, I was the extreme not eligible single guy out there (read the post about how I used to repel girls).

However, in front of her, in her presence, I automatically get a hold of myself and stop pretending to be weird and kiddish. I made sure I undo all the undesirable things in me that I've made into part of my habit. I was not behaving naturally as me. Soon I found that I was trying hard to change myself (this is part of the reason, there are other reasons not to be too weird). Soon it became obvious that I was much happier with her around, I enjoyed thinking about her every single time free time that I had. And I also faced a great battle within me, one that I had to choose which future path to take. One that is essentially captured in the movie Samsara. I had tried and tried, so.... hard to forget about her and remember impermanence, non-self, and suffering, but every single time I see her, I cannot help but fall in love again.

I guess in terms of being extreme, I did this: I broke off the vow of being a monk in order to chase her (this is just basic requirements), and when I did it, I inadvertently put her as the meaning of my life. That is extreme. Extreme is also not thinking this through, what if she rejects me? What if we were not meant for each other? I didn't think that through when I changed the meaning of my life so suddenly. I didn't know that there is only one of two roads to head for when saying "I love you" to a girl: you either get rejected/break up eventually or you get married. All I could think of then was that I was prepared to get committed, to overcome my repulsion towards the idea of settling down with another human being, sharing everything. And I certainly did not know how painful it was when someone rejects you. Maybe it was not as painful if I had not been too extreme (again), if I had stayed back, held back and see, really see without attached love blinding me, what chances have we together, before pouring out so much emotions into one person. Perhaps the stupidest thing I had done is to make myself receive multiple rejections, after telling myself each time to lay it off. Gradually it worked, mind training paid off a little, and I am getting more and more neutral, more and more into getting used to being single and not infatuated. By the way, this trip to London helps a lot! I am alone here! Yippie!

I had made it a policy to not include sad, defamatory, personal attack, provocative, and unmemorable things in this blog, or to shorten the painful ones as much as possible. This policy, however, did not force me to say: I am glad I fell in love anyway. It is better to have love and lost than not to have love at all. I had learned much from this experience, how to make friends, how to court a lady, to see just how strongly dedicated am I to my cause, to write this as neutral as possible without any hurtful emotions, to finally appreciate all the love stories and songs, to know how much more I need to train up. Update: currently, not wanting to experience all these again.

So now, back to the theme: Extreme. What had being an extremist taught me? Well, maybe I am a bit too extremely frank about my life here. In this public space, I am sharing the turmoil and thoughts of my personal life. Well, maybe that's just my style. Being too extreme is a way of life. It does not guarantees that you get what you want, but it does guarantees suffering, one way or another, suffering is an essential part of our lives. It teaches us as most people would say. I say it motivates for the practice. The practice to end all sufferings, the Noble 8 Fold-path, the middle way (between extremes).

P.S. Sorry it may look like I'm saying being a monk is the extreme way. I meant that I think of myself as an enlighten one at that time, thus deluded myself into a serious depressed state when I discovered that I was far from perfect. Thus I needed to remove myself from all things Buddhism to regain some sanity back.

Family and Chinese New Year

2011-05-06T01:20:00.001+08:00

The longer you stay overseas to study, the more you appreciate the importance of family. Before, back when I was in Malacca, I was overexposed to the love of my family. Well, we meet everyday, how can it not be overexposed?

Well, with love I realised, there’s no such thing as seeing each other too much. I realised that I’ve not really understood love in the same way that my family did for me. I still didn’t understand love until this year (year 3 of my NUS life).

Now as I look back on the support, the warmth, the love of my family… I feel that I’ve been mistreating them too much. It does not matter that they are not the coolest dudes in the world, the best at whatever you think they should excel at, what mattered is that they cared for you. And I feel the care now. Now after so many years of pride preventing me from acknowledging them (one of the perks of blogging, you can write these stuffs here), I am gradually trying to develop loving-kindness to them, and showing it too.

This February (or end January), my sister (Ching Siang) came with Michelle and Ting Hui (2 of my closest female cousins), to NUS and I’ve bring them around! One fine point is that I could have brought them to SPS (the place where I hang out the most, the place they wanted to go) but I didn’t. It tells me of something about SPS that I didn’t want to bring to my closest family to share with…… Something I’ve no business to share here and you’ll have to guess and see it later on.

Well, back to the topic, on February, I’ve gone back to Malacca, and met with me cousins! The only guy missing (currently in USA) is Jia Long. We celebrated grandfather’s 80th Birthday (Chinese age, the age from birth counts as 1, because you are living the first year of your life, so now I’m living my 22nd year of life, even through I can say that I am 21 years old before my birthday this year)!

And had we some fun over there! I was still applying for MIT/Caltech/University of Penn summer research programme then, so I was a bit distracted. Well, I didn’t get them. However, due to some cool series of events, I’ve gotten Imperial College London’s summer research Programme! So (sorry digressing a bit here) I’m going to go to London on the 10th May and coming back to Malaysia only on the 8th August.

Ok, back to the night. I was also meeting my form 6 friends that night. I’ve meet them, and it is interesting to note that for the case of my previous crush, we are friends now! Haha… well, although a cure for love-sickness is to love another, I do not think that the first crush I had was anything serious. Not compared to this time. This time, I wouldn’t even call it a crush. Oh, but this is leaving off topic again and it is not yet ready to be disclosed. Hint: it is a girl from my current University.

Backing up, I had some good times there… didn’t remember most of it…… but it is still always sad that the cousins have to leave, one by one. Even through we had trained up for this all the time we had grown up, the sadness of not meeting each other again for a long…… time still holds.

As usual, I’ve come back with 3rd uncle (after a not-so-eager-to-collect-ang-pau-that-contains-ringgit-malaysia attitude during Chinese New Year), and I’ve gone back to the busy busy busy University Life. So till next time, stay tuned for updates on United Kingdom explorations!

Non-Locality and the Foundations of Quantum Physics

2011-04-07T16:51:00.001+08:00

Locality is the state of affairs confined to us (at least macroscopically); blame special relativity and the finite speed of light. Oh sorry, you might not have heard of what locality is yet have you? It means anything I do; I can only influence my future up to the fastest influences that we can ever achieve: light speed. Locality is the limit for events in one point of space-time to influence another in a causation relationship.

Whatever that I do now cannot possibly cause the volcanoes of planets light years away to explode immediately (ignoring the possibility to warp space-time using general relativity which is out of the scope of this discussion). So sorry to disappoint you, but all those telepathy stuffs you see in science fiction, they are just that: fantasies.

“Wait a minute,” you said, “hasn’t quantum physics lead us to the discovery of quantum entanglement (which is non-local), so it means that there is a remote possibility that telepathy can happen right?” Well, the answer to that is still, even through you can have non-locality, you still cannot communicate faster than the speed of light. There are various proofs for the impossibility for using quantum non-locality to communicate faster than the speed of light, but it is not in the scope of the discussion here too. The scope of this discussion how the notion of non-locality affects the way we review and research about the foundations of quantum physics.

Now that you know what is locality, non-locality simply means that events influence each other, even when they are so far apart that light cannot reach from one event to another in time! However, there is also the constraint of not able to communicate using non-locality. This means that there is an interesting space in the relationships between any two parties, a space between the usual local region that we are used to and faster than light communication region (signalling region). A space we call the non-local region. Refering to the figure below, one can construct a polytope (essentially a geometrical object representing probabilities) that maps the local region inside the nonsignalling region. The quantum boundary (representing the limits of quantum entanglement) exists and extends beyond the local region but falls short of the non-signalling boundary.

Let me explain more of the figure above, the two parties each can choose one of two inputs into a machine that they share, and the machine (defined by whatever properties that the analysis below requires it to have) gives out one of two outputs at each side. One iron rule is that they cannot communicate. The correlations of the output depending on the input can be quantified and represented in the polytope above. The local region of the polytope consists of the correlations that two parties can have with only preestablished agreement (for the machine). For the quantum region, the two parties share quantum entangled particles in addition to preestablished agreements. However, theorectically speaking, one can still have stronger correlations between the two without the ability to start communication between the two parties. Hence, the Non-signalling boundary is bigger than the quantum boundary. Therefore, although quantum physics is non-local, it is not the most non-local theory allowed by special relativity. Here a clue of how nature works is found and the clue is to ask why?

Before continuing, we shall have a small detour to the current state of quantum physics. You see, the postulates of quantum mechanics as it stands now are just a sequence of abstract mathematical rules to calculate and predict the probabilities of the results of measurements. Confused? Worry not, even the great Feynman said no one truly understands quantum mechanics. Sure, we can calculate and predict and give a very good and consistent picture of the world, but we do not know the underlying “why” of quantum physics. The underlying physical picture that is intuitive in all other areas of physics is not clear at all in quantum physics.

So encountering this clue, researches proposed various theories to be the information-theoretic axiom for quantum mechanics. These theories seek to limit the bound of non-locality any general theory must have and tries to reproduce the bounds of quantum physics using as little axioms as possible.

One of the axioms that do this is the information complexity triviality axiom. It states that to share information from one party to another, one (normally, under locality assumption) has to share all the bits of the information. One example is that one has to download a full movie to enjoy it. With quantum non-locality, the amount of bits sent is reduced; however, it is still a significant amount that needed to be sent. With even stronger correlations above a certain bound (called communication complexity bound) [1], the amount of information sent reduces just to one bit! Imagine watching a movie or for that matter, downloading the whole of internet in just one bit! Computer scientists would say that this is as forbiddened as non-conservation of energy [4]!

Therefore, non-local physical theories cannot be above the communication complexity bound. However, communication complexity bound is not the same as the quantum theory bound. If we can somehow pull down the communication complexity bound down to the quantum theory bound, we have found a physical axiom for quantum physics! And the way to do this is via non-locality distillation [2].

As implied by its name, non-locality distillation makes an existing non-local correlation to become more even more non-local. That is it pushes the point of correlation away from the centre of the polytope. Imagine that the line (collections of points) just above the quantum bound is being distilled. If they can go up to and beyond the triviality bound, the triviality bound is effectively “lowered” down to the quantum boundary.

How the distillation is done is that two (or more) non-local correlation “machines” are brought together and the output of one is wired up or linked up in a certain way to the input of the other to produce one big “machine” with more overall non-locality. We denote each wiring as one protocol. It was shown that two boxes could not be used to achieve this feat [3]. That was where the author's humble attempt comes in. Using three boxes, the author has attempted to achieve this feat. The attempt is aided by aiming to find a protocol to achieve a victory condition that was defined. The result was that two resonable and symmetric victory conditions were ruled out as no protocols are able to statisfy them. A general mechanism is found to allow for the determination of which protocol (amongst all 4.61x10¹⁶possible protocols) is able to achieve any victory conditions.

In addition, it would seem that it is not worth the effort of pursuing more boxes distillation research as the amount of protocols, terms and conditions will increase exponentially with the number of boxes.

Regardless of this line of research, the story goes on with Stephanie Wehner of Centre for Quantum Technologies who had just recently managed to link the quantum boundary with Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This means that quantum theory is as non-local as it is because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which is also an empirical fact. So in essence, the mystery of the quantum is still there. Is there any fundamental axiom that fixes quantum physics? Will we ever get an intuitive understanding of it? It is up to you to find out.

Ng Xin Zhao (27^th Jan 2011, year 3 undergraduate student in Physics, NUS)

Bibliography

[1] Gilles Brassard, Harry Buhrman, Noah Linden, Andre Allan Methot, Alain Tapp, and Falk Unger Limit on nonlocality in any world in which communication complexity is not trivial. Phys. Rev. Lett., 96(25):250401, Jun 2006.

[2] Nicolas Brunner and Paul Skrzypczyk. Nonlocality distillation and postquantum the-ories with trivial communication complexity. Phys. Rev. Lett., 102(16):160403, Apr 2009.

[3] Anthony J. Short. No deterministic purification for two copies of a noisy entangled state. Phys. Rev. Lett., 102(18):180502, May 2009.

[4] W. van Dam. Implausible consequences of superstrong nonlocality.

http://arxiv.org/quant-ph/0501159, 2000.

Doctor Who

2011-03-31T18:11:00.001+08:00

This semester I had been addicted to yet another Drama series. To recap here’s roughly one series per semester.

Batman the Animated Series (plus Batman Beyond).
OnePiece
Wizards of Waverly Place
Big Bang Theory
How I Met Your Mother
Doctor Who

Specifically it is the new series of Doctor Who, starting from the 9th Doctor until the 11th Doctor. I’ve seen the 8th Doctor movie too!

Essentially it is about an alien called the Doctor who travels with (a) companion(s) in his time-travelling machine, the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space). And he usually goes to a situation where he has to save the day/planet/ or the whole Universe!

Read wiki for more information.

Semester 6 in NUS

2011-03-30T16:34:00.001+08:00

It’s been so long since I’ve updated this blog again! Sorry for the long wait my fellow loyal readers. Well, you can largely infer via the long absence that I was in one of the best of mental heath states (in terms of having no or little stress academically), or I was in one of the worst mental states, so bad the situation was that I can’t put it online.

Which ever it was, one good news that is worth sharing is that I (most likely) will be going to Imperial College London from May to early August for Research Attachment! It has been one of the destination that I wanted to go since my cousin is studying there. (However, currently he’s on exchange to USA, so I won’t get to meet him there.)

But anyway, there’s a classmate and good base of Malaysians and Buddhist Society to join in there too!

Another news is that I would be ending my roommate status with Hariom by the end of this semester. It has been a very great year being roommates! Reason for not being roommate for next semester?

Hariom’s going to France for 6 months for Research Attachment.
I’m going to University Town (since RVR old block is closed down).

Ah, at last I am going to interact with the USP people a lot more than I used to in the Residential College in University Town.

Anyway, back to the beginning of the semester, I’ve gotten these modules to have fun with!

PC2230 Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
PC3236 Computational Methods in Physics
PC4232 Cosmology
PC4274 Mathematical Methods 3
PC5228 Quantum Information and Computation
UIS3924 Independent Study Module: Black Hole Information Paradox

Oh and updating on my CAP from last semester: From the CAP I decided that I do not have the patience or aptitude for doing pure Mathematics, so I decided to drop my second major (again) and drop the Special Programme in Mathematics. Therefore also I need to get all As for all modules from now on to get back to first class CAP.

Hence one great important, sad and necessary decision is to: not to rerun for NUSBS Management Committee again next year.

Anyway it has also been a good year being in the NUSBS MC, a great year, a year I really love. For there are 14 other wonderful person that comes together with me, and we laughed, we played, we worked, we learned, we practised, we seriously get to know each other very, very, very, very well! Ahhhhh…makes me more sad that I’m not rerunning again…

NUSBS and Dharma Camps

2011-02-26T05:27:00.002+08:00

I’ve joined in two Dharma Camps during the December holidays of 2010. One of which is the NUSBS Dharma Camp in Singapore, the other being Youth Dharma Camp (YDC19), by Subang Jaya Buddhist Association Youth Section (SJBAYS). One common thing is that I went for both with Chin Xia (group mates for both of them too!), and that I kept on being exposed to the four Brahma Viharas in the two camps.

NUSBS Dharma Camp (6-10 December), I was part of the Organising Committee, being in charge of Be a Lamp Upon Yourself workshop. Behold my group: Uppekha. Yup, we used the 4 Brahma Viharas as Group names.

The flag contains the meaning of the name.

It was one of the best NUSBS Dharma Camp I’ve been to and enjoyed. It was a lot of nights of talking with the Management Committee of NUSBS after the official sleeping time, but somehow I kept on having lots of energy for the next day. And the workshop I’m in charge of, (almost) everyone likes it!

Well, on to the second camp, 24th-28th December (yes, we celebrated Christmas there, complete with the red hat and gift exchange). It was full of fun games and very little Dharma Talk compared to NUSBS’s one. One of the amazing things that happened during YDC 19 is the secret Santa.

Everyone in the camp is a secret Santa who’s supposed to take care of his/her little child during the camp. And the little child is chosen randomly by each participants (70+ people). On the last day, we get to have a revelation, of who’s our secret Santa? My little child is someone I didn’t knew before. But imagine my surprise when I discovered that my secret Santa was no other than the other NUS people in the camp. (Yes, you guessed right).

The revelation is done via tying strings onto the hands of the participants. String on the left hand of a Santa leads to string on the right hand of the little child. Everyone is seated in blindfold and we sing the songs we learned to pass the time while the committees of the camp tie us up together. I was tugging and pulling my right hand string when the blindfold is finally off. My string is being diverted by a pillar and it was hard to make sure who was my secret Santa. So when I saw it was her, I had to double check. And triple check. And even after all the strings has gone off, I’ve still difficulty accepting this……pleasant surprise. Then the Santa and child are supposed to hug each other, and we hugged.

YDC is a Dharma based creative way, but a bit more fun than INCOVAR camp. Contrasting it with NTUBS Dharma Camp, 17th-20th January 2011, (which I joined in halfway in week 2 this semester) I have experienced a whole range of Camps…

NTUBS Dharma Camp is more of very very close to meditation retreat, with Noble Silence during meal time! Adding in more interactions and group forming, would be NUSBS Dharma Camp, and add in more workshops like be a lamp upon yourself, you get INCOVAR Camp, adding in more fun, you get YDC. I’ve joined in:

1 YDC (19th YDC, December 2010)
1 INCOVAR Dharma Camp (31st IDC, June 2009)
3 NUSBS Dharma Camp (December 2008,09,10)
2 NTUBS Dharma Camp (January 2010,11)

Totalling 7 dharma camps since I’ve entered University.

Wow, and really I like INCOVAR a lot from the 4 above, and also NTUBS’s very very Dharmic atmosphere, you can have a spontaneous Dharma Circle there during free time!

Amazingly, the time I went for INCOVAR, I wasn’t the only NUS people there too. There was Ken Juin.

So for the Buddhism Awareness Week of NUSBS (7-11 February 2011), I’ve found and paired up Chin Xia (4 timer YDC) and Ken Juin (4 timer INCOVAR) together to help organise the Joy Full Days. They did it splendidly, making it very big, much bigger than last year’s and creating lots of opportunity for the interactions between the subcommittees and Management Committee, and showing to ourselves and NUS that NUSBS can do it!

A crazy moment during Buddhism Awareness Week!

Special thanks to Chin Xia, for being very active in NUSBS and creating so much fun and happiness during the time we are together.

Friends (Special Programme in Science, Part 1)

2010-12-31T04:21:00.002+08:00

This will not be the full list of my friends in SPS, so if your name is not here, fret not, look out for the next post! There are too many people that I know in SPS to put this in one post, and it also defeats the purpose of pouring my emotions here. So here goes:

Hariom

Old pal, roommate, ex-project mates for SP 2171 and SP 2172, a very headstrong person that I often get into quarrels with (I still don’t see those as quarrels), occasionally, a friendly fight too (caught once on camera). He’s my Physics course mate that is honest, down to earth on his expectations in Physics. He is now back in his home country, India after one year of not going back (due to his Mexico summer programme last holiday). Having a first class CAP and extremely active in asking questions in classes, this guy wearing specs is also interested in investing time for religion or as he prefers it, spirituality. As such, we meditated in the room together often, and discusses anything. Oh and he is very good in making friends and keeping them, I quite admire his ability to be wacky, friendly and cheerful almost all the time! And more than that is his dedication towards physics! I’m really grateful to have such a good close friend!

Tzyh Haur

Old buddy, the Physics senior in SPS, he is one of the coolest smart guy in Physics that you can ask anything about and he’ll answer you. Although he claims to be anti-social, he is in good terms with everyone in SPS! I got to be able to relate to him via our passion for free food! Ok, more seriously, it is because I think we have a similar social shyness history. Being a purely quantum guy, he is very happy now to have Ass. Prof. Valerio Scarani (my supervisor too for UROPs) to be his supervisor. Besides having a good family relationship, he also inspires me in his passion for research and excellence.

Minh

Old buddy too, our mentor in SPS for one year. My mentor for 1 and a half year. He is crazy in Mathematics and asks a lot of Philosophical questions. He often comes back to SPS to see us after his graduation and even hangs out at our (me and Hariom’s) room to talk until very very late. He keeps on jump hopping on religion, learning some of each here and there, including Buddhism, Hinduism, etc…His aloofness seems to stem from his intense passion in Mathematics and his willingness to help me out in Mathematics shows that he’s a really good guy!

Hung

A special kid. Stranger than me, but also very determined to do well in her Physics. She’s one the cutest and sxxx people I can see in SPS. A lot of a Rock guitarist and some sort of a child-like gal, she has one specialty in language: Hunglish. However, she’s true to friends and true to her feelings (that she doesn’t manage very well), and she constantly ask for advices and we all comfort her, like the child of SPS. A good friend that cares for others and I’m glad to have met her!

Friends (NUSBS 32nd MC)

2010-12-14T18:08:00.000+08:00

Last time I did this type of post, I can’t write more than 20 friends before burning out. So I’ll do it by groups this time. Starting from the family in Buddhist Society: May I present the 32nd Management Committee of National University of Singapore Buddhist Society!

Ow Yeong Wai Kit

President, USP, English Literature major, Vice President of the NUS Interfaith Interest Group, previous Publications director of NUSBS, involved in NUS Stage and USP performance too! A very good speaker with style, leading the Buddhism in Asia Global Programme to Thailand and India right now as I’m writing this, responsible, multitalented, very knowledgeable in Buddhism, produced this article: http://kentridgecommon.com/?p=6275 And a cool guy!

Kevin Siswandi

Resource Director, both for NUSBS and Physics Society and very very good at his job! Physics major, and although quiet, is a very dependable person!

Yulinda

Treasurer, fun loving, active, likes to help out and be in photos. Mathematics major, she takes her job seriously, takes fun seriously too!

Johan Zhang

Dharma Director, Mathematics major, he is serious in his job, taking up Meditation course and Dharma Circle seriously. He leads a group of people called the Dharma Subcom, and organises Dharma Friend trainings too!

Alvin Tan (Tashi Pandito)

Deputy Dharma Director, Physics major! Having a high expectation towards what he does, he knows how to meditate and relax himself too to avoid over expectation! He is an aspiring Bodhisattva, with a BIG dream! Taking up my previous job, he is recruiting people into his company that will change the world! As such, I’m giving him a bit of a hard time to test his resolve and determination.

Soe Lin Myat

Marketing Director, computer engineering major. The previous Dharma Director, we had a good time planning for Dharma Circle topics together, and now he’s doing a great job with Marketing, giving us name cards, coloured posters design, mini publications, T-shirt, videos, and now he’s doing the website of NUSBS! Doing all that and beyond the call of duty!

Jasper Ang

Auditor, political science major. He was president of choir for his JC and secondary school and worked in KMSPKS before. He’s a great actor, winning the best actor lots of times in finale nights of NUSBS Dharma Camp! The previous deputy secretary, he helped to gather this group of able people and like-minded person to work together for NUSBS! He also continues to contribute in his wisdom and leadership in various ways that help the society!

Chriswini Tanaka

A serious and cool girl, she’s the Project Director and is in Engineering. She works hard for the society, and places family in an important position too! Cute and stylish, she is caring and thoughtful to push us to get the job done fast so that we can enjoy our November of studying! Oh and pretty too!

Lim Wen Xin

Deputy Project Director, economics major, she does almost all of her work along with Chriswini, and they are fast becoming twin sisters which means she’s pretty too! Nice and caring, she has a very good boyfriend to take care of her too!

Hein Aye Aye Aung

Deputy Secretary, she is in Business. A truly newbie in NUS and NUSBS, she has the courage to join in the Management Committee in her year 1. Fun loving and able to take charge when things breaks down, she is a good and meticulous person that directed our skit (for Upekkha group) for the NUSBS Dharma Camp 2010. She has lots of potential to grow!

Leow Poh Jin

Secretary, or Honorary General Secretary, he is an Engineering guy! Down to earth, honest, hardworking. Likes the 3 Idiots film. He bravely integrates his previous knowledge of Buddhism (in Chinese) with the teachings taught here (in English). Working hard and tirelessly, he is indeed a great secretary!

Lyhor Nalene

Welfare Director, Business. She has been in NUSBS for one year before joining in the Management Committee at year 1. Being a good Dharma subcom she is dependable and nice! She nicely organised a birthday celebration for both Johan and Kevin! And she is very responsible in her part of Dharma Camp welfare visit and Dharma Friend training!

Wong Fang Cheng

Publication Director, Life Science major. A seriously cool and active girl! She’s quiet, yet one of the most active in doing work! Having done 2 (very nice) video editing, rushing for the Lamp of Wisdom magazine right now, she also helped out in Dharma Camp Welfare visit. Having been through a meditation retreat, she has a very good basis in the practice! Her strong inclination towards pushing herself to the best that she can do is an admirable attitude to emulate!

Jason Kong

Public Relations Director, Business. A very very social able person, in other words: friendly towards anyone! He has the party attitude, yet can pay enough attention to get things done! A naturally charismatic person that is good with any girls, he’s also able to handle his emotions well! Buddhism has changed something in him and keeps on changing him as he develops various hidden potentials inside of him.

Now these are the 14 people that I now work with, and learn the Dharma with. And I love this team! Go NUSBS!

Life with NUSBS friends!

2010-12-05T03:49:00.002+08:00

After my final exam on the morning of 2nd December, I've gone back to SPS room and was missing part of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Movies Extended Version. That night was the SPS Xmas celebration! We had potluck& gift exchange. I didn't expect my gift (A4 papers) to be the most popular one. I've gotten a book brought by Weiding, and exchanged it for an inverted hourglass.

We had lots of fun later on playing some games involving food! About 30 of us all together in SPS had a really good time before leaving SPS to it's empty (I'm the only one here now) state.

The next day I had a NUSBS MC meeting for discussions on the Dharma Camp final details. Then Jason, Khisan and the Group Leaders came to go for a trial run of the temple tour. I've stayed on and once the meeting has ended, we had lunch together at Science and then I showed them about SPS room.

Well, after that, I've made a special trip to join in the temple hunt group for Mangala Vihara visit before going to Helipad for a free buffet by OSA. The food is not as nice as what we get in SPS, but the environment is quite new there. Later on that night, Wen Xin, Johan, Kevin, Yulinda, Nalene, Poh Jin, me and Shi Peng (new friend) had gone to walk around clarke quay.

In this respect, the trip to China and the trip to Clarke Quay (about 2 years ago with SPS people) are helpful in making me comfortable with walking around with my fellow MC members just as friends that night.

The next day, (this morning to me) I've woke up to come to the Group Leader training for Dharma Camp and meet Chin Xia & fellow group leaders and join in the whole day gaming. Then I've gone back and packed up my stuffs! But there was a detour for dinner with Tzyh Haur and Jia Jia and a long talk with Hariom and Minh later on in my room. Ahhh.... tomorrow (or later today I'm going for the Dharma Camp until 10th December! Ahh...

How to Balance Studies and Personal Life Positively by Ajahn Brahm

2010-11-27T02:32:00.002+08:00

Last Thursday was the NUSBS Ajahn Brahm’s Talk 18th November 2010. It was the first time ever that NUS Buddhist Society had organised such a big event! Over 150 people came, from other Buddhist Societies, Staffs, Patrons, and NUSBS Alumni, but the main bulk of the people are our main targets: NUS Students! Including people from NUS Interfaith, Varsity Christian Fellowship, University Scholars Programme, Special Programme in Science, and Physics people! And most importantly, our usual NUSBS members, subcommittees, and the Management Committee!

It was also the first time that I and Damon, as co-organisers organised such a big scale event! We had about 20 people together to form a subcommittee to run the show during that day. It was a pretty nice thing to handle so many things for the first time. Eg: Goodie bags, food catering, venue booking, permits, posters, online publicities, subcommittee recruitments and management, registration for the talk, video before the talk, the flow plan for the event, the seating arrangements, the video camera, ushers, Ajahn attendant, feedback form etc…… It’s more than enough to make me not want to do this again for some time… Especially making it on reading week. In the middle of the reading week! Wow.

I’ve got to congratulate all of us to be able to make it thus far and still survive! Ha ha. Although I did not get to sit for the talk in one sitting, I get to re-examine it on video and I felt very satisfied after watching it. It makes me feel like all these effort, all these planning and preparations are worth it! And I felt that it is unfair for me to have all these good advices and good Dharma knowledge. All these wisdom is very applicable for the students (like me) who are in exam mode. So I implore you, yes you the reader, to be a listener for 2 hours (or at least 1 hour for the talk), to invest your time and to benefit much more than if you’re taking the time to study and slack (facebook, games, movies, taking with friends, lazing in bed etc…). And so here it is: (after some 10 hours of uploading, editing etc…) Enjoy and benefit. And remember to share it with your fellow students friends from all around the world!

Movies

2010-11-26T05:27:00.001+08:00

The classic reading week slacking period.

Every semester, after all the homework and lectures stops, just before the exams, there seems to be a lot of free time up our hands. So after studying for most part of the day, we slack here and there, watching movie or playing games or simply chatting with friends who we study together with.

This post is about the movie I've seen these last few days.

Let's see:

How to Lose a guy in 10 days

Romance movie, kinda disappointing in the things that I was looking for when I wanted to watch this one. Good movie to see through anyway.

Samsara

Extremely not recommended. 18SX as in seriously SX. It does teach me a lot in terms of life problems through. A disappointing movie overall, but I don’t regret watching it. Just wish that the SX part can be cut off, totally not necessary to go to such extremes. The film style is mostly silent.

Shutter island

Scarier than a horror movie. Psychological thriller. Very little about love but very good about how dangerous delusion is. Nice to see if you want a jolt through your brain.

Megamind

Totally nice. Wow, unexpected storyline and a bonus of a love story in it. It teaches me something about love and how to get a girl. An animated superhero comedy film.

Mr. Nobody

Science fiction drama film that explores multiple possible choices of Mr. Nobody on how to live his life and the implications of choices and which choice is the right choice? Teaches me about how with the right attitude in life, all the choices you make are right.

Shrek forever after

Animated fantasy comedy film that tells of a fairy tale. How to fall in love again in just one night. Very nice too.

Wow, that's a lot. It seems that a lot of the movies I see lately has an element of love in there. Sigh…… And I seems to like animated films better than real life actors. Well it’s off to studies/bed again… See ya all!

True Happiness

2010-11-23T14:35:00.001+08:00

Ever since I was a child, I kept on thinking about how to prevent suffering, how to think out of the box to stop the suffering from outside. How to keep on being happy. As a child, it was easy, just take out the toys and games and play with them. It provides instant happiness and there seems to be no drawbacks, it’s not like we had to work or study all the time.

One of the most satisfying experiences of happiness I’ve got as a child is meeting my dear cousins again. We always played together all the time whenever we meet. Even through it was just for a few days of the holidays every year, whenever we hear even the slightest news about each other, we would bath in ecstasy, waiting for them (literary at the doorstep) to come and then rush off to play computer games, Play station 1 or even just hide and seek. And whenever we separated, I would spend a whole afternoon feeling sad, usually falling asleep in the process.

Once, I had even screamed and shouted to go to their place in another state, reasoning out that parents will do whatever to make their kids happy, and this makes me happy, so they should oblige.

This is part of the pursue of happiness.

Getting top in classes, getting to skip one year of school, getting to buy and play new toys, getting to joke with friends, getting to dream about the future and writing them down, these are part of the happiness I’ve encountered.

But how long can these last? How long can any of these happiness last?

Video gaming brings as much happiness as long as you are at it.

Physics and academic pursuits brings a more subtle satisfaction that can last a bit longer.

Friends and Family brings you comfort and love and happiness as long as you’re with them, even then it is not always.

One cannot be the top of the class forever, or be the best in some area of specialisation forever.

Even the straight As which are supposed to be forever doesn’t bring you to the tops of your spirit more than just that once.

Money is obviously not a solution, any kid knows that.

Even love, the kind between boy and girl, that if successful will eventually lead to marriage and wanting to stay with her/him forever, even that love is not forever. This feeling of falling in love can no doubt be satisfied by having the significant other in your arms for the rest of your life. It may even last this whole lifetime! However strong, however intense, however insane the other person drives you when you think about her/him, it will end. It is finite.

It seems like whatever we do, we do it for the fleeting happiness that it brings us. Success, wealth, fame, gain, praise, none of them last a lifetime.

I had seen a shampoo advertisement, “Use this and you’ll get rid of your dandruff”. I wondered, does it means use it once and my head will never produce dandruff? Or do I need to use it for the rest of my life to prevent dandruff, dependent on it like drugs?

I’m sure you can see the similar analogy towards happiness.

What’s the difference between the things we do for temporary happiness versus taking drugs then? Hardly any. Perhaps it is because drugs makes you a bit more unhappy in the overall count (addicted, wasted etc…). (Not promoting drugs here, more like promoting the disgust towards our mundane lifestyle).

Those who see no way out tends to spend their life falling in love, getting married, or enjoying materialistic pleasures, be it gaming, movies, books, academics, money, and they do get their temporary happiness. Temporarily.

Perhaps it is those who work towards eternal happiness that are truly the wise ones. Those in science works for the betterment of society. For eternal happiness, the goal cannot be just having nuclear fission energy plant realised or even space travel; nothing less than immortality and cracking the secret of happiness in the brain will do.

As we are only an individual and powerless to fast-forward science, some has opted for cryonics. Some turn to religion. Religion, generally referring to the Abrahamic religions with their one true God and eternal heaven, provides a sane and good way (in general) for people to channel their energy for their own personal benefit in their afterlife. For the Indian religions and East Asian religions, it is also quite good in channelling the energy for the elongation of happiness.

In particular, for Buddhism (for I know it best) it is a path towards the ultimate happiness: the end of suffering. It does not make sense for a person who had seen for himself the futileness of mundane life to continue living it. The way out of this cycle of birth and rebirth is to practise the supra mundane life. To develop the Noble 8 fold path and to escape the wiles of suffering, the tangles of attachments, the 3 poisons forever. To work towards true happiness would be the only sane and logical purpose in life.

Not the pursuit of gain, fame, praise, worldly happiness, but the happiness that is beyond mundane and without dissatisfaction. The happiness that cannot be imagined or compared in terms of worldly happiness that still contains a tinge of un-satisfactoriness, however intense and strong worldly happiness maybe.

Viewed in this way, the pursuit of Nibbana is the only logical purpose of life.

Resume

2010-11-18T00:50:00.001+08:00

Name: Ng Xin Zhao

Fellowships and Awards:

Honourable Mention for the International Physics Olympiad 2007

Silver Medal for the International Physics Olympiad 2008

Anugerah Belia Remaja Pendidikan 2008

Dean’s List 2009, Semester 2

USP Honours Roll 2010

Education:

Malacca High School: Upper and Lower 6.

Obtained Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia

Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (Malaysian Higher School Certificate)
Pengajian Am (General Paper)	A-
Mathematics T	A
Further Mathematics T	A
Physics	A
Chemistry	A

National University of Singapore (NUS): Currently year 3 Majoring in Physics, second major in Mathematics.

Part of the Special Programme in Science (SPS), exposed to research early

Part of the University Scholars Programme (USP), a multidisciplinary Programme that accepts 3% of the whole NUS undergraduate students.

Part of Special Programme in Mathematics (SPM).

Areas of Research Interest or Areas of Specialization or Areas of Competence/ Expertise or Principal Research:

Physics, Mathematics, Done review on Closed Timelike Curves (General Relativity), Done Computational Research on finding Consistent Closed Timelike Curve in van-Stockum Universe, Photonics: micro ring resonator, Quantum information: Nonlocality Distillation.

Skills acquired:

Basic C programming, reviewing paper, writing research paper, Matlab, Mathematica, Presentation skills, poster making.

Jobs:

Taught Further Mathematics Personal Tuition for 2 months.

Internship at Data Storage Institute (DSI) as research assistant for 3 months.

Languages: English, Chinese, Malay.

Volunteering Experiences:

Youth Olympic Games 2010 in Singapore.

Co-Curricular involvement:

Assistant Publication of NUS Physics Society for 2008/09

Deputy Dharma Director for NUS Buddhist Society for 2009/10

Vice President of NUS Buddhist Society for 2010/11

Outside of Classroom involvement:

Joined Science Buskers and won the qualifying round.

Global Programme with USP, Buddhism in Asia, focusing on research at Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan.

Short-term noviciation for monkhood programme in Mangala Vihara for 15 days.

Others: Mensan

The Story of Electronics

2010-11-17T23:45:00.001+08:00

http://storyofstuff.org/electronics/

The Story of Electronics, released on November 9th, 2010 takes on the electronics industry’s “design for the dump” mentality and champions product take back to spur companies to make less toxic, more easily recyclable and longer lasting products.

Touch up

2010-11-17T22:45:00.002+08:00

This is to touch up on the transition between the post of This time on my life and the last 2 weeks. That weekend between week 11 and 12. It was crazy. I joined in the Dharma Friend training which includes some of the GLs in Dharma Camp and I’ve had a great time being my old self back again.

Then it was all weekend of thinking about my UROPs, until Sunday night. That night I had a great western dinner. On board the MV explorer, the ship for Semester at Sea! There was a dinner reception and they invited USP students to come and join in the dinner. http://www.semesteratsea.org/what-s-new-at-sas-/press-releases/sas-and-national-university-of-singapore-celebrate-academic-partnership.php

Wow, I got caught in one of the pictures! I’ve been delaying this post until I can find one of the pictures of me and voila, now I just found it! Amazing. Nothing short of amazing. Picture from: http://www.semesteratsea.org/voyage-blog/fall-2010/judith-mayotte-desmond-tutu-chair-for-global-understanding.php

The dinner was superb and the speech by Desmond Tutu (another Nobel winner that I met) is equally good! Before that, we had a good tour of the MV Explorer, it was the first time I was in a cruise ship! And the room is quite small, almost PGP size, but just a bit smaller. However the amount of activities there is so cool and the amount of countries they visited… ahhh if it wasn’t for the extremely expensive price…… I would want to join in too!

After the dinner, I hanged out and explore the ship again. I’ve met Jules Duffin, and talked a lot of things with her. http://julesduffin.com/semester/wading-through-the-world%E2%80%99s-melting-pot

It seems that she mentioned about me too! Yay and she’s a author! And now I’ve got a writer friend that’s about the same age as me! How cool is that?

Now backing up to the present, I’ve just done a [more than] 24 hour take home exam that is pure torture. From 7pm Sunday to 10am Tuesday I was in tortured mode………… doing Human Relations. During the exam time, I had slept (a little) blogged, watched Stutter Island (really nice and scary psycho-thriller movie) and chatted on msn.

After the exam, I allowed myself some break, watching 3 idiots and playing cards. However I didn’t get another good sleep until 11p.m. as I had another one of the many (especially recently) heart to heart talk with my fellow roommate, Hariom.

Then the day rolled by and it comes back to today, where I when and participate in the last of 3 sessions of the decision making research and read all the backlog of the rest of my emails that I left it there for more than 2 years now. And also deleting a lot of my sms and talking in facebook and playing bridge. It took the whole day, and now I’m way behind on my studies…

Well on another note, Ajahn Brahm’s Talk is tomorrow at NUS! As the co-organiser, I’m way happy! Yay!

See ya all next time!

Music

2010-11-17T14:46:00.002+08:00

I've decided to put this in a blog post so that it does not auto play every time you guys come and see my blog, for those who don't really like the musics. For those who want to listen to the music, I'll leave a link at the old music box. Thanks! Please comment if you don't like this arrangement.

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Last two weeks

2010-11-14T21:52:00.002+08:00

The last you saw me was when I had Laser Tag. I remember that Monday I went to 3rd Uncle’s home and stayed for one night after MDC. It was nothing short of reminiscing about the days when I was in Internship. The next Tuesday I went on and read comic books before coming back for Human Relations classes!

Week 12 was a killer week! That weekend and after… I concentrated mostly on my UROPs, from the theory to the report, it’s all spamming! It’s a good thing I got to do part of my presentation on week 10’s group meeting. It guided me a bit on what to do and what to write. Well, maybe I’ll post the report up here after I correct the mistakes. Anyway, I skipped most of my classes for that week and am I glad that most of the Buddhist Societies’ activities are over.

It was deserving of me… Anyway I did went out for some time despite my ultra-rushing for reports! I went out on Thursday night for supper with the new (to me) MSL group. That week I also guided some of the SP2170 groups’ presentation. Cause that Saturday was the actual SP2170 presentation!

After sitting in the most of the presentations, I went and sat for a decision making study test, mostly on how do I make decisions concerning money. That night was the night that two of my close friends in SPS got together at last. We celebrated it via a dinner in RVR!

Guess who got together?

Ma and my roommate, Hariom.

Oh and the previous day was Deepavali.

Anyway, the following week was full to the brim with homework again. Starting from Relativity assignment, to Medical Dharma Circle “Buddhism and Superheroes” presentation (which I actually enjoyed doing), to QM 3 Homework, UROPs presentation, and finally the biggest the hardest: Human Relations Group Project.

Let me start with the MDC one. I added a few more slides compared to last year’s and skipped the dinner to come back to SPS and meet Prof. Brett McInnes, a mathematics Prof that does research in cool areas in Physics! Just check out his website: http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/~matmcinn/

Then on to the Human Relations project! We had a group meeting on the last lecture and it is the last class for the 12 year module: Human Relations. There’ll be no more such modules in the future, so we enjoyed a dinner by Prof. Albert Teo. I’ve brought some back to SPS after doing some filming for the 10 minutes video we have to do for the module. Then I was rushing for my UROPs again and we had gone back to PGP for a special supper. Hariom, Ashik and me. Then, I had a cool UROPs presentation the next day with practically no sleep. Well it’s kinda usual already for me already for that week. So that night I slept for somewhat earlier than usual after meeting with Damon, Jun Da and Jia Jia for a video camera tryout and education. Then I woke up at 1+a.m. to start doing my part of the group report for the Human Relations module due that Thursday at 2p.m.

Well, it took some effort on teamwork but we managed to finish it up in time! The report and the video! Yay!

We had a group photo and an early dinner too. It was an interesting exploration on how to friends are made, and that night, I went for dinner outing with Hariom’s IS group. It was the 5th meal for me that day since 1a.m.

I was really tired that night and went ahead and sleep for a long time before coming to my senses that Friday. Finishing my QM 3 Homework, I was finally free to study for my exams! I surfed the net for a while and then it was time for a last look at the Ajahn Brahm’s talk. Me, Jia Jia, Damon, and Jun Da all went and had a dinner while discussing the last details for the upcoming talk on next Thursday! Then I went back to SPS and it turns out that that night was the pre-SP 2172 presentation night.

I went and helped out for Hung-Wei Ling-Benjamin group and then after that for Chern Hui-Arifin-Raymond group. Helping out meaning looking at their presentation and commenting on things to improve upon. Well, maybe I was just looking for another reason to sleep late again. I slept at 5:40a.m. along with their group and it was superb! Cause the moment I woke up it’s SP2172 congress!

With so little sleep, I managed to meditate for a while before breakfast and then joining in the congress.

It was quite an interesting and amazingly good congress overall. I went back for laundry and bath. (Trying out the video taping in the meantime, and got late for lunch). So I got to do this again: (After soooooooooo long a time (1 year I think)).

A bit full, but then……

I added more!

And then that night I started on Probability before sleeping for another 12 hour straight to go for…… our UROPs and 72 appreciation lunch! Thanks to our common supervisor, A.Prof Valerio Scarani, we go out to Chinatown and had a very full luncheon there, eating Dim Sum! I’ve got an appreciation card from Valerio and Daniel, the postdoc that was with me. That is soooooo cooollll! I’m so touched and lucky to have Valerio as my supervisor………

Then we went and had tea in tea chapter. It was a long and enjoyable tea, where I brought a teacup at the end for enjoyment in SPS. (Anyone wants some tea, just ask from me!) Then Sandoko, Tzyh Haur, Hung and me went to Buddha Tooth Relic Temple! It was amazing there. I caught a few minutes of meditating over there and it feels nice.

Now that we just gotten back… I got to go and do my Human Relations Exam (take home 24 hour) and finish it up ASAP! Now that I look back, this last 2 weeks has been full of eating out with friends and socialising! Let me count…… about 10 of them…… or more…quite a record. Wow. Seriously…… I’ve been learning about Human Relations outside of the module! Haha…

How to Repel Girls

2010-11-10T03:03:00.003+08:00

If you're a rich guy, single and not interested in the multitude of girls coming around and chasing you for your money, you've come to the right place to learn: How to repel girls!

In here are techniques no one who ever wants to marry should ever set their eyes on. This is to avoid the danger of unconsciously acting the techniques below and scare off your potential girlfriend.

Here goes your potential girlfriend:

Act weird. Try as much as possible to be as weird as possible. For example, you can show some random hand gesture and talk to yourself in pretence (or maybe in reality) whenever you're thinking of something. Be as self-absorbed as possible, ignoring all awareness of your social image. You can also act drunk after some activity you do a lot, like after eating too full, you can't walk properly and you get high, even without a sip of alcohol. Most (sane and normal) girls would avoid you if you're successful in acting weird. Be wary through, the amount of practise you need to do in order to be weird may take months, during which you might adopt it as part of you and be weird for the rest of your life, destroying a lot of social image of yourself in the process. However, don't act weird in front of your potential boss, supervisor, or someone you want to befriend with, it repels them too.
Act kiddish. Girls don't like grown ups who behave like they are still kids, jumping around and playing the fool, making fun of everything and saying "so cool" all the time. Normally girls look out for people who are mature enough to take care of them, so be immature if you want to repel these type of girls. A sure win is to observe the social protocol and say the one taboo thing in any event that anyone should not say. Usually kids get away with it because they are supposed to still be learning the social protocol of the society. Unless you got a cute smile on your face when you say something awkward like that, you may get a beating or similar social set backs. Saying you want to be a superhero helps too.
Flirt around, openly to all. Keep on talking to multiple girls, individually, try to say that they are beautiful on the first time you met her, or maybe on the 4th time you met her. Flirt openly around to multiple girls and make sure the other girls you flirt with knows that. A good technique is to hang out with your guy friends and say which girls is the prettiest within earshot of the girls you're trying to repel. Make sure you say more than one girl who is pretty, and change your mind a lot. Girls usually like guys who are loyal and truthful, so doing that dramatically decreases your chance of having any serious relationship.
Say weird things to girls. For example: your hand is so pretty. They will shy away from you and think that you're a pervert. Remember to say it when it is not appropriate in your relationships to say that. Referring to the sexiness of the body when you're just new friends with a girl will usually keep them away as they will think that you are only interested in her body. In the case of a girl so shameless as to be practically a hooker, say something like how long have you not bathed or brushed your teeth or try to explain some complicated physics equations to her (only if she is repellent towards physics or learning in general). If that doesn't work, keep on being aware of the most socially awkward thing to say and say it at the time when the effect is the greatest.
Openly admit and say that you intend to be a celibate. This may include being a priest or a monk or any deep religious practise that requires celibacy. This will deter any girls who are serious in their relationships and wise enough to see that if they don't want to get a heart break eventually, they better not start any relationship with you. If they don't see that, you can mention it to them to remind them. Remember to be-careful not to say it too openly if you've some family members who seriously wants you to continue your family linage.
Give a valentine's gift or put her into your blog, spreading some gossips about her in the process. This technique works when you're not good friends (or maybe close friends) with the girl enough and suddenly you spread gossips that you like that girl and even put that in your blog. And also to give a valentine's gift for her out of the blue as the first open statement to her that you're having a crush on her. The girl might (out of anger or feeling disrespected (you were entertaining yourself in the spreading of the gossip and not caring about the feelings of the girl anyway, she does deserve to feel that way)) reject your gift (unless she's into you and seriously don't mind being played with like that) and there your potential girlfriend list is reduced by 1.

Ok, that's about it for now, there are many other techniques, including defaming yourself, promoting your negative values and attributes, be uncaring, ungentle, ungracious, rude, impolite, demanding, looking down on others (i.e. the girl), acting perverted, etc... but these are a bit more extreme and may potentially get rid of your guy friends too (if acting weird or kiddish didn't already do that).

Also apparently acting gay might induce the girl to be attracted to you (as seen in Kick-Ass), as she thinks you don't have any perverted interest in girls and allow you to go close to her.

That said, if you do intend to get a girlfriend and you read all the above anyway, don't worry, it's hard to do the above if you don't have any intention to scare off the girl you like. If you already have all these girls repelling technique used and you're in a boy-girl relationship, married, or still there are some girls not repelled by you, you better appreciate that girl as she is unique and truly loves you.

If you're a failure in relationships and repel girls naturally, try to see if you have any of the above techniques in activated in passive mode and deactivate them as necessary to even remotely have a chance of getting a girl to like you.

Girls, please point out any mistake here if there is and if any of you are willing to go out with someone who has all the 6 points above, email me! (By the way, if no girls do that, I think this qualifies as another girl repelling technique)

This time on my life

2010-10-30T19:59:00.002+08:00

Everyone’s favourite topic is him/herself. Mine’s too. Explains why I keep on updating my life. What’s the use of having a blog anyway? I don’t want to remember my University days via the Facebook pictures and the links online here and there and piece them all together some day in my future. Might as well get it done with now.

USP Honour Rolls.

Since the USP honour rolls, I’ve been to the Medical Dharma Circle. Yi Qing was there and I was quite happy for that! Walking back to SPS, I started a series of late night works. Week 8 has Meditation Course, Discovering Buddhism, and no Dharma Circle (we had Dharma Camp subcommittee meeting instead). Then we had a late dinner at Munchies Monkeys after the meeting. It is nice to see the Dharma Camp subcommittee so dedicated and attending to the meetings.

Dinner at Munchies Monkeys-didn’t eat.

The next day, I went with Wen Xin and Chriswini for temple hunting after meeting our spiritual advisor. We didn’t succeed much, but it’s a nice trip on a Saturday nonetheless. That weekend, the Thursday IS group was rehearsing for the Dean’s Tea and I joined them in for some time. It’s a very nice experience to mix with the young people.

Week 9 features the SPS Dean’s Tea! Where we had super-serious fun enjoying the presentation of the newbies and good free food!

The time travellers group was there!

Then there is a NTU Buddhist Society talk on Wednesday, on which I am tempted to go, and went. Alvin fetched us all to go to NTU and we had a good time listening to Venerable Chuan Guan. We had gotten a marble and a paper that prompted me to start meditating daily.

Then I went to the University Town question and answer session and thus missing Discovering Buddhism on Thursday night.

That Friday, I recorded down my experiences for analysing later on, part of my Human Relations module. Friday night I went to Dharma Circle on the topic of Relationships with Family and Friends by Venerable Chuan Guan too.

Come Saturday, we went to Ven. Thubten Chodron’s talk at Poh Ming Tse, I and Eddy stayed back for the Building Self-Esteem talk later on. In the meantime, we interacted with the SIMBB people.

Then come Week 10. I went to the weekly Medical Dharma Circle, Meditation Course, Discovering Buddhism, and then there’s the Ajahn Brahm’s Talk Subcommittee meeting and Dharma Camp Subcommittee meeting. That’s Monday to Friday. Another normal week, weekend: Gone to Singapore City Square Mall, the first eco-mall in Singapore. And helped out in the Social Enterprise Showcase, the M.D.A.S.

That’s another weekend gone. Then came the last weekly activities on Week 11. I passed a comments book to the participants and it’s mostly nice remarks. That Wednesday, inspired by Barney, I went for Laser Tag! (Btw, I’ve finished the How I Met Your Mother, 110+ episodes in under 17 days.)

It’s really fun! Then after that I came back to SPS and talked to Chin Xia for about an hour before going on to Meditation.

Then on Friday (yesterday), I went to SPS to do homework the whole day before going to the Last Dharma Circle of the Semester. After that, we had a 2+ hour of MC meeting. The next morning is the Dharma Friend training course. It was fun acting (during the trial Dharma Circle) again for a while.

Then I came back to SPS and heard the SPS journal club. Now I’m going for a long over due dinner. See ya!

Oh ya, looking at my active weekends, I estimate I go out of campus about 3 times per week on average, mostly for Buddhist Society stuffs. And noticing this post is mostly about Buddhist Society, I think I let it take over my life far too much……… must pull back……

Assurances of the Buddha

2010-10-29T17:54:00.002+08:00

Sometimes one may get discouraged by the fact that since everything is impermanent, even if we attained to high states of existence, but still unenlighted, we are still liable to fall back to the cycle of samsara.

“What if I practise so hard in this life, just to get my karma used up by the next person who inherits it?”

“Is this the right path? Should I sacrifice attachment to all those pleasurable things (Facebook, blogger, gaming, manga, drama series, girls (boys) etc…… for this life of living in the forest and just sitting there?”

When doubts like that bites, it is perhaps time to remember that the Buddha did set some assurances of results from certain actions.

First one that comes to mind is from the Kalama Sutta:

On what basis one should perform good actions he presents four following assurances as found in the Kalama sutta. He says if anyone performs good actions:

1. If there is next life after death and if there is retributions of actions rightly and wrongly done, he/she does not have to worry about it because he/she will have good destination then. This is the first assurance.

2. If there is no next life and if there is no retributions of actions rightly and wrongly done, also he/she does not have worry about it because he/she lived a good life here and now. This is the second assurance.

3. If he does evil unconsciously without intending to harm anyone still he/she does not have to worry because suffering will not touch him. This is the third assurance.

4. And finally if he/she does not do evil even unknowingly, he/she is then pure in both respects (action and intention), therefore he/she will not be touched by suffering. This is the fourth assurance.

These are the four assurances given by the Buddha to those who cultivate good thoughts and lead a good and holy life.

From: http://mingkok.buddhistdoor.com/en/news/d/14468

Second one is on marriage:

[The Blessed One said:] "If both husband & wife want to see one another not only in the present life but also in the life to come, they should be in tune [with each other] in conviction, in tune in virtue, in tune in generosity, and in tune in discernment. Then they will see one another not only in the present life but also in the life to come."

Husband & wife, both of them having conviction, being responsive, being restrained, living by the Dhamma, addressing each other with loving words: they benefit in manifold ways. To them comes bliss. Their enemies are dejected when both are in tune in virtue. Having followed the Dhamma here in this world, both in tune in precepts & practices, they delight in the world of the devas, enjoying the pleasures they desire.

From: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.055.than.html

Then there is also the attainment of Streamwinner:

Won the stream to Nibbana. Free from the first three fetters (personality belief, skeptical doubt and attachment to rules and rites) which bind beings to existence in the sensuous sphere. Not subject to rebirth in lower worlds, seven rebirths at the most in heavenly and human realms. Is firmly established, destined for full enlightenment.

From: http://www.lordbuddhaswords.org/Stream-Winner.html

Next is the practise of Mindfulness:

"Bhikkhus, were anyone to maintain in being these four foundations of mindfulness for seven years ... let alone for seven years ... for seven days, then one of two fruits could be expected of him: either final knowledge here and now, or else non-return."

From: http://www.buddhanet.net/cmdsg/bt-9.htm

Also the practise of Loving-Kindness:

"Monks, for one whose awareness-release through good will is cultivated, developed, pursued, handed the reins and taken as a basis, given a grounding, steadied, consolidated, and well-undertaken, eleven benefits can be expected. Which eleven?

"One sleeps easily, wakes easily, dreams no evil dreams. One is dear to human beings, dear to non-human beings. The devas protect one. Neither fire, poison, nor weapons can touch one. One's mind gains concentration quickly. One's complexion is bright. One dies unconfused and — if penetrating no higher — is headed for the Brahma worlds.

"These are the eleven benefits that can be expected for one whose awareness-release through good will is cultivated, developed, pursued, handed the reins and taken as a basis, given a grounding, steadied, consolidated, and well-undertaken."

From: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an11/an11.016.than.html

Then there is the assurance of the prediction of the Bodhisattva:

Form the first Prediction to be a Bodhisattva from a Buddha onwards, the Bodhisattva is destined to become a Buddha.

-summarised from The Great Chronicles of the Buddhas vol 1.

So practise on with faith and understanding. Let these words clear your doubts!

Kick Ass

2010-10-25T15:15:00.001+08:00

I just saw Kick Ass yesterday,

Review:

The beginning was nice, exploring the idea of why nobody amongst the millions of fans of superheroes dares to be one themselves? I could identify very much with Dave (the main character) in the beginning. And the first time he fought crime was suitably portrayed. The second time was courageous, but still possible. The third time was plain stupid and he had to be saved by Hit Girl, who murdered the gangsters like they are zombies.

After that, the adventures all get unbelievable. There's enough real live gore and violence there. And even an almost real lesson to be taught of what really happens to superheroes. But Hit Girl is the extreme part. Anyway the movie would be sad without her. So it's idealistic, but more real than other Marvel or DC superheroes stories.

Compared to Watchmen, it's more like the watchmen's superhero age started early, Kick-Ass superhero age starts now. So Kick-Ass's world is still pretty nice overall, but it is more realistic in the sense that we have one amateur superhero: Kick-Ass.

Whatup?

2010-10-04T14:37:00.002+08:00

Oh man, it's been one month since I take up the Vice President of NUSBS role. It's a bit more taxing than the last one I had, but I've gotten used to it.

And pardon my talking like this, I've been watching "How I met your Mother" until the 4th season by now in less than 2 weeks.

Oh let's see what happened since last month.

I've gotten the Vice President role of NUSBS in the AGM. Done some handover stuffs and planning for the 1st Management Committee Retreat which was held 2 weeks after the AGM. In the meantime, there's a lot of stuffs to do for Dharma Camp, the weekly activities, and Ajahn Brahm coming to NUS for a Dharma Talk (18th November). That's 1 for CCA.
For studies, hmm... it seems to be taking a back stage audience as I seem to prefer to busy myself with NUSBS stuffs than doing my homework. Or studying.
Then for Mid-Autumn Festival, I've gone briefly to the Physoc celebration and then Prof. Lee invited us to go for a Mid-Autumn gathering! It's the NUSBS MC and we have the chance to chat!
Then there's also the Tzu Ching 1 day camp at Tzu Chi Singapore. That was last Saturday and it's really fun to join in and lots of things to learn from.
There's also Johan's Birthday yesterday and we went to celebrate it with him.
Oh ya there's also the SPS board game day! I organised it.
I went for the NUS President Appreciation Lunch with Student Leaders. It was a nice thing of NUS to do for us!
I went to Muscular Dystrophy Association Singapore to volunteer and to get to know the organisation better for my group project in the Human Relations module.
And mainly busy with the Dharma Camp preparations.
And also went to NTUBS AGM as an observer. It was nice meeting them all again.
And having lots of Mid terms now.
Oh and I'm going for the USP honour's roll tonight! I've got to update my CV /Resume soon.

Okie, that's all I see for now. Whatup?