这一天

提醒着我

为什么，还在继续做

为什么，需要做得更多

她们的爱

意想不到的关怀

告诉着你，

你的努力没有白费

提醒着你，

常被遗忘的意义。

化妆舞会

昨晚晚宴

化腐朽

为神奇

These days

I feel constantly hungry and in bliss. :)

It makes the most horrible,

feels like a breeze.

Ugly

I'm utterly disgusted.

The way you try to reshape the truth,

and bad-mouth her indirectly.

In comparison,

my girls have much more integrity.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

掰

噢，还有我想说。

被唾弃的，

或许并不是，

带来银牌的外来人才。

而是那感觉，

根本不“属于”新加坡的，

外来银牌。

Life

朋友传给我的，

毕业典礼上的一席话。

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable. Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning. You've probably been told the big lie that "Learning is a lifelong process" and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on.

You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they're wrong. The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone.

That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy.

We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino.

It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.

I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy. After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.Work kills. The Japanese have a term "Karoshi", which means death from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are "making a living". No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons:you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don't, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill.

Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions.

It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn't say "be loved". That requires too much compromise. If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone. Rather, I exhort you to love another human being.

It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false.

Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise.

Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness.

In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person.

Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone. You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.

Adrian Tan, a litigator from Drew & Napier and author of the teenage textbook

早餐

自妹妹从苏格兰回来后，

她非常怀念那放缓的生活方式，

尤其是那里的饮食。

她誓言每天，

早餐要喝一杯牛奶才上课，

然而这里的生活节奏却不允许。

我也很喜欢这样，

尽管不赶着要上班时，

我常来不及醒来吃早餐。

5.30am 起床、刷牙、洗澡、梳妆，

6.20am 赶着离开家门。

比太阳早起的节奏，没时间让头脑清醒，

更不用说吃早餐。

所以，早餐是一种奢侈。

记得年少还住在勿洛时，

每逢星期六爸妈都会带我们，

到勿洛中心的麦当劳吃 Big Breakfast。

Scrambled eggs，sausages，beans，

bacon，cheese and milk.

我喜欢这样美式的早餐。

这样的早餐，

让我非常享受在澳洲的时光。

那种生活方式，

给予呼吸的时间、思索的空间。

那种生活方式，

不会让你深夜失眠。

苏格兰

在我们开始的不知何时起，

CS 说有一天带我离开这里，

到苏格兰去。

尽管不知为何苏格兰，

天涯海角的美丽，

仍让人感动窃喜。

然而妹妹，

却因女童军的关系，

比我们先接近苏格兰。

瞬间，

苏格兰并不遥远，

只是咫尺之间。

Salsa

Dance Festival

Cuban Salsa.

Any takers?

Nonchalent

Smile

and keep that body moving.

Dance all that bad away. :)

亲爱的祖国

我很爱你。

然而，

也极度想远离你。

你的一些措举，

让原本就已经喘不过气的人，

感觉更加难以呼吸。

你只想不断往前进，

却完全忽略了那些还在挣扎生存的子民。

还是你根本，

就想将他们淘汰出外？

亲爱的祖国，

我们应该都很爱你。

然而是否就像他们所说的，

if you care too much,

first it will break your spirits,

then it will break your heart.

Rainbow beneath

I have to stop this negativity
that is brewing inside of me.

It makes me feel weaker
than I already am.

People continue to draw strength from me,
when strength is what I no longer can offer.

And it sadden me to see
despair in silent agony.

I frantically searched for solutions,
where none is in existence.

There is no solution.

For matters that cannot be taken
into our own hands,
I must remember to be patient.

I forgot.

Time is needed
for the truth and answer to surface.

It is a vicious cycle,
something I need to distance from.

For only distance can cleanse my vision.

I need a clear vision,
to stay strong in faith and hope.

Faith,
that everything will turn out alright.

Hope,
that what ridiculously went down,
will one day come up again.

take away

dear God

if you cannot make him go away

please be with her and guide her way

she needs comfort and the knowledge that she will be alright

i do not possess the strength, even though i've tried

it has affected me too much

i had had enough

dear God

please be with her

你，去。

做恶梦。

梦醒时，

枕头是湿的。

你若知道，

我所做的噩梦，

你是否会因为自己所造成梦魇，

而感到惭愧、内疚、心虚、伤痛？

我憎恨你，

让我背负了如此沉重的一切，

只因为你个人自以为是的暧昧利益关系。

你让我非常想远离这里，

远离你和这几乎快要疯狂的城市。

然而，

我必须沉住。

我会在受不了时，

深深吸一口气。

然后想像你是肺里的那股废气，

大力将它吐得远远的。

我会开始练习，

那不带感情和言语的眼神，

让它来敷衍你一切的虚假关问。

我会告诉自己，

我是我，你是你。

有一天，当一切稳定，

我会飞离。

我的生活，

基本上已经不牵涉你。

我要坚强，

稳健地走出你的框框。

有一天，

我的天空，

不会再因你而影响情绪。

我是我，你是你。

And if you want to know,

I sometimes pray that you will go away.

To guilt

CS called at 5.25am as he always does to make sure I get out of bed.

I was awake. I never slept. My nose was blocked, I kept sneezing. I couldn't get to sleep at all.

CS was concerned. He told me to rest for the day, as he always did.

I wouldn't.

My girls were having their Prelims Oral Examination that day. And there is already a shortage of teachers available as examiners. I cannot be absent.

CS did not insist. Even though I kept murmuring that I feel really unwell.

He knew I was in a dilemma. He knew if I decided on taking an MC, I would go through the entire episode of guilt trip.

"Let a coin decide for you." He said. Then he tossed a coin on my behalf, while I was on the other line waiting.

"Head to go, tail to rest." I murmured.

"If I can have my way, I'd put tail on both sides." He said, as he tossed the coin.

In the end, it was tail.

I gladly accepted the decision made for me, went back to bed and see the doctor later in the morning.

Doctor announced me feverish, with flu virus.

Still, I went through that guilt trip, when I heard that 3 were absent on that fateful day, me included.

Well, perhaps I shouldn't.

I rarely take MC, but this year the body immunity system really went chaotic, for whatever reason.

I wouldn't want it, if I can help it.

And if not for CS, I think I would have pushed myself through the full long day, spread the flu virus everywhere I sneeze, and get very sick by the end of the week.

Which is more responsible? I wonder.

I think the society and myself are confused.