In one of my email MSN conversations last week, a friend asked me to describe my summer holiday in one word, and whether I would change any part of it if I could.

After much deliberation I managed to come up with two - Different and Educational.
And when I really got down to thinking about it, there're probably only two things about this summer that I'd change.

It's been a summer for change. I've done plenty that I've never done before, and learnt quite a bit in the process. Recent developments have opened my eyes to things I never noticed befstore, and led me to adopt an altered attitude toward a number of things.
And I reckon that it's only with developments like these that we can see things more clearly, and begin to understand how to deal with situations in a more informed manner.

On a different note, this summer has been a season for wholesale upheaval, some of it clear-cut, some of it a little more, well, nebulous (and probably sinister).

How'd you describe your summer in one word, and what would YOU change?

- Kerryokee -

All over the island, hapless machines are being repeatedly subjected to extreme torture for the cruel, meaningless pleasure of Singaporeans, on a daily basis.
This is a darker side of the city-state that is not openly publicised; denizens have struggled hard for years to come to terms with themselves and their sick game.
It is a cruel sport, one not unlike fox-hunting, and one which enables man to further stamp his authority on machine.

I think people who do evil things in their lives get reincarnated as TV sets in KBox booths. Or microphones. Either way, they get the backlash of their karma with people screaming away at them in disastrously strained and off-key tones for no apparent reason. Cold-blooded murderers, depraved rapists, avaricious burglars, no being that committed a heinous crime in its past life is spared. All find themselves subject to a life of shrill serenading and discordant tunes.
There has to be something morally reprehensible about it all. It ought to be outlawed, particularly when the victim of this relentless torment is incapable of self-defence.
So the next time you go venting your frustration at a KBox outlet somewhere near you, think about the grave injustice you're dealing to a TV screen which has no way of fighting back and reflect on yourself.

Now excuse me, Project Superstar's back on the telly and I want to see how they sing before I go karaoke.

- Camels hump -

An Egyptian merchant and his son were passing through a busy market, with the man riding a camel and his son walking alongside him.
"What an unkind man," said some observers. "He sits on the camel himself while his poor son has to walk through the hot desert."

The next day, the man decided to walk, and let his son sit on the camel.
"How unfilial of the son!" cried the marketfolk this time. "Young chap like him happily rides on the camel while his poor old father has to walk. Really, the youth of today!"

The third day, both father and son decided to walk with the camel.
"What fools!" exclaimed the passersby, who gasped in disbelief. "A perfectly good camel, and they're both walking!"

On the fourth and final day, they decided to carry the camel.
"What utter idiots," cried the people, and rightfully so. "They've become the beasts of burden!"

Go figure.

- Light relief -

A Captain in the foreign legion was transfered to a desert outpost. On his orientation tour he noticed a very old, seedy looking camel tied out back of the enlisted mens barracks. He asked the Sergeant leading the tour, "What's the camel for?". The Sergeant replied "Well sir it's a long way from anywhere, and the men have natural sexual urges, so when they do, uh, we have the camel."
The captain said "Well if it's good for morale, then I guess it's all right with me."

After he had been at the fort for about 6 months the captain could not stand it any more so he told his Sergeant, "BRING IN THE CAMEL!!!" The sarge shrugged his shoulders and led the camel into the captains quarters. The captain got a foot stool & proceeded to relive himself with the camel. As he stepped, satisfied, down from the stool, and was buttoning his pants he asked the Sergeant, "Is that how the enlisted men do it?"

The Sergeant replied, "Well sir, they usually just use the camel to ride into town to find the women.
-----
One day a guy dies and finds himself in hell. As he is wallowing in despair he has his first meeting with a demon...

Demon: Why so glum chum?
Guy: What do you think? I'm in hell.
Demon: Hell's not so bad. We actually have a lot of fun down here...you a drinkin' man?
Guy: Sure, I love to drink. Love the drinks.
Demon: Well you're gonna love Mondays then. On Mondays that's all we do is drink. Whiskey, tequila, Guinness, wine coolers, diet tab, and fresca...we drink till we throw up and then we drink some more!
Guy: Gee that sounds great.

Demon: You a smoker?
Guy: You better believe it! Love the smoking.
Demon: Alright! You're gonna love Tuesdays. We get the finest cigars from all over the world and smoke our lungs out. If you get cancer - no biggie - you're already dead remember?
Guy: Wow...that's...awesome!

Demon: I bet you like to gamble.
Guy: Why yes as a matter of fact I do. Love the gambling.
Demon: Cause Wednesday you can gamble all you want. Craps, Blackjack, Roulette, Poker, Slots, whatever... If you go Bankrupt...well you're dead anyhow.

Demon: You into drugs?
Guy: Are you kidding? Love drugs! You don't mean...
Demon: That's right! Thursday is drug day. Help yourself to a great big bowl of crack. or smack. Smoke a doobie the size of a submarine. You can do all the drugs you want and if ya overdose - that's right - you're dead - who cares! O.D.!!
Guy: Yowza! I never realized Hell was such a swingin' place!!

Demon: You gay?
Guy: Uh no.

Demon: Ooooh (grimaces) you're really gonna hate Fridays.

- Tipping the scales? -

It has been said that the fundamental order of nature is such that there must inherently exist balance as an everpresent eventuality. That there is extensive literature debating the issue bears testament to this. And thus it is mere adherence to the way of the world that many a conundrum we find ourselves facing today should adhere to such a principle.
The convalescing process in nature, goes an urban legend, is aided by a perfect balance of yin and yang, while an equivalence must be attained between firm policy and humble consultation to expedite the same process in politics, especially following a humiliation at the hands of the electorate (Chirac, you listening?); besides, symmetric faces are objectively recognised as the most beautiful.

I read, with a queer emotion of slight agony interspersed with a smidgen of amusement, a contemporary's attempt to extol at length the apparent dichotomy that exists between what one wants to do and what one has to do. An 'eternal tussle' was the extent to which the author went in referring to this dilemma.
It was intimated that a conflict must be present between that which one is inclined to undertake at leisure and that which one is compelled to perform. Is that necessarily the case, I wondered? Can what we want to do never be reconciled with what we see as a personal responsiblity to?

My riposte came immediately: while the former affords the psychological comfort modern society seems to crave so badly today, the latter serves as our raison d'être, but the two could hardly be considered mutually exclusive from the off. My friends can attest to my innate predisposition to refer nearly everything back to academia, so I seek no forgiveness in repeating an old habit. In preparing for an examination, it is what you want to do (or, in the interest of clarity, how you want to do) that gives you an idea of what you have to do.

Despite my very biased argument thus far in favour of balance, a timely caveat must be offered: to hastily conclude that a tempered stance should be taken on all accounts would quickly prove a misguided decision.
Odd, you may think, that such an abrupt juxtaposition should occur like a shot in the blue.
But before you condemn my schizophrenic and eqivocal outlook, I beseech you, suspend your judgment and hear me out.

I run the risk of fanning the flames of contention in the vindictive diatribe that is to follow, but it is a task that must be undertaken, for some issues on which there is an implicit agreement must be articulated, if at least in prose.

Often we find ourselves tempering our speech and behaviour with pleasantries, our reservations in an unfamiliar setting making themselves evident in mannerisms that do not come naturally.
Is this necessary? Yes, and it is even advisable should the situation call for diplomacy.

But adaptibility is a virtue, particularly in interacting with difficult sorts. To maintain the naive position that we should abide by modern standards of 'nice' with everyone is a tad quixotic, if not foolish.
When self-interest takes centrestage in your life, do you not automatically abdicate your claim to amiable treatment?
When dealing with one that is completely self-absorbed, is behaviour that is less than civil not perfectly justified?

"What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can read only a few and those perhaps not accurately." - John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

- Living the lie II -

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955

Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep. ~Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 1750

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. ~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. ~Harvey Fierstein

- Living the lie -

Watching One Tree Hill to relieve myself of boredom lately has somehow triggered off an avalanche of memories. One in particular involves a dull yellow metal tin I used to own. It must have gone missing in one of my multiple shifts of abode, or maybe it's corroded to dust by now, but once upon a time that box used to take up permanent residence on my desk.

It was nothing much to look at, really, just your average cuboidal box which to my memory had no ostentatious design on it. But it served its purpose, and proved a useful repository for all manner of bits and pieces.

I remember going home with a friend one day, when she commented that the box was one shade of ugly. Slightly embarrassed, I started dressing my box up, drawing out gothic shapes on a sheet of black paper and sticking them on it, and putting sequins on its sides and all.
I dressed it up and made it look flashy and aesthetically appealing.
I'd given it a new skin, and I was well proud of this reborn box of mine.

I moved out of my place a couple of months later and kept the box in one of my drawers, and it fell out of my radar for some time until I began looking for something (can't recall what it was) and remembered that I'd stored it in my box, and a great hunt for my box ensued.
I remember searching for my yellow box everywhere that day, opening up all my closets and drawers but it managed to elude me despite my best efforts... until I remembered what I had to look for - a tin that was no longer yellow, but which was enclothed in black, with bling-bling colouring its sides.

It was right there, in front of me, and only then did I realise I'd lost sight of what it really was.
I stripped it of its gaudy black designs and shiny sequins to reveal what I'd wanted all along - a dull yellow metal tin - and I found that I liked it just the way it was.

I don't need to be anything other than a prison guard's son
I don't need to be anything other than a specialist's son
I don't have to be anyone other than a birth of two souls in one
Part of where I'm going is knowing where I'm coming from

I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately
All I have to do is think of me and have peace of mind
I'm tired of looking 'round rooms wondering what I gotta do
Or who I'm supposed to be
I don't want to be anything other than me

I'm surrounded by liars everywhere I turn
I'm surrounded by imposters everywhere I turn
I'm surrounded by a identity crisis everywhere I turn
Am I the only one to notice?
I can't be the only one who's learned