places stay the same. lesson of manhattan

all the best times were inside looking out. acting out the lives of couples at chijmes. squid.

live your life like a work of art. you'd want it to be, wouldn't you?

when people are gone, places.

love.

have stopped writing for a while now. so many reasons. loss of momentum. thoughts piled up therefore not knowing where to start. lack of external stimuli. and the internal stimuli always seems to be the same old shit. too much noise, no time. nothing is new. and i feel i've become such a bad writer anyway.

and so the search for change and something new. to throw self into friends even though intimacy is short in coming. to discover other forms of expression. but i'm getting tired of the search. have pockets of time. need to start somewhere again and feel that this helps.

and when i do this, not for people to read. just a place to lock stuff away so you can use for listening. start from small things, train the muscles again.

i miss europe intensely tonight. it's not the cool nights and the cobblestone streets today. today i miss the anonymity of popping into a museum

F1!!

dissonance with all this 'meaning of life' stuff.

i am not looking for fucking meaning, or some goal, or some place i can reach the top of.

there is meaning enough around all of us.

my dissonance comes from trying to look for something that isn't there.

phrasing does matter to me.

little girl blue always starts with the tune from good king wenceslas. the version nina has on 'my baby cares for me' goes from this innocence to a maelstorm of keys that you can just lose yourself in. doesn't happen in her other versions.

same with 'for a while' live at ronnie scotts, when she blends into 'if you knew'

the other versions just don't cut it. musical theatre at its best.

for there are only so many sunrises one can watch, anyway

and when you realize, that all these damn books and movies about sunrises, about beautiful things, that all they're ever there about is to haunt you.

then you don't have to be disappointed by them

beautiful sounds collection -- the whirr of the holga when its flash is charging.

"so beautiful night in italy, spain, those"

notes left on my laptop for a week since blogging doesn't gel well with schedule. hmm, yes, they did spend the good deal of 300 years beautifying paris. but this is not about paris. i love amber lights!

i'll be your mirror goes on the playlist FOR IMPORTANT OCCASIONS.



Ill be your mirror
Reflect what you are, in case you dont know
Ill be the wind, the rain and the sunset
The light on your door to show that youre home

When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside youre twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
cause I see you

I find it hard to believe you dont know
The beauty that you are
But if you dont let me be your eyes
A hand in your darkness, so you wont be afraid

When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside youre twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
cause I see you

Ill be your mirror

what i most fucking miss about london was the sheer anonymity. i loved the cobbled streets. so old so much rain in them. so uneven. so dirty so grimy. velvet underground.

love love love love heathcote williams. kids look away

this is from "broken english"

Whyd ya do it, she said, when you know it makes me sore,
cause she had cobwebs up her fanny and I believe in giving to the poor.
Whyd ya do it, she said, whyd you spit on my snatch ?
Are we out of love now, is this just a bad patch ?

Oh, big grey mother, I love you forever
With your barbed wire pussy and your good and bad weather.
Whyd ya do it, she said, whyd you do what you did ...

ah i feel better now

lots of innovation in between, but always surprised when i see that women in the 60's don't look dated. similar styles of makeup and hair.

you want peace? fine but you don't get the light

miss writing. GOD i want to do something impossibly sweet again. need muse lack one.

meditate

my favourite passage in the old testament., 1 kings 19. you can find everything in a whisper. that rather than fire and brimstone and lightning. he is the softest, he is the peace, and he would never dare disturb your sleep. i volunteered to read this passage as a kid. amongst the prophets, i find elijah the closest in spirit and nature to jesus and john the baptist.

have come to believe the old testament is important, even if it doesn't appeal to me. a lot of the narrative, the lessons are about overcoming fear. fear of the iniquities of evil men, walking through the valley of darkness, being sheperded etc... and so often these are the things that we encounter in daily life.

transcendental is to overcome fear and to arrive at peace, regardless of what happens in the valley.

Elijah was afraid ^[a] and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, ⁴ while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." ⁵ Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." ⁶ He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. ⁷ The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." ⁸ So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. ⁹ There he went into a cave and spent the night.

¹¹ The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. ¹³ When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

what are you doing here?

in an amusing conversation i had recently, i question: can one choose to be an outcast? or is one simply pre-empting rejection?

one is best punished for one's virtues

nietzsche, beyond good and evil

there are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. the rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times

i have not tired of the wilderness; rather i enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life i lead, more keenly all the time. i prefer the saddle to the streetcar and the star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unkown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. do you blame me then for staying here, where i feel that i belong and am at one with the world around me? it is true that i miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom i can share the things that mean so much to me that i have learnt to contain myself. it is enough that i am surrounded with beauty...

everett ruess, writing from utah

the national geographic store @ vivo city is just gorgeous. it's my little childhood getaway.

national day weekend

love driving at night in singapore. well, basically love driving, although a little less during peak hours. one must learn to make ERP a friend.









lazy weekend... been playing this song a lot on the guitar

wu tang clan. mmm.

over the past few days i've been migrating from mac. but what i miss most is the simplicity of the interface, windows is just an endless stream and pain of updates. completely inelegant. why am i using it? sick of not being able to run software, and need for cheaper, faster hardware

happy national day, singapore. home, for me is the texture of memory. fresh starts anywhere are always possible, but a place has weight when your surroundings can affect you.

so, for me, there really isn't a need for self congratulation, the knowledge that i am in the best of all possible places. but nonetheless it's a place of many memories.

interface of bb storm, much clunkier than iphone.

but i must say, you can type like a god, and email really works.

ah but i was so much older then... i'm younger than that now...

i read another killer line today while relaxing in mph after the big event, it was from "into the wild": children are innocent and love justice, while most adults are wicked and prefer mercy

been well, been busy, with work and play. tonight is a rare night i'm back before 10, and i get to laze in bed and have absolutely nothing to do. fiddle around with new phone (blackberry vs iphone, verdict blackberry fail. have decided to leave the camera on the left side of the bed where i usually sleep and shift to the right. and it's strange how it triggers. i always used to sleep on this side because the air-con would blow straight on that side, and she would take the left side where it was less chilly.

to take that, to smile, to blog, and then to get back to doing what i have to do.

ah but i was so much older then, i'm younger than that now...

work late, drink, laugh, buy shiny things, wash, rinse, repeat. will probably slow down for nat day weekend.

it is uncanny how class 95 never plays an obscure song. the vw isn't the loudest in the world but i think engine noise is pure sex anyway. smooth sex.

i can feel your halo, halo...

what a long week it's been.

god invented the car, so we might drive around with the stereo on for long, unquantifiable distances. the purr of the engine calms me.

have always dreamt of finding such places, might be the closest to the moon i'll ever get

being able to name the astronaut who played golf on the moon is a major turn on. and this is why i am totally incapable of making wise decisions.

i was asked the tricky question today, one i usually botch up the answer to. i was asked it in jc, and i asked to pray for the strength of faith. some people thought that was courageous. as i grew older you could say i gave up.

perhaps it is true, perhaps the life i have led is not a christian one, and that makes simple answers to simple questions unnecessarily difficult. the lack of faith, humility, conviction possibly shines through and is scented from a mile away. can't give a simple answer. but i don't feel a yes or no in my brain. well, i actually feel a strong yes, but then i compare it to the world and so many things don't fit. so if you ask me if i share your faith, i think the better answer would be no. i still do botch up the answers.

but i want to relate two stories. i was holed up in a ramshackle room in maumere for 2 days, and eugenio had already flown off to denpasar. there were lots of highs and lows on the trip, the hard climb to rinjani, the motorbike ride under the stars to the top of kelimutu. and then occasionally i would feel really low. what mainly picked me up was dancing to songs in my ipod, but i dug myself out too by remembering these stories.

the first is from ben hur, which originally was just a novel written by someone trying to sort out his own religious beliefs. i read an abridged pictorial version when i was young, and the picture has always stuck with me. judah ben-hur is a person whose religion and race has been slighted in the face of roman domination. he vows revenge for his own personal injuries. he trains night and day to race chariots or whatever it is romans do for fun. he is attracted to a woman and he and his friends are excited by jesus, and pledge to fight for his cause. they read the prophesies and are convinced that he will lead them out of the yoke of domination. he thinks jesus is mucking about because he's supposed to be the next king of the jews but he never shows himself.

now this is where my memory might be playing tricks. maybe i have remembered wrongly, but in my story jesus walks up the hill in cavalry. they nail him to the cross and kill him. i put myself in ben hur's shoes and jesus is just up there, dead, doing nothing. the fuck? i was hoping so long for him to flay all the romans to dust and lived an upright life, maximizing my abilities hoping to fight for your cause. and you're just there dead. where is the miracle now? so exactly what is it has your life accomplished?

and then they step back for a moment and they think, guess he's not the political leader we're waiting for. but who is this person who has inspired us by his example anyway? he's delivered nothing, never answered the thing i was praying for. but what attracted me so much of his example? and the lesson they were meant to learn is that he truly was not a king of this earth. so was there a nobility to his dying?

so i think a cornerstone of faith would be: so what if there is no life after death, no resurrection in the conventional sense we are hoping for? just as jesus did not fulfill ben hur's conventional interpretation of the bible, why should we believe that "i am the resurrection and the life" means more of the same worldly things we expect? what if living forever is something... different?

i read crime and punishment for the first time in maumere. i had dreaded opening it for a while thinking it would read like a typical 1800's novel, but when i opened it it wasn't that bad. it's the style i like, comes from the lineage that i like. for dostoevsky, what the new testament means is redemption. raskolnikov goes to kill someone for the sake of it, nominally to avoid paying his rent, but really to see if he was capable of taking a human life, and whether or not the normal rules of morality really should apply. after all, why should they apply? he convinces himself his destiny is napoleonic, that he has something new to say, and that it should be possible to kill someone less happy to make someone else happier. he is in agreement with all this reason, but soon discovers in the act of killing he is no napoleon. he initially enjoys the thrill of the cover up and the crime, but is soon tripping himself with weird manifestations of guilt contrary to his faculties of moral reasoning. he never really comes to terms with how he feels about the murder, but he decides to turn himself in. sonya is one of those fabled "kind hearted prostitute" characters who he confesses to first. she reads him the new testament and the story of lazarus, 11th chapter of the gospel against St John.

"and many of the jews came to martha and mary to comfort them concerning their brother. then martha, as soon as she heard that jesus was coming, went and met him, but mary sat still in the house. then said martha unto jesus, lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died. but i know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. jesus saith unto her, thy brother will rise again. martha saith unto her, thy brother will rise again. martha saith unto him, i know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. jesus said to her: "i am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. believest thou this?"

the story continues and lazarus is raised, indicating that the interpretation is meant to be literal, that there is a resurrection. but what happens when lazarus dies again? then there is the last day.

and through raskolnikov, he achieves an understanding of the new testament. raskolnikov has been imprisoned in siberia, and sonya follows and makes a living amongst the inmates. this is from the epilogue:

"an anxiety with no object or purpose in the present, and in the future nothing but endless sacrifice, by means of which he would attain nothing - that was what his days on earth held in store for him. and what of the fact that in eight year's time he would only be thirty-two (note raskolnikov is 24 same as me) and would be able to resume his life again? what good was life to him? what prospects did he have? what did he have to strive for? was he to live merely in order to exist? but a thousand times before he had been ready to give up his existence for an idea, even an imagining. existence on its own had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more than that. perhaps it had merely been the strength of his desires that made him belive he was a person to whom more was allowed to than others. and even if fate had sent him no more than remose - burning remorse that destroyed the heart, driving away sleep, the kind of remorse to escape whose fearsome torments the mind clutches at the noose and the well, oh, how glad he would have beem! torment and tears -- after all, that is life too. but he felt no remorse for his crime. at the very least he would have been able to feel anger at his stupidity, just as he had earlier felt anger at the stupid and outrageous actions which had brought him to the prison.....

though of course in that case many of mankind's benefactors who did not inherit power but took it for themselves ought to have been executed at their very first steps. but those people had the courage of their convictions, and so they were right, while i didn't, and consequently i had no right to take the step i did. this was the one respect in which he admitted to any crime: in not having the courage of his convictions and turning himself in.

he also suffered from the thought of why he had not killed himself that day. why had he stood gazing down at the river and decided that he would prefer to turn himself in? did this desire for life really have such power, and was it so hard to overcome? svridigailov had overcome it, had he not, he who was so afraid of death?

....

he then observes how some of his penal inmates enjoy life so.

in the second week of lent his turn arrived to fast and attend holy communion together with the other men from his barrack. he entered the church and prayed together with the others. on one occasion, he himself did not know the reason, there was a quarrel; all the men attacked him in a frenzy of rage: 'you're an unbeliever! you don't believe in god! we ought to kill you'

...

Suddenly he found Sonia beside him; she had come up noiselessly and sat down at his side. It was still quite early; the morning chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous and the green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and paler. She gave him a joyful smile of welcome, but held out her hand with her usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out her hand to him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though afraid he would repel it. He always took her hand as though with repugnance, always seemed vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent throughout her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went away deeply grieved. But now their hands did not part. He stole a rapid glance at her and dropped his eyes on the ground without speaking. They were alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for the time.
How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed to seize him and fling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms round her knees. For the first instant she was terribly frightened and she turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the same moment she understood, and a light of infinite happiness came into her eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond everything and that at last the moment had come.…
They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.	23
They resolved to wait and be patient. They had another seven years to wait, and what terrible suffering and what infinite happiness before them! But he had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his being, while she—she only lived in his life. ..... Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically. The book belonged to Sonia; it was the one from which she had read the raising of Lazarus to him. At first he was afraid that she would worry him about religion, would talk about the gospel and pester him with books. But to his great surprise she had not once approached the subject and had not even offered him the Testament. He had asked her for it himself not long before his illness and she brought him the book without a word. Till now he had not opened it. 27 He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind: “Can her convictions not be mine? Her feelings, her inspirations at least.…” She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at night she was taken ill again. But she was so happy—and so unexpectedly happy—that she was almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, only seven years! At the beginning of their happiness at some moments they were both ready to look on those seven years as though they were seven days. He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story—the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

and these are the stories i have to tell about a small faith that i have, the faith that a redemption and a renewal is possible.

came across a comment re happiness

So if you are happy you are happy; and happy is just what you make yourself to be regardless of everything and anything.

Everyone can be happy anytime, every time, all the time, in riches or poverty, in plenty or want, in sickness or in health, whatever!

You see the meaninglessness?

It is like calling all colours red. And everything is red. Then, really,we have become colour blind and no longer can see colour. There is no distinction, either you can't or won't see the distinction, and you really have lost the notion of colour, and what's left is an empty word.

So just to say if you are happy you are happy, you no longer understand nor see life anymore. You have failed or closed your eyes and mind to the various shades of life and all its pains, difficulties and questions, e.g. what is the meaning and purpose of life, etc.

And just as anyone can be a fool, so anyone can be happy.

So I am happy but it dosen't change a thing. I am still in want or plenty, sickness or health, victorious or defeated.

I still ponder what's next; if tomorrow comes.

Life goes on.

But life is for life.

i'm worried about the mefloquine, but also worried about malaria. oh well, here goes.

"no direction home", weathervane, greenwich church street

heading to lombok tomorrow, and will remain in indonesia for the next 18 days. have been taking a break from blogging, and probably need one too. we'll see what happens after the trip.

论语：
叶公问政，子日：《近者悦，远者来》

deptford project cafe, deptford creek road, where i can have toast and marmalade in the mornings when there is no school.

SOOO CUTE KILL ME NOW

we was on a picnicz when we spottedz this rodent. i had to make very good friends with him until it kept coming back and let me get close. but i think the animal rights activists will kill me for luring it with a french fry. sorry.

this is an eastern gray squirrel which is an illegal immigrant from the states and has displaced the red squirrels.

Company's Vision

To Become The Most Preferred Airlines In Indonesia

haha, hah. because you're the only airline flying most routes.

merpati is amazing. their website has all sorts of dead links and filler text (loren ipsum etc)... you can go through their entire reservation system and the last thing you click will be a dead link.

i'm booking through a local agent.

perhaps it's the colour of the sun cut flat

obama's speech at cairo university. pretty good listen.

4 hours of bass and booze. seriously britney needn't have turned up, she didn't sing much anyway. all they needed was the music and the freak show/circus acts. ear-poppingly fun.




gail ng's joke. 拍马屁 get it?


smokey robinson

metrics done grading done. this completes if you knew.

friendship - egon schiele

i feel like one of his drawings today. maybe i should have picked one of his self-portraits, or the one he painted before he died of his family.

econometrics in 90 minutes. feel like i'm being led to the slaughter. in another surreal experience, i'm off to watch britney today, and possibly the pussycat dolls or ciara, depending on who's opening. i'll let you know how it goes. i guess gyrating women and burlesque dancers at the afterparty can't be that bad. but i have this exam and grading reconciliation to get through first,

in the zone

micro went well.

wow mega sick... doing diy iphone hacking. this site is crazy it has updates for future firmware before it arrives... do they have spies in apple or something?

prayer to self - our deepest fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

a return to love - marianne williamson

pressure valve

so when people ask you, which type of woman do you go for, it really confuses me. but i've thought long and hard about this. i think i need someone with a vocal range between alto and tenor. i want to hear a fucking human voice. on the fucking phone. so i think this staying up thing is not working out for me, when someone is not staying over. you see beauty fades, and maybe voices do, those soprano ones, but if you have a sexy, smoky alto/tenor voice that can dip into baritones, that lasts quite a bit. maybe i do subconsciously pick people based on how they sound. i don't really need to see your face. i just want to hear you.

when i see kevin spacey caress a new car as these things go through his head before he dies, i realize yeah these things are really important actually. the smell of a new car. bubble wrap. the sound of a fender plugged into a human amp. sensation. love is but a variety. aaah to think that i once thought it was a critique of materialism. SENSATION IS SPIRITUALITY. youtube loves us all, all the children of the world.

to buy a telecaster and hear it piped through my amp. these 3 voices ok i want somebody who sounds like this. ok... now i need one sound. none of all this post production stuff. i'm stupid, i can focus only on one sound at a time. there's a time for bruch's violin concerto when everything is ONE SOUND but many instruments but that's still too much. ONE SOUND. this is why people needn't shoot themselves in the face. just focus on the ONE SOUND.




i need reverb.



this is too much of an apology for being away. looks nothing like ronnie scotts nowadays



aaah fuck yeah yeah come on another one.

jeff buckley. live at sin-é.

i see no need to take me home
i'm old enough to face the dawn

time to go to ronnie scotts

forever and a day

bottled sunrise - simple pleasures

jacob's creek for 2 at sunrise. yes, bleedin sunrise, the sun rises so early now that 4.30 in the morning is sunrise.

it's finally warm enough to work half-naked at night.

Odd, one might say, for a climber who's made a life of venturing alone to the world's most dangerous mountains. But if you soften him up, Messner will tell you that his life has been a struggle, in part, to overcome his fear of solitude.

"I was trying my whole life to be able to handle it," Messner tells me during one of our talks. "I am not made for lonely expeditions. In the sixties, I climbed during the day so I wouldn't have to be alone. I finally learned to stay up for weeks in the high altitude all by my own without being afraid."
----
this guy climbed everest solo carrying whatever oxygen he needed in a backpack. Messner later described feeling as though he were "nothing more than a single narrow, gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits."

donnie darko on tv tonight. time for a stiff drink=p.

creek road bus stop, 2am, on the way to school.

we shall overcome.

reply to borges

if i were to live my life again,
i would do precisely none of those things,
because i knew i would have the chance to
live my life again, and in so knowing
simply delay my gratification.
why do it now? i'd be alive again tomorrow.
i'd rather sleep and dream thank you.

but you get the point, poets are full of ifs and buts.
as the shutter rolls down on your days.
just get off your fucking butt
and get something done.

-----

postscript: if i could live life again, i would spend more time with linear algebra.

bread tastes better buttered. *beam*

bubble wrap is awesome
i love popping bubble wrap
the sound of newness.

jesse has studied the most ridiculous things in econometrics this year.

whoever needs to invert a non-invertible matrix. if it's non-invertible, it's non-invertible. why fucking invert it? men. seriously, tell them it can't be done and they go and do it.

instantes

i remember one of my kinder neighbours in london, michaelangelo. he ran a jorge luis borges literary foundation. being a person who knew how to enjoy life, he could always be counted on to lend us implements of pleasure such as a corkscrew to open our wine bottles with, because jingxiang and i would always buy bottles of wine but not the corkscrew. he would ask us out for dinner and tell us about the history of this or that building. since i am still able to continue living my life the advice might be useful yet.

i think i just need to take people less seriously... they are, people, you know, like you and me. they deserve to be happy, they deserve to get hurt, they will make me happy and they will disappoint me. at least the travel part will not be a problem for me=p.

instantes - translated

If I were able to live my life again,
next time I would try to make more mistakes.
I would not try to be so perfect. I would be more relaxed.
I would be much more foolish than I have been. In fact,
I would take very few things seriously.
I would be much less sanitary.
I would run more risks. I would take more trips,
I would contemplate more sunsets,
I would climb more mountains,
I would swim more rivers.
I would go to more places I have never visited.
I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans.
I would have more real problems, fewer imaginary ones.

sugalumps... flight of the conchords

i am going to post something mathematical for once today. if you are bored you can try one of my easier exam questions:

Suppose one is an Allied intelligence analyst during World War II and one has some serial numbers of captured German tanks. Further, assume that the tanks are numbered sequentially from 1 to N. How does one estimate the total number of tanks?

just speaking plainly

when i was 6 to 7 years younger i used to think that i was very bad with love. i was the sort of person who would never remember birthdays, never send christmas cards, never express how much i loved people. when you are very bad at something, and you realize it, the temptation sometimes can be not to try. i'm bad at math. fuck maths, who needs math. i was so grateful for a change of environment, a chance to remake who i was, where nobody remembers your old mistakes. i think i got the confidence once more to try these things, where i had gone wrong in the past.

i think i tried harder but as i look back it astonishes me how much i would sometimes lapse back into old habits. i feel i have acquitted myself better the past few years but not enough. so the temptation is there, to chuck it, to withdraw into myself again. i let my mood overwhelm me, and once again i find myself thinking, i need to be in a different place. and why i get so worried at night is that i fear that once again i might become a person who doesn't care about birthdays, doesn't care about what goes on in other people's lives, if i am not already a person like that. i look at great amazement and respect at people who manage to pick themselves up time after time again, and wonder why for me the temptation is always to chuck it all away and run to some other corner of the globe. it is as if suddenly i believe my own stories, that i am cain again, always jealous of abel, branded and undeserving, un-vegetarian, going to travel the world alone, never to pass on my family line which eventually leads to jesus. for i am unwilling to be bent too far out of shape, although i try and i compromise, but i fear that the dark undercurrents, some of my negativity will always consume any investment in positive relationships that i try to accomplish.

anyway, i think i will try. i will try not to let my mood overwhelm me, for a start. i think to learn to speak plainly again, sans cynicism, sans bitterness. of course i am terrified. there's a lot of that out there, a lot of teasing and casual cynicism which i no doubt contribute to myself, thinking that if the world cannot be perfect, then god damned i will be rebel without a cause.

to open up, to say these things, not to worry if people think you are emo kid. to let go, to be vulnerable again. because the prize i get for being bitter is but a consolation prize, sweet though it is. you have never wanted to see yourself at 40 being jaded and disconsolate but have forgotten that in taking things so seriously maybe you already are at 24. not to force yourself to laugh or be happier than you truly are, but when you do laugh, let it chime like the wind.

yes, to worry if people are out to get you or manipulate you or feel like a fool. people like that do exist. and if they are good at what they do then you might never know. to have standards for people, and try to meet them for yourself. to look at them and to judge, and to be forgiving if they fail. give them the benefit of the doubt, because people are different and many mean no harm. integrity is something that might be chipped away, and every lie i tell does that. nice guys sometimes finish last. to accept that and still try to finish first. to look at oneself and to realize when one is being impossible or unreasonable. to fess up to one's failures. and while you may not agree with everything your parents say, the fact is that they have given you a core with which to approach life. while you question if their values are out of sync with this world, you look at other approaches of your contemporaries and you know that they are not yours either. you can accept them, but they are not yours. and so the center must hold, and we must defy yeats. and agree with robbie williams:

"go easy on my conscience, cause it's not my fault. i know i've been taught, to take the blame"

be a better man. not to worry about sounding self-righteous, because it is better than sounding like someone who just wants the world to collapse, though it might ring true. hypocrisy is but the price we have to pay to create a bubble worth living for, on this earth of dust and wind.

and even if people have said things a million times, say them again. to nag like a mother, if a mother is all you can be. every line that comes out of your mouth doesn't need to be original, doesn't need to be strange, doesn't need to interest yourself the way you wish other people's words would interest you. everybody is different. challenge yourself. speak not of changing the world. if people just want to fuck, then fuck. if people want to love, then love. in a few days you might no doubt feel horrible again. i have known myself for too long. but try your best not to consume those around you that you love.

of course, i look at my contemporaries and sometimes think, maybe i should be tough like them. how perfectly logical they are. and i never discount them, i always want to know what makes them tick. i wonder if being like that entails a loss of meaning of some sort, a meaning i am loathe to be rid off, like some casting off of pattern, colour, shape or form. i don't know who is right, and while i respect such abilities, i seem not to have been able to achieve such mastery. there is no guarantee that anyone else is right, anyway, and paradoxically enough, i think in this aspect of my life i am most secure. i am not touting security as a virtue, but this core within me i cannot doubt. maybe a few more bad experiences might shake it a little more, and finally turn me into the seen-it-all person who knows how the world works, sees through the mist and grabs it by the throat. but for now i still don't know the answers, so i will get by on faith, thank you very much.

chasing links again

"when i was a child, i spoke as a child
i understood as a child, i thought as a child
but when i became a man,
i put childish things away."

1 corinthians 13:11, from T.I's music video, "dead and gone"

hat tip to bonnie's msn
"lemme kick it to ya right quick man, not some gangsta shit man on some real shit."

those of you who know me will know that recently i've been trying to burn books and destroy the power of the written or spoken word. but a coursemate recently quoted the great gatsby:

"gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further...
so we beat on, boats against the current borne back ceaselessly into the past""

ok, now i can consign this to the dustbin of history.

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9 ci

sunday 4am. rock bottom again. i wish i were saturday 2pm again

sunny wong in my office

5pm class. the guardian of connaught house looks over me

aiyagari

usual view from d703. morning class. london on a cloudy day. st paul's and royal courst of justice

comforting morning ritual to soothe pre-class nerves and the fact that i have to wake up so early. class notes, for my last revision class (seignorage). jam croissant. tea.

kingsway junction

they ripped the guts out of the building but decided to leave the facade for conservation purposes. practical.

death of a penguin - iphone

condolence messages include, as expected, :

"penguin, there was always something I wanted to tell you."

"miss you penguin and hope you are happy with new friends."

re 1st msg: you should never have left it so late. you thought a concrete statue weighing half a ton would always be there didn't you.

re 2nd msg: i hope you are happy too, and please move on.

this is the lse penguin. it was hacked off and stolen, again.

http://www.mylifeisg.com/
http://www.mylifeisaverage.com/
http://mylifeiscrap.com/

my faith in humanity is restored. my favourites

"today i had a test. i needed a pencil, i had a pen. i asked the girl next to me and she lent me a pen. MLIA"

" Today, I was having sex with my girlfriend. She yelled out the name Tommy. My name is Tommy. MLIA"

"i watched my young puppy discover her reflection in the pool. MLIG"

bored of the bible. for this book, thank you. it's poison, it might even be totally wrong and out of place.
but i still reach out for it way too often.

advice from the street

i take it all too well. my remote control ended up in the laundry.

but it's good advice.

postscript: it is a good thing the engineers of the world didn't erase theirs. my remote works even though it's been dumped in laundry. it's now simply cleaner, after letting it dry for a bit

"i always knew what the right path was. without exception. but i never took it, you know why? because it was too damn hard."

Cuántos desengaños, por una cabeza,
yo juré mil veces, no vuelvo a insistir,
pero si un mirar me hiere al pasar,
su boca de fuego, otra vez, quiero besar.

Basta de carreras, se acabó la timba,
un final reñido yo no vuelvo a ver,
pero si algún pingo llega a ser fija el domingo,
yo me juego entero, qué le voy a hacer.

huzzah bitches

little sluts, if you've been naughty, i'm coming to get you and visit you a world of pain. i'm watching you.