I caught the flu bug again.
My exams sucked big time cos I didn't study.
Exams make you do funny things you never thought you'd do.
What I am watching now.
My red alert status is high.
My poor family having to endure me at my very worst.
My holiday plans.
The above are the agenda for the day. Seems like after a week and I'm sucked dry of creative juices. Not really, I've been preoccupied by my exams, not that I studies, but it well, keeps me away from blogging. And after the 4789 word blog entry, I've used up all my words for the week. Yup~ I think that was a pretty cool posting.
First thing on the agenda. I caught the flu bug, must I emphasise this, AGAIN. Well, to people who don't know me or just got to know me, this is the bloody third time I caught the flu bug this year. My first was before the Chinese New Year, the second was just about my birthday, and now, the bloody third time. Why do I keep getting that damned bug, and must I reiterate that just about last December I had that bug too, just after my grandma's passing on, I lay in bed with that bug. SO that make this my fourth bug in about six months.
So here is Joan, wallowing up in her sickness in her precious healing tatami mat with no one to care for her. Maybe it's that Joan falls sick ever so happen that nobody seems to be taking notice of her now. She can die for everybody cares. Oh heck... Just hope that I can recover in time to enjoy my holidays. wahaha~ I can't wait for the hols sia...
Second, my exams sucks cos I didn't study. I don't know why but haven't been in the mood to study much. Okay, think the only paper that I did and am doing sufficient study is for Singapore's Military History cos that's the only one that I don't have much basic knowledge of. My Southeast Asian Studies paper was totally based on my own knowledge of Southeast Asia, what Hasim taught for history back in JC, and what Dr Budi taught last semester for Politics of Southeast Asia.
One thing I'd like people to take note of, whatever happens, steer clear away from SE1101E. It sucks! And I'm even feeling that that is an understatement. What's wrong with it? It's bloody boring. I took Politics of Southeast Asia last semester. By right politics is supposed to be boring, Southeast Asia was supposed to be boring, but that module wasn't that bad at all, in fact I quite enjoyed it cos the notes was comprehensive, and I attended every lecture and took down all notes diligently. Even the research was interesting and much to my surprised, I got my A- for my essay and my B+ for the module, and it is a level 2000 module, so I thought that well, I can try out that exposure this semester, after all I still have my exposures to clear. What a mistake to make. Because it is very diverse, it is boring and very rojak, there is no uniformity between different lectures and there isn't really a clear theme that's easy to draw. And I started skipping lectures. Not a good thing.
My next exam was Theatre Studies. That is a gone case module. The C I got for my essay will so pull down my grades, and the crap I wrote for this exam will do me no more good than bad. Okay, maybe the first part of the exam wasn't that bad, but the second part was crap. I don't know I could actually crap that much, with no evidence to substantiate my crap. I did the question on the history of theatre and like all history questions that I've got no answer to, I made up history as I went along. It wasn't even covered in the lectures! My god... Okay, it might have been when I was sleeping, or one of the lectures that I missed, but it isn't really my fault. The bloody lectures are at 9am and well, who can blame me sia?! I'm now just hoping that the first part of the exam and the practical component is able to pull my grades up.
And I just came back from my European Studies exam. It's not really European Studies, but more of a History module. 20th Century History. I don't really know how to go about studying for it as the European history part is like so much read liao. Last semester was the Making of Contemporary Europe which second half was basically what's in 20th Century History, at least for the Europe component, and well, my A level history, so that makes me for the third year running studying the same things over and over again. So I tried focusing of my study for Japan and China, and a little part of America. Well, nothing I studied came out. Maybe I should put it in another way. It was an open book exam.
I thought open book exam was that we could bring in our textbooks only, so I just prepared to bring in my textbook, but an open book exam meant that we could bring in any bloody thing we wanted. I thought I was compromised. Well, not actually, cos even the book I brought with me was rendered useless. From start to end, I was writing until my fingers ached, there wasn't time for me even to touch my bloody book. The exam itself wasn't that bad, as least I could crap for 10 pages, but as Joan writes history essays, the marker must buy my argument.
Well, if it's Dr Clancey marking my paper, I can be assured of a pretty good grade. If he could give me an A for my that history paper which I wrote just like that, then I guess my exam answers aren't really that much different, maybe even better since I had lesser time for my exams. That is if he buys my argument. I make pretty daring statements, and it would really take an open minded person to embrace my ideas. Well, anyway, the questions I did were pretty much Europe centred, my preferred area of study, and I did the question on totalitarianism, my prerennial favourite topic. Pity I did not have enough time, if not I think I might do a more convincing argument out of it. Anyway, this as I feel in my bones, will be my best graded module for this semester. Pretty much by default cos my others sucked.
Come Thursday it'll be Singapore's Military History, I don't really know what to expect, so well, just pray for the best. Luckily I have the time now to rest my fingers and hope that it won't be cramped on that day. I mean, I just wrote 10 pages of crap in 2 hours just now! Okay, A levels was worse, I think I wrote 12 pages for each history paper, so that makes it 24 pages?! What crap?!
So if I didn't study for my exams what was I doing? I was doing stupid things. I became addicted to Spider. I was chatting online the whole day not studying. I watched TV. And the most stupid thing one can do. Check this out: http://www.mercedes-benzandme.com/singapore/localstories/finalist.php?sid=191&gpage=3 and while you are at it, vote for me! Yup, other than doing that thing, I also wasted much of my time pestering friends to vote for me. I'd wait for my friends to come online and coerce them to vote for me and made them call all their friends to vote for me. If you are reading this now, you better vote for me, and while you are at it, call all your friends to vote for me too!
And, well, any *ding-ding* can note that our yahoo groups is spammed full, much of it is contributed my me cos I was so bored that I was sitting by the side of my computer waiting for mails and as you can note, my replies are pretty fast, I sort of replied just as I received it cos I really got nothing better to do. Pretty sad life huh? I don't dare go spam other yahoo groups. Seems like it's only the *ding ding* yahoo group that people do post weird things. Like we are now choosing the modules we want to do for next semester liao. And we are discussing what to do during the hols. Okay, I understand the hols one, but what's up with the choosing the modules one? We still have so much time. Okay, I think I might be the one started it cos I was aksing if anybody wants to do Total War. Sounds pretty cool~ My project group members were thinking of doing it and Sarah pretty much convinced me that it's a good choice. hehe~
Okay, now back to the TV shows I watched.
Beautiful Illusions. Channel 8, 9pm weekdays.
Starring Fann Wong, Thomas Ong, Qi Yuwu.
What made me want to watch this show? The pairing of Fann and Thomas. Well, BC (that is before Christopher Lee), Fann was best paired with Thomas. They were the pretty couple, blue-eyed match, even more apealing to the old Zoe and Nanxing. I still have the VCD of that Jie Lian Huan as evidence of their perfect match. 10 years ago, 10 years now, I wanted to watch this show to draw comparisons. How time haven taken a toll on them. When I was a good 10 years old, I watched a 20+ year old Fann and Thomas making out on screen. Fann was young and pretty as she acted as 3 different personas from different eras. Her acting was like that, demure, nice and well, very much Fann. Thomas was damn shuai. Even as he made up to look older, he still had that boyish charm.
And today, as I watch them as 30+es, well, I can only say time has been pretty kind on them. Fann still looks youthful, with that thick make up on her face, she look younger than Qi Yuwu even, and she's so fair, her legs are even better looking than before, oh my... If I can only age as gracefully as her. Thomas, he still has that boyish charm, and I must say, he looks not much older than Fann, which means that he still looks very young. Time is so kind on them~ Makes me jealous. By comparison, Yvonne Lim has aged. Pity.
The story is pretty interesting actually, just don't like the Chinese title. Jing Zhong Ren?! Sounds like Jing Hua Yuan. Whe I first heard the title I thought it was some horror show or period drama. Well, I guess if Mediacorp wants to boast of quality dramas, this is one of the better choices. Good cast, not bad a plot, interesting idea, and a gimmick. Nick Shen is really a good actor. Just thought about that, he's really a good actor, pity he looks too boy...
What other TV shows I'm watching? Amazing Race and Survivor. Think I've devoted quite a lot of space here to these realities each season. Amazing Race has amazed me this season. I first started out hating the boyfriends, but as they got eliminated, well, I must say that they are indeed nice people, sometimes, nice people isn't that easy to like. I say, I'm sorta rooting for Rob and Amber to win cos after winning Survivor, they must prove that they are indeed winners. They can't win something and lose something else, that would make Survivor seem easier to win than Amazing race. Some people might say that they already have that million dollars why would they need another million? Well, I say, that million dollars was Amber's and I strongly am supporting Rob to win his own million. yup~ I have this soft spot for the bad guys, so well...
Survivor. I like Stephanie. She's truly a survivor of her tribe, really disappointed that she got booted out. I'm rooting for Tom anyway cos he's a history major. hahaha~ Not only that, he's a strong one. He can win challenges. Another cutie, Ian. He's blonde and blue eyed and that's enough for me to say he's cute. lol~ yup~ This is the same Joan as you know. And he's a dolphin trainer. He must be a good guy to like dolphins, so I like him. Will root for him too.
Okay... The on the agenda, my red alert status. Think most of you should have realised that I've been using the term "bloody" quite a lot in this post. Well, that's my status. And the warning signal is high. How high? I just pretty much pissed everybody around me. And I spent two nights in bed crying my eyes out for no apparent reason at all. Think it might have been all that crying and the soaking of tears in an air conditioned room that made me sick. hai... But I'm feeling loads better now! A whole new world~ A bright new world~ On the way...
Just feeling pretty sorry to my family. Having to be cooped up at home, I started nagging at them incessantly cos I'm bored and pms. hai... Share with you a little snippet of my parents. On the way back from school which they picked me up from my exams, we passed by Marine Parade. Then I spotted my friend on the road, so I exclaimed to them, "Hey, that's my friend!"
"Which one?" they asked.
"Oh, the uglier one," I casually replied.
"The one carrying the basketball is it?"
"yup~"
Then several metres later, my mum turned to me. "How can you describe people as uglier or prettier? Isn't that very subjective? Shouldn't you describe people like what they are wearing or their position or something more objective?" Well, I hadn't really thought so much about that. hehe~
Finally, if you've got this far, it's fun time! Cos I'm now going to share my holiday plans! My plans for the month of May~
My exams end on 5 May, straight after that I'll be going to meet Weijia with Jinwei to do stock taking. hmm... I want to share another funny snippet about the two poor guys who had to endure much of my crap. Weijia first SMS-ed me when was the last of my exams, then we settles on that day, 5 May. In his SMS, he tried to be cheeky and said "so it's a date" but what he didn't realised that Joan can do LOTS better than that, so she replied, "yup~ and i'll bring a friend down for a threesome, can?" which de facto meant that I was going to get Jinwei down too. Weijia didn't reply me. So the next time I met him online I asked him why didn't he reply me, he was like, isn't that a joke. Well, people sure don't take me seriously do they? hai... Jinwei too, must say things plainly then can understand. Cannot mask my words with crappy language one, if not they think it's all crap. My dear friend from Theatre Studies crowned me Queen of Crap, basically think it's because I always use my words to kachiao him. lol~
6 May. Going with Jinwei to watch Madame Butterfly~ Woohoo~ That's so nice, so sad, so depressing~
7 May. Going to watch Temasek Nite Luyuan Zhi Ye with the CCC people~ Woohoo~ That's so long since I last met them~ I miss them~
11 12 13 May. Bonding Camp for my dearest Chinese Drama group. With a reckkie of UCC on 13 May. Woohoo~ This gives me more opportunity to go and kachiao Jinwei, and prob my Laoban, and all those who are going~ hehe~ The evil Joan triumphants~
21 May. *ding-ding* AGM. heehee~ Miss the *ding-dingers* liao... Always meet up in the yahoo group now finally got chance to meet up in real life~
21 May. Rhaspody of Spring Qing Chun Xuan Lu~ Meeting up with the CDS people~ wahaha~ It's been ages since last seen any of them, I wanna see them!!!
Well, those who wanna ask me out take note of my booked dates and come and arrange a time with me to book me earlier ba. Not on first come first serve basis. I'll prioritise and give those people I like a higher status in the waiting list. yup~ But please don't be put off, cos once you see your name on this list means you are confirmed liao. hahaha~ yup~ hmm... Dicky, if you are coming to town, will def slot you in somehow, so don't worry hor~ lol~
Yup... Later def must do a word count again. See how much crap I worte this time. It's one and a half hours since I started typing liao. wahaha~
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Friday, April 22, 2005
What's the History Department Coming to?
What's the History Dept coming to? A good essay was graded B- and a sucky one an A?!
I had an appointment to meet Prof Farrell this afternoon at 1pm. I decided that since I was at home most of last week and quite some time before, I'd collect all my term papers from the History department when I finally go back to school. So, it was fated that I was going to collect all my papers this afternoon, right before 1. I walked into the general office and squatted down in search for my that EU2219 paper.
Really, it might not have pissed me off that much if EU2219 and HY2242 aren't place like on the bottom most shelf. EU2219 is also known as HY2241, so I guess they went side by side, at the bottom most shelf.
I can't find that EU2219 paper. And that HY2242 paper was right at the bottom so I was pissed mad and freaking out. And my that wonderfully written HY2242 paper got a B-. So that made me even more freaked out than I already was. I mean, what a wonderfully written piece of work kena penalised so badly cos I misinterpreted the question?! What's wrong with me? And I hell thought that was my most accomplished piece of writing ever produced by my hands.
Well, to be fair, my tutor wrote this, "A pity you misunderstood the question, otherwise it reads like it would have been a better essay that you are capable of." Yes, I'm just so good that she can't give me a C, so a B- is adequate. wahaha~ How am I supposed to know?!
I once said that I'd be putting up all my A- and A essays online here, but I'm so pleased with my field trip report that I want to put it up here too even though it scored a lousy B-... Can I? Well, this IS my blog, I get to do whatever I want on it, so I say CAN! hahaha~ yup... What follows is the essay that I love so much but my tutor don't:
What stands out most from this experience: human barbarity or human endurance? Why?
(I misread that "this experience" was the field trip, but apparently it meant the Jap Occ. Damn.)
The Japanese Occupation of Singapore was a watershed event to the people who came under Japanese rule and suffered under the hands of this imperialist power. This field trip enhanced the brutality of the Japanese imperialists through their sub human treatment of people, yet brought us hope in humanity by the various heartening stories of human endurance of the Prisoners of War and the interns during this time period. As this field trip covered several places, the extent of which demonstrates human brutality or human endurance is different. In Chinatown, it was the barbaric acts of the Japanese and their dehumanising treatment of the residents that stood out. However, despite poor working conditions, and amid stories of the survival and more deaths of prisoners and inmates of the war, there is generally a more touching description of the people living in their own world of Changi. Rationally, I would like to think that both stood out equally significant for this field trip, but as a human being with feelings and emotions, I think that human endurance had a greater impact on me than human barbarity. After all, most people like to think more into the positives of humanity rather than the negatives.
Indeed, in the first stopover at Chinatown, Japanese barbarity seems to have been more striking and horrifying as stories of the Japanese dehumanising the local Chinese by forcing them to live in cramp spaces under poor living conditions. The Japanese also performed the ‘Sook Ching’ where “all Chinese men between 18 and 50 years old, and in some cases women and children, were ordered to report to temporary registration centres for interrogation and identification by the Kempeitai and their hooded informants”[1]. What followed was an “indiscriminate and bloody purge of the Chinese and many Chinese males including innocent ones, were taken away to be massacred”[2]. It was horrifying to hear these acts of the Japanese as they presented themselves as superior to the other races. Even a simple act of slapping a local for no legitimate reason other than being disrespectful towards the Japanese was painful to hear as it was physical and mental abuse of the locals.
It was also nauseating to hear about the Japanese usage on psychology on the Chinese. The Japanese made use of human fears and cultural instinct to bully their way about and get what they wanted. For example, in the Sook Ching, the Japanese made the Chinese gather for hours without telling them what was happening, inducing them to fear for the worse.[3] This was also used by the Japanese on the Europeans as I later found on in the next stopover at the Padang. The European prisoners-of-war and interns were also made to gather for hours under the hot sun at the Padang without any reason being told to them and made to wait. This can be considered a dehumanising act as the Japanese did not even give these people the power of knowledge. Their mental torture on the people can be seen as a form of civil barbarity which can have a stronger and more lasting impact of pain on the people than physical torture.
However, as this field trip focused on the Japanese Occupation in Singapore and the lives of the locals during this internment, there is more emphasis placed on how the locals got through this ordeal rather than their tortures by the Japanese even though that was also covered as we had not visited any of the Japanese holding areas for the torture of suspects. We did visit the Changi beach though, which was the place in which “tens of thousands [of people] lost their lives during the Sook Ching operation to purge suspected anti-Japanese civilians within Singapore’s Chinese population”[4]. Still that was about the mass killings of the Chinese without regard of their lives and could not be really serious to be considered as human barbarity. What struck me more was the stories of some men miraculously living through this ordeal and escaping from death.[5] What these men went through to remain alive was an act of human endurance as they pitted themselves against the harshest conditions of survival to come out a better person.
Although in the field trip we visited the memorial for the Japanese Occupation before the Changi War Museum, I would like to talk about the latter first as it appears more logical chronologically, but their relevance is still in close relationship with each other and both really typified a positive outlook in life and war.
Although the prisoners-of-war and the European civilians detained in the Changi Prison were treated as subhuman by the Japanese, them being able to keep their lives through this internment then return back to their Western way of life after the war showed that they were able to take humiliation into their stride which is one of the most difficult endurance in human nature. Thus I am in full respect of these subjugated people. Life is Changi Prison might be far from rosy, but little has been described of its brutality and harshness while much has been mentioned of how people survived it. Many of the survivors of this internment wrote diaries and memoirs about their lives during that time period, and that a Museum has been built in memorial of them signifies this strong character of humanity. This could be seen in the case of Stanley Warren and his murals in the Changi Prison. Despite being afraid of reliving the captivity and cruelty, Warren still agreed to restore the murals after much persuasion and resonating that this could be made as a tribute to all his friends who departed him during that period. This act of Warren being able to stand out after the war to relive the horrors in memory of his friends was also another deep act of human endurance.
The building of the memorial was an act to keep in memory of “those of our civilians who were killed”[6] during the Japanese Occupation and not in memory of the brutalities of the Japanese imperialists during their occupation, hence I would argue the more protruding human endurance of this field trip. Although it can also be argued that the memorial is but a “new politics of memory in the service of nation-building”[7] I would think that it was only in the Japanese Occupation that the four races in Singapore had a common history and suffered a similar fate, thus it was necessary that we use this memory to build up unity among our nation, in that despite us being of what race, we still have a common endurance against an outside enemy. After all, the significance of the four pillars of the memorial is our four races and them being together, our unity as a nation despite difference.
This is not the first time that I visited these places as mentioned above in the field trip, but this visit heralds a different motive and in turn I had a different feeling after visiting these places. It could be because of the research done for this report that concreted my views and which gave me a more in depth knowledge of the significance of these places. Still what struck me was that after hearing the story of Stanley Warren over and over again each time I visit the Changi War Museum for field trips, his story, and that of other prisoners-of-war, never fails to touch me. Hence, it might also be due to human feelings and emotions rather than rational thinking that I think that human endurance stands out more than human barbarity in this experience.
[1] On a slab of stone in Chinatown describing the Sook Ching.
[2] Oral History Department Sook Ching (Singapore: Oral History Department, 1992), pp2.
[3] Lee Kip Lin “Lee Kip Lin” in Sook Ching (Singapore: Oral History Department, 1992), pp3-7.
[4] On a slab of stone in Changi beach describing its history.
[5] Yap Yan Hong “Yap Yan Hong” in Sook Ching (Singapore: Oral History Department, 1992), pp11-15.
[6] On a dedication of the memorial.
[7] Diana Wong “War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore: An Introduction” in War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore, ed. P. Lim Pui Huen and Diana Wong (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000), pp6.
What a wonderful piece of writing~
Okay, back to that EU2219 paper that I was missing. I was so freaked out after leaving the general office but I had to get to meeting Prof Farrell at 1, so I headed down the corridor and I passed by Dr Clancey's room! Dr Clancey is my tutor for my EU2219 class, so I knocked on his door hoping that he could answer my questions to where the hell is my damned paper, but there was no answer.
It was pretty normal not to get a response, so I wasn't that freaked out with that. I went straight on to Prof Farrell's room.
Basically, Prof Farrell totally freaked me mad by saying, "You better try and get [Dr Clancey] cos if he never received your paper you'd get zero for it." Imagined a person already kena stunned then now kena pushed down the mountain. wahaha~
Secretly, I harboured some hopes that Dr Clancey never received my paper and upon me finding out about that, I'd offer to rewrite one for him. Not that I've a lot of time, but I just thought that paper I submitted sucked. Sucked big time. I wrote it half asleep. I wrote it at the very last minute. I didn't even bother rereading it. I didn't even do any research for it. I just whacked in whatever that came into my mind. Basically, that was the worse paper I thought I written. Worse than my TS1101E paper which I got a C for, I thought at the time I submitted it.
But.
Before I say the but, I continue with my story. I was so freaked out by what Prof Farrell said that I can't really remember what he commented about my essay for him, so noticing that my mind was already gone, I left his office and immediately sat at the reception area and typed an email to Dr Clancey. I was so freaked out that I clicked on the wrong button. I was supposed to click on the button that would change Dr Clancey's email address into his name, but instead I clicked on the high importance button. And I didn't know how to remove it. Then I thought, heck, I'm already freaking out, doesn't this call for HIGH IMPORTANCE? So, I delibrately left it there and didn't attempt to see if I could remove it. My email is as follows:
-----Original Message-----
From: me
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 1:18 PM
To: Gregory K Clancey
Subject: My paper has gone missing
Importance: High
Hi Dr Clancey!
This is Joan Ang U040708W from your EU2219 tutorial for even Thursdays 2-4pm. I tried collecting my term paper, but I can’t find it. This is freaking me out, so I’m sorry if I’m sounding a bit incoherent. Did you receive my paper? Is my paper graded? Did I get a grade for it? How?
Thanks!
Joan
PS: Really sorry if I’m sounding a bit freaked out, but I’m indeed very freaked out.
Yes, I was that freaked out.
After typing that email, I had wanted to leave, but I thought of trying out my luck of meeting him again, so I went back to his room and knocked on his door. I wasn't expecting anything, so when I heard his voice saying "come in" I was pretty much freaked out in surprise.
I still went in and I didn't know what to say. I think I said something like this, "I've just sent you an email. I came by just a while ago and you weren't in. I can't find my paper. I'm sorry, but I'm pretty freaked out now. Oh ya, I'm Joan. I... I..." You get the idea...
Then he said, "You are Joan right? Papers do get missing sometimes. Don't worry, I've graded your paper, I've the records here. In fact I was just about to send you my reply to your email." I looked over at his computer screen. Yea... He was replying to some email. Pretty much completed and just about to click on send.
Then he said, "Don't worry, you got an A."
"An A??? Are you sure???"
"Ya, an A."
An A for that shit paper I did so hurriedly?! I was so dumbfounded that I didn't know what to say. Then I was like, okay, thank you and wanted to leave, then he asked me, "Do you still want me to send you my reply?"
I was like "huh?"
And he answered his own question, "I think I'll still send it to you." Then as he was talking to me, he clicked on the send button. So there I saw that email floating across some invisible wireless thingie into my computer.
This is his reply:
Dear Joan,
I'm sorry if your mid-term is missing. This sometimes happens, particularly late in the semester when papers have been on the shelves for awhile. Students are not always careful to keep discrete piles apart, and as the weeks go by, stray papers migrate.
I can give you your grade, however, which was an 'A'.
Take Care,
Greg Clancey
Okay, he sounded so nice about it that make me think was there really a need for me to freak out in the first place?
Yup... So that's about the main story...
You know, when I promised that I'd put up all my A essays, I did mean so, if they were good. I'm now thinking should I really put up this essay anot? Cos I really think it sucks. Well, anyway, what other people think might not be what you think, maybe I'm just a natural in writing EU papers? LOL! So, my essay... Don't shoot me if you think the same way as I do regarding the essay, shoot Dr Clancey...
Was `the Great War’ inevitable? That is, were global conditions such that a major conflict had to happen?
The global conditions set in the early twentieth century were such that if a conflict was to break out, it would escalate into a major conflict. This was to happen as the Great War, or the First World War as it is called now. However, the outbreak of the Great War was not necessarily inevitable even though global conditions pointed to a major conflict. This is because these global conditions of imperialism, nationalism, militarism, social Darwinism, realpolitik, European rivalries, the Alliance System, and improvements in technology, had been in place in Europe for a period of time but they enjoyed a period of relative peace and stability. I think that individually these global conditions would not lead to a major conflict but the addition of these conditions together created a genuine setting for a major conflict waiting to break out. Still, even though the global conditions pointed to an outbreak of a major conflict, I do not think that the Great War was inevitable as it was the events leading up to war that caused the widespread outbreak of a general war, without an ignition there was no excuse for the outbreak of war, nobody at that time thought that the war they were going into would drag on to a total war in a scale as large as the great war.
Examining the global conditions of the early twentieth century, we see the height of imperialism as one of the settings that was a cause of European conflict. Lenin attempted to explain this imperialism theory and used it to explain the outbreak of war as he thought that the capitalists from the imperialist nations “were always pressured to improve profits” and to do so they had to “seek cheap inputs from colonies”.[1] Lenin thought that eventually the major capitalist powers would lead to war as they wanted to grab more colonies.[2] However, before the Great War, no European power had fought another power in war over a colonial theory on their homeland, so even though European conflict might have arisen from this imperialism, it would not have been able to lead to the Great War based solely on this reason. Hence, this would only heighten possible tensions that might have led to a conflict between two neighbouring counties, but nothing on such a big scale as the Great War.
The early twentieth century also saw the height on nationalism on top of imperialism. As the different ethnic groups in the small Balkan states saw the successes of Germany as she was unified, these nationalist groups too wanted independence of themselves, and however, this alarmed the bigger states at that time who wanted to establish hegemony over those areas. This led to the various European nations taking sides, with a different small Balkan state which only increases the soured relationship between the various major powers, but this would not have led to the breakout of a major conflict involving those European powers as their priority was still at home. Nationalism was also seen in the major European powers as they each saw themselves superior than the others. It might be that only by going to war with each other that they could legitimise their superiority. This was in conjunction with the rise of the notion of social Darwinism at that time. This survival of the fittest theory suggested that it was only through war that the fittest could prevail, still it would have to take more than a nation to send their men to war. The Great War unlike other wars previously was an outbreak of war involved almost the whole of Europe.
Another reason that might brewed up conflict was the rise of militarism especially in Germany in which the navy was “vigorously built up” at the end of the nineteenth century.[3] As the large scale armament was carried out, other nations were forced to carry out similar plans for fear of becoming backward when compared with the Germans. Even the British with the biggest naval fleet then was also pressurised into keeping on innovating to make her military power even stronger to be able to curb the growth of might of the Germans. However, even though this naval race created serious conflict between the states and it was only through war that they exercise the usage of their armament, both sides had claimed to have armed themselves from each other in defense. An improvement in the level of technology also brought in devastation that made the Great War great. With improvements made to the machines guns, they can now kill more people faster and more effectively, still this not necessarily meant that with these new weapons the nations are obliged to wage war with each other immediately.
I think the most plausible argument for a major conflict to break out in Europe would be due to the Alliance System in place. With the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance, “Europe was divided into two opposing camps that became more and more inflexible and unwilling to compromise”[4]. As long as one member nation enters a war, the other nations would be dragged into the war under treaty terms, hence any war fought would not be a regional war but a European war fought among the member nations of both camps. However, it is not true that the Great War was inevitable due to this Alliance System as the treaties of alliances are mostly defensive treaties and actually used to discourage each other from war. These alliances are only loosely based and there is no obligation for a member country to join in mobilisation if war occurs. This could be seen in the case of Italy. Even though Italy was in the same alliance as Germany and Austria, when war broke out in 1914, Italy was hesitant to join the war, and when she finally did join the war, she joined in on the side of the alliance system.
I think that the outbreak of the Great War was caused by the events leading toward the war instead of the global conditions then. The immediate effects from the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand was the mobilisation of troops of the various European countries, the war just swept by following the mobilisation as war plans made no room for any hesitation of the troops. War escalated rapidly due to the global conditions but the global conditions did not directly lead to the outbreak of war. For example, the Alliance System led to more countries mobilising for war, but war did not breakout due to the presence of the Alliance System. By this time, the Alliances System, a system devised from Bismarck’s legacy of Realpolitik which was to “seek ways to cooperate, conferring on disarmament, colonialism, and various specific controversies”[5]. In fact, this Alliance System was supposed to maintain peace, but had created a bipolar balance of power in Europe between the Entente Powers and the Alliance Powers. It was due to this balance of power that pitted two strong opponents against each other in the Great War. Militarism and the advancement of technology also worsened the conflict between the two opposing powers. They did not ignite anything that might have led to war, but without these two ideas, war would not have been so destructive that it might not have been a Great War.
Without an ignition, it was highly possible that the Great War would not have broken out. This ignition came in the form of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. However, it has also been argued that due to the extreme heightened tension prevailing in Europe at that time, it was only a matter of sooner or later that a major war would break out. The assassination served merely as a catalyst tool and even without this catalyst it was also possible for the Alliance power to search for another excuse to launch war. I think that without this assassination, the tension building up among the different state might have ease up a little as time goes by. During the two Balkan crises, there was also a legitimate reason for the major powers to wage war with each other, but they did not hence I think that it was not necessarily that the Alliance powers wanted to go to war that they finally staged a war as they could have easily found an excuse to intervene in the politics of the Balkans. However, according to Duiker, he thinks that it was due to the Balkan Crises that led to the Russians vowing to revenge the Germans for invading one of his protectorates as the Russians were weaken from the Russo-Japanese War and were not in the position to win battles[6], it was however only after the crises that Russia slowly began to prepare it troops for war.
Finally, it is understood that general sentiments at that time had not expected the war to drag on for five years, most people thought that war was to be swift and victorious and not a war such as the Great War. It was only forced by circumstances that the war took a turn for the worse and became a long bloody stalemate involving most of Europe. Indeed I would agree that the global conditions were so that a major conflict, ie the Great War, would occur sometime, but it is not inevitable as another major conflict could have taken the place of the Great War.
In conclusion, I think that the global conditions of the early twentieth century had set a stage for a major conflict to happen, but not necessarily for the Great War to occur, hence I do not think that the Great War was inevitable. Without he trigger incident of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, despite imperialism, nationalism, militarism, social Darwinism, realpolitik, European rivalries, the Alliance System, and improvements in technology, the Great War could still have been prevented of happening. Of course, some might say that tension and rivalry in Europe had already reached saturation point and even without the assassination, Germany would still be able to find some other excuse just to launch war. Even if this was possible, the idea of war before it was launched was greatly different from its outcome. No one expected that the war would turn out as devastating as this war, and thus I would not see it as “inevitable”.
[1] C. Warren Hollister, J. Sears McGee, Gales Stokes The West Transformed: A History of Western Civilisation (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers), p.941
[2] Ibid
[3]C. Warren Hollister, J. Sears McGee, Gales Stokes The West Transformed: A History of Western Civilisation (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers), p.953
[4] William J. Duiker Twentieth-Century World History (Thomson: Wadsworth), p.65
[5] C. Warren Hollister, J. Sears McGee, Gales Stokes The West Transformed: A History of Western Civilisation (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers), p.942
[6] William J. Duiker Twentieth-Century World History (Thomson: Wadsworth), p.65
Note: This essay is very much unlike my normal essays. I usually write essays using Arial, but this is in Arial Rounded MT Bold, to make my font look bigger. And it's footnotes weren't in the same font like how I usually like them to be, it was in the default Times New Roman font cos I was so pressing for time that I didn't change it. I think I only finished the essay like 15 min before heading for the lecture.
My father thinks that someone stole my essay cos it was an A essay. he thinks that it must be some super kiasu person who goes around stealing A essays for their own reference. WTF... If is it indeed so I really hope that that meanie-o of a person will get eaten up by my essay man~ If that person really want my good essays, just get it from my blog la, idiot...
This is Joan's musings for the day~ Super long post~ But most of it is copy and paste... And I don't think I want to add in more interesting stuff cos nobody would read my blog until this sentence, so I guess I'll wait till the next time ba... (vote for me! heehee~)
Postscript: This should be my longest ever post sia~ I did a word count, just to spite my sis that my blog is wordier than hers. Hers amounted to 1037 words and mine, a mouthgobbling 4789 words! Okay... This should be expected cos I added in 2 essays each about 1400 words. But even if you minus 3000 words from the total, it'll be 1789, still wordier than my sis... haha~ And really, anything more than 800 words in a blog entry, is A LOT! Actually, most of my entries average at about 1100-1200 words... Oh well...
I had an appointment to meet Prof Farrell this afternoon at 1pm. I decided that since I was at home most of last week and quite some time before, I'd collect all my term papers from the History department when I finally go back to school. So, it was fated that I was going to collect all my papers this afternoon, right before 1. I walked into the general office and squatted down in search for my that EU2219 paper.
Really, it might not have pissed me off that much if EU2219 and HY2242 aren't place like on the bottom most shelf. EU2219 is also known as HY2241, so I guess they went side by side, at the bottom most shelf.
I can't find that EU2219 paper. And that HY2242 paper was right at the bottom so I was pissed mad and freaking out. And my that wonderfully written HY2242 paper got a B-. So that made me even more freaked out than I already was. I mean, what a wonderfully written piece of work kena penalised so badly cos I misinterpreted the question?! What's wrong with me? And I hell thought that was my most accomplished piece of writing ever produced by my hands.
Well, to be fair, my tutor wrote this, "A pity you misunderstood the question, otherwise it reads like it would have been a better essay that you are capable of." Yes, I'm just so good that she can't give me a C, so a B- is adequate. wahaha~ How am I supposed to know?!
I once said that I'd be putting up all my A- and A essays online here, but I'm so pleased with my field trip report that I want to put it up here too even though it scored a lousy B-... Can I? Well, this IS my blog, I get to do whatever I want on it, so I say CAN! hahaha~ yup... What follows is the essay that I love so much but my tutor don't:
What stands out most from this experience: human barbarity or human endurance? Why?
(I misread that "this experience" was the field trip, but apparently it meant the Jap Occ. Damn.)
The Japanese Occupation of Singapore was a watershed event to the people who came under Japanese rule and suffered under the hands of this imperialist power. This field trip enhanced the brutality of the Japanese imperialists through their sub human treatment of people, yet brought us hope in humanity by the various heartening stories of human endurance of the Prisoners of War and the interns during this time period. As this field trip covered several places, the extent of which demonstrates human brutality or human endurance is different. In Chinatown, it was the barbaric acts of the Japanese and their dehumanising treatment of the residents that stood out. However, despite poor working conditions, and amid stories of the survival and more deaths of prisoners and inmates of the war, there is generally a more touching description of the people living in their own world of Changi. Rationally, I would like to think that both stood out equally significant for this field trip, but as a human being with feelings and emotions, I think that human endurance had a greater impact on me than human barbarity. After all, most people like to think more into the positives of humanity rather than the negatives.
Indeed, in the first stopover at Chinatown, Japanese barbarity seems to have been more striking and horrifying as stories of the Japanese dehumanising the local Chinese by forcing them to live in cramp spaces under poor living conditions. The Japanese also performed the ‘Sook Ching’ where “all Chinese men between 18 and 50 years old, and in some cases women and children, were ordered to report to temporary registration centres for interrogation and identification by the Kempeitai and their hooded informants”[1]. What followed was an “indiscriminate and bloody purge of the Chinese and many Chinese males including innocent ones, were taken away to be massacred”[2]. It was horrifying to hear these acts of the Japanese as they presented themselves as superior to the other races. Even a simple act of slapping a local for no legitimate reason other than being disrespectful towards the Japanese was painful to hear as it was physical and mental abuse of the locals.
It was also nauseating to hear about the Japanese usage on psychology on the Chinese. The Japanese made use of human fears and cultural instinct to bully their way about and get what they wanted. For example, in the Sook Ching, the Japanese made the Chinese gather for hours without telling them what was happening, inducing them to fear for the worse.[3] This was also used by the Japanese on the Europeans as I later found on in the next stopover at the Padang. The European prisoners-of-war and interns were also made to gather for hours under the hot sun at the Padang without any reason being told to them and made to wait. This can be considered a dehumanising act as the Japanese did not even give these people the power of knowledge. Their mental torture on the people can be seen as a form of civil barbarity which can have a stronger and more lasting impact of pain on the people than physical torture.
However, as this field trip focused on the Japanese Occupation in Singapore and the lives of the locals during this internment, there is more emphasis placed on how the locals got through this ordeal rather than their tortures by the Japanese even though that was also covered as we had not visited any of the Japanese holding areas for the torture of suspects. We did visit the Changi beach though, which was the place in which “tens of thousands [of people] lost their lives during the Sook Ching operation to purge suspected anti-Japanese civilians within Singapore’s Chinese population”[4]. Still that was about the mass killings of the Chinese without regard of their lives and could not be really serious to be considered as human barbarity. What struck me more was the stories of some men miraculously living through this ordeal and escaping from death.[5] What these men went through to remain alive was an act of human endurance as they pitted themselves against the harshest conditions of survival to come out a better person.
Although in the field trip we visited the memorial for the Japanese Occupation before the Changi War Museum, I would like to talk about the latter first as it appears more logical chronologically, but their relevance is still in close relationship with each other and both really typified a positive outlook in life and war.
Although the prisoners-of-war and the European civilians detained in the Changi Prison were treated as subhuman by the Japanese, them being able to keep their lives through this internment then return back to their Western way of life after the war showed that they were able to take humiliation into their stride which is one of the most difficult endurance in human nature. Thus I am in full respect of these subjugated people. Life is Changi Prison might be far from rosy, but little has been described of its brutality and harshness while much has been mentioned of how people survived it. Many of the survivors of this internment wrote diaries and memoirs about their lives during that time period, and that a Museum has been built in memorial of them signifies this strong character of humanity. This could be seen in the case of Stanley Warren and his murals in the Changi Prison. Despite being afraid of reliving the captivity and cruelty, Warren still agreed to restore the murals after much persuasion and resonating that this could be made as a tribute to all his friends who departed him during that period. This act of Warren being able to stand out after the war to relive the horrors in memory of his friends was also another deep act of human endurance.
The building of the memorial was an act to keep in memory of “those of our civilians who were killed”[6] during the Japanese Occupation and not in memory of the brutalities of the Japanese imperialists during their occupation, hence I would argue the more protruding human endurance of this field trip. Although it can also be argued that the memorial is but a “new politics of memory in the service of nation-building”[7] I would think that it was only in the Japanese Occupation that the four races in Singapore had a common history and suffered a similar fate, thus it was necessary that we use this memory to build up unity among our nation, in that despite us being of what race, we still have a common endurance against an outside enemy. After all, the significance of the four pillars of the memorial is our four races and them being together, our unity as a nation despite difference.
This is not the first time that I visited these places as mentioned above in the field trip, but this visit heralds a different motive and in turn I had a different feeling after visiting these places. It could be because of the research done for this report that concreted my views and which gave me a more in depth knowledge of the significance of these places. Still what struck me was that after hearing the story of Stanley Warren over and over again each time I visit the Changi War Museum for field trips, his story, and that of other prisoners-of-war, never fails to touch me. Hence, it might also be due to human feelings and emotions rather than rational thinking that I think that human endurance stands out more than human barbarity in this experience.
[1] On a slab of stone in Chinatown describing the Sook Ching.
[2] Oral History Department Sook Ching (Singapore: Oral History Department, 1992), pp2.
[3] Lee Kip Lin “Lee Kip Lin” in Sook Ching (Singapore: Oral History Department, 1992), pp3-7.
[4] On a slab of stone in Changi beach describing its history.
[5] Yap Yan Hong “Yap Yan Hong” in Sook Ching (Singapore: Oral History Department, 1992), pp11-15.
[6] On a dedication of the memorial.
[7] Diana Wong “War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore: An Introduction” in War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore, ed. P. Lim Pui Huen and Diana Wong (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000), pp6.
What a wonderful piece of writing~
Okay, back to that EU2219 paper that I was missing. I was so freaked out after leaving the general office but I had to get to meeting Prof Farrell at 1, so I headed down the corridor and I passed by Dr Clancey's room! Dr Clancey is my tutor for my EU2219 class, so I knocked on his door hoping that he could answer my questions to where the hell is my damned paper, but there was no answer.
It was pretty normal not to get a response, so I wasn't that freaked out with that. I went straight on to Prof Farrell's room.
Basically, Prof Farrell totally freaked me mad by saying, "You better try and get [Dr Clancey] cos if he never received your paper you'd get zero for it." Imagined a person already kena stunned then now kena pushed down the mountain. wahaha~
Secretly, I harboured some hopes that Dr Clancey never received my paper and upon me finding out about that, I'd offer to rewrite one for him. Not that I've a lot of time, but I just thought that paper I submitted sucked. Sucked big time. I wrote it half asleep. I wrote it at the very last minute. I didn't even bother rereading it. I didn't even do any research for it. I just whacked in whatever that came into my mind. Basically, that was the worse paper I thought I written. Worse than my TS1101E paper which I got a C for, I thought at the time I submitted it.
But.
Before I say the but, I continue with my story. I was so freaked out by what Prof Farrell said that I can't really remember what he commented about my essay for him, so noticing that my mind was already gone, I left his office and immediately sat at the reception area and typed an email to Dr Clancey. I was so freaked out that I clicked on the wrong button. I was supposed to click on the button that would change Dr Clancey's email address into his name, but instead I clicked on the high importance button. And I didn't know how to remove it. Then I thought, heck, I'm already freaking out, doesn't this call for HIGH IMPORTANCE? So, I delibrately left it there and didn't attempt to see if I could remove it. My email is as follows:
-----Original Message-----
From: me
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 1:18 PM
To: Gregory K Clancey
Subject: My paper has gone missing
Importance: High
Hi Dr Clancey!
This is Joan Ang U040708W from your EU2219 tutorial for even Thursdays 2-4pm. I tried collecting my term paper, but I can’t find it. This is freaking me out, so I’m sorry if I’m sounding a bit incoherent. Did you receive my paper? Is my paper graded? Did I get a grade for it? How?
Thanks!
Joan
PS: Really sorry if I’m sounding a bit freaked out, but I’m indeed very freaked out.
Yes, I was that freaked out.
After typing that email, I had wanted to leave, but I thought of trying out my luck of meeting him again, so I went back to his room and knocked on his door. I wasn't expecting anything, so when I heard his voice saying "come in" I was pretty much freaked out in surprise.
I still went in and I didn't know what to say. I think I said something like this, "I've just sent you an email. I came by just a while ago and you weren't in. I can't find my paper. I'm sorry, but I'm pretty freaked out now. Oh ya, I'm Joan. I... I..." You get the idea...
Then he said, "You are Joan right? Papers do get missing sometimes. Don't worry, I've graded your paper, I've the records here. In fact I was just about to send you my reply to your email." I looked over at his computer screen. Yea... He was replying to some email. Pretty much completed and just about to click on send.
Then he said, "Don't worry, you got an A."
"An A??? Are you sure???"
"Ya, an A."
An A for that shit paper I did so hurriedly?! I was so dumbfounded that I didn't know what to say. Then I was like, okay, thank you and wanted to leave, then he asked me, "Do you still want me to send you my reply?"
I was like "huh?"
And he answered his own question, "I think I'll still send it to you." Then as he was talking to me, he clicked on the send button. So there I saw that email floating across some invisible wireless thingie into my computer.
This is his reply:
Dear Joan,
I'm sorry if your mid-term is missing. This sometimes happens, particularly late in the semester when papers have been on the shelves for awhile. Students are not always careful to keep discrete piles apart, and as the weeks go by, stray papers migrate.
I can give you your grade, however, which was an 'A'.
Take Care,
Greg Clancey
Okay, he sounded so nice about it that make me think was there really a need for me to freak out in the first place?
Yup... So that's about the main story...
You know, when I promised that I'd put up all my A essays, I did mean so, if they were good. I'm now thinking should I really put up this essay anot? Cos I really think it sucks. Well, anyway, what other people think might not be what you think, maybe I'm just a natural in writing EU papers? LOL! So, my essay... Don't shoot me if you think the same way as I do regarding the essay, shoot Dr Clancey...
Was `the Great War’ inevitable? That is, were global conditions such that a major conflict had to happen?
The global conditions set in the early twentieth century were such that if a conflict was to break out, it would escalate into a major conflict. This was to happen as the Great War, or the First World War as it is called now. However, the outbreak of the Great War was not necessarily inevitable even though global conditions pointed to a major conflict. This is because these global conditions of imperialism, nationalism, militarism, social Darwinism, realpolitik, European rivalries, the Alliance System, and improvements in technology, had been in place in Europe for a period of time but they enjoyed a period of relative peace and stability. I think that individually these global conditions would not lead to a major conflict but the addition of these conditions together created a genuine setting for a major conflict waiting to break out. Still, even though the global conditions pointed to an outbreak of a major conflict, I do not think that the Great War was inevitable as it was the events leading up to war that caused the widespread outbreak of a general war, without an ignition there was no excuse for the outbreak of war, nobody at that time thought that the war they were going into would drag on to a total war in a scale as large as the great war.
Examining the global conditions of the early twentieth century, we see the height of imperialism as one of the settings that was a cause of European conflict. Lenin attempted to explain this imperialism theory and used it to explain the outbreak of war as he thought that the capitalists from the imperialist nations “were always pressured to improve profits” and to do so they had to “seek cheap inputs from colonies”.[1] Lenin thought that eventually the major capitalist powers would lead to war as they wanted to grab more colonies.[2] However, before the Great War, no European power had fought another power in war over a colonial theory on their homeland, so even though European conflict might have arisen from this imperialism, it would not have been able to lead to the Great War based solely on this reason. Hence, this would only heighten possible tensions that might have led to a conflict between two neighbouring counties, but nothing on such a big scale as the Great War.
The early twentieth century also saw the height on nationalism on top of imperialism. As the different ethnic groups in the small Balkan states saw the successes of Germany as she was unified, these nationalist groups too wanted independence of themselves, and however, this alarmed the bigger states at that time who wanted to establish hegemony over those areas. This led to the various European nations taking sides, with a different small Balkan state which only increases the soured relationship between the various major powers, but this would not have led to the breakout of a major conflict involving those European powers as their priority was still at home. Nationalism was also seen in the major European powers as they each saw themselves superior than the others. It might be that only by going to war with each other that they could legitimise their superiority. This was in conjunction with the rise of the notion of social Darwinism at that time. This survival of the fittest theory suggested that it was only through war that the fittest could prevail, still it would have to take more than a nation to send their men to war. The Great War unlike other wars previously was an outbreak of war involved almost the whole of Europe.
Another reason that might brewed up conflict was the rise of militarism especially in Germany in which the navy was “vigorously built up” at the end of the nineteenth century.[3] As the large scale armament was carried out, other nations were forced to carry out similar plans for fear of becoming backward when compared with the Germans. Even the British with the biggest naval fleet then was also pressurised into keeping on innovating to make her military power even stronger to be able to curb the growth of might of the Germans. However, even though this naval race created serious conflict between the states and it was only through war that they exercise the usage of their armament, both sides had claimed to have armed themselves from each other in defense. An improvement in the level of technology also brought in devastation that made the Great War great. With improvements made to the machines guns, they can now kill more people faster and more effectively, still this not necessarily meant that with these new weapons the nations are obliged to wage war with each other immediately.
I think the most plausible argument for a major conflict to break out in Europe would be due to the Alliance System in place. With the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance, “Europe was divided into two opposing camps that became more and more inflexible and unwilling to compromise”[4]. As long as one member nation enters a war, the other nations would be dragged into the war under treaty terms, hence any war fought would not be a regional war but a European war fought among the member nations of both camps. However, it is not true that the Great War was inevitable due to this Alliance System as the treaties of alliances are mostly defensive treaties and actually used to discourage each other from war. These alliances are only loosely based and there is no obligation for a member country to join in mobilisation if war occurs. This could be seen in the case of Italy. Even though Italy was in the same alliance as Germany and Austria, when war broke out in 1914, Italy was hesitant to join the war, and when she finally did join the war, she joined in on the side of the alliance system.
I think that the outbreak of the Great War was caused by the events leading toward the war instead of the global conditions then. The immediate effects from the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand was the mobilisation of troops of the various European countries, the war just swept by following the mobilisation as war plans made no room for any hesitation of the troops. War escalated rapidly due to the global conditions but the global conditions did not directly lead to the outbreak of war. For example, the Alliance System led to more countries mobilising for war, but war did not breakout due to the presence of the Alliance System. By this time, the Alliances System, a system devised from Bismarck’s legacy of Realpolitik which was to “seek ways to cooperate, conferring on disarmament, colonialism, and various specific controversies”[5]. In fact, this Alliance System was supposed to maintain peace, but had created a bipolar balance of power in Europe between the Entente Powers and the Alliance Powers. It was due to this balance of power that pitted two strong opponents against each other in the Great War. Militarism and the advancement of technology also worsened the conflict between the two opposing powers. They did not ignite anything that might have led to war, but without these two ideas, war would not have been so destructive that it might not have been a Great War.
Without an ignition, it was highly possible that the Great War would not have broken out. This ignition came in the form of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. However, it has also been argued that due to the extreme heightened tension prevailing in Europe at that time, it was only a matter of sooner or later that a major war would break out. The assassination served merely as a catalyst tool and even without this catalyst it was also possible for the Alliance power to search for another excuse to launch war. I think that without this assassination, the tension building up among the different state might have ease up a little as time goes by. During the two Balkan crises, there was also a legitimate reason for the major powers to wage war with each other, but they did not hence I think that it was not necessarily that the Alliance powers wanted to go to war that they finally staged a war as they could have easily found an excuse to intervene in the politics of the Balkans. However, according to Duiker, he thinks that it was due to the Balkan Crises that led to the Russians vowing to revenge the Germans for invading one of his protectorates as the Russians were weaken from the Russo-Japanese War and were not in the position to win battles[6], it was however only after the crises that Russia slowly began to prepare it troops for war.
Finally, it is understood that general sentiments at that time had not expected the war to drag on for five years, most people thought that war was to be swift and victorious and not a war such as the Great War. It was only forced by circumstances that the war took a turn for the worse and became a long bloody stalemate involving most of Europe. Indeed I would agree that the global conditions were so that a major conflict, ie the Great War, would occur sometime, but it is not inevitable as another major conflict could have taken the place of the Great War.
In conclusion, I think that the global conditions of the early twentieth century had set a stage for a major conflict to happen, but not necessarily for the Great War to occur, hence I do not think that the Great War was inevitable. Without he trigger incident of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, despite imperialism, nationalism, militarism, social Darwinism, realpolitik, European rivalries, the Alliance System, and improvements in technology, the Great War could still have been prevented of happening. Of course, some might say that tension and rivalry in Europe had already reached saturation point and even without the assassination, Germany would still be able to find some other excuse just to launch war. Even if this was possible, the idea of war before it was launched was greatly different from its outcome. No one expected that the war would turn out as devastating as this war, and thus I would not see it as “inevitable”.
[1] C. Warren Hollister, J. Sears McGee, Gales Stokes The West Transformed: A History of Western Civilisation (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers), p.941
[2] Ibid
[3]C. Warren Hollister, J. Sears McGee, Gales Stokes The West Transformed: A History of Western Civilisation (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers), p.953
[4] William J. Duiker Twentieth-Century World History (Thomson: Wadsworth), p.65
[5] C. Warren Hollister, J. Sears McGee, Gales Stokes The West Transformed: A History of Western Civilisation (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers), p.942
[6] William J. Duiker Twentieth-Century World History (Thomson: Wadsworth), p.65
Note: This essay is very much unlike my normal essays. I usually write essays using Arial, but this is in Arial Rounded MT Bold, to make my font look bigger. And it's footnotes weren't in the same font like how I usually like them to be, it was in the default Times New Roman font cos I was so pressing for time that I didn't change it. I think I only finished the essay like 15 min before heading for the lecture.
My father thinks that someone stole my essay cos it was an A essay. he thinks that it must be some super kiasu person who goes around stealing A essays for their own reference. WTF... If is it indeed so I really hope that that meanie-o of a person will get eaten up by my essay man~ If that person really want my good essays, just get it from my blog la, idiot...
This is Joan's musings for the day~ Super long post~ But most of it is copy and paste... And I don't think I want to add in more interesting stuff cos nobody would read my blog until this sentence, so I guess I'll wait till the next time ba... (vote for me! heehee~)
Postscript: This should be my longest ever post sia~ I did a word count, just to spite my sis that my blog is wordier than hers. Hers amounted to 1037 words and mine, a mouthgobbling 4789 words! Okay... This should be expected cos I added in 2 essays each about 1400 words. But even if you minus 3000 words from the total, it'll be 1789, still wordier than my sis... haha~ And really, anything more than 800 words in a blog entry, is A LOT! Actually, most of my entries average at about 1100-1200 words... Oh well...
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Pretty Much All Screwed Up
Pretty Much All Screwed Up
I don't know what have been going on in my life recently, but everything just seems to be wrong. I don't know how wrong is it, but it just doesn't feel right. I can't wake up in the morning, my head is functioning properly, my senses and rain coordination is almost non-existent, I can't do work, I can't play, I can't watch TV, I can't even surf the net, and at night I can't sleep. This sucks. And I've absolutely no idea what's going wrong with me.
This has been like that for quite some time already. At first I thought perhaps it might be pms, but I know for sure, it's definitely not. Then I thought perhaps it could be because I'm having my Theatre Studies practical examination soon and I'm emotionally drained from all the acting, but no, even though I feel emotionally drained, I don't think it’s due to my acting cos acting usually don't affect me that much. So here I am squatting down by my computer typing out my uneasiness.
Actually this feeling has been around since last week.
Maybe I'm dreading the upcoming exams. Maybe something is telling me to freak out since the exams are drawing nearer, but this is not my first exam so why would I be feeling much different. Usually, I'd procrastinate studying by indulging myself in other activities, but now, I cannot even feel the pleasure in any of my usual indulgences. Since taking my A levels, I've been reading the newspaper cover to cover to destress. Not that I don't read newspapers, but I usually take a longer time reading newspapers during the exam period. I can spend 2 hours just reading the bloody Straits Times. But I finished it in 5 min just now. Somehow, it didn't really interest me as much as it normally does. In fact, nothing interests me anymore.
Even chatting online doesn't appeal to me anymore. I tried to ka chiao my friends online, but they all seem to busy to entertain me. Ka chiao-ing people without any response is the most bored thing one can be doing, but I got bored of that even. I feel tired trying to strike a conversation with people. People whom I don't want to talk to would come and drop me messages, people whom I want to talk to are too busy for me. WTH?!
I think I'm like a kamikaze pilot. Knowing there danger and self-destruction lies ahead of me, but I'm bounded by traditions and ideals and self-imposed values that I’ve only to move ahead towards danger and destruction.
I know I'd get negative response from those people I want to go and ka chiao, yet I really don’t know why I still do it. I know that I’d be ignored, but I still want to go up and disturb them. I feel so hard-sell. I feel cheapened. I feel vulnerable.
I want to sign out of my messenger to prevent myself from exposing all my weaknesses but I still habour that little bit of hope in me that a message I want to see might come in. I want to throw away my phone to prevent myself from wasting sms-es, but I also still habour that little bit of hope that that fated sms would come in even though I know that chances are minimal, maybe around 0.001%?
At night I don't dare to sleep cos I'm afraid that once I go to bed the day would end and it would signify another day has gone by. Another day going bye would mean one day down. Time passes very fast. Memories fade with time. I don't want time to fly by so quickly cos I'm afraid that my memories would move on too. I still harbour hopes that memories can be refreshed, but as time drags on, hopes are diminished. Maybe I'm just an insecure, fickle-minded screwball.
Damnit... I can't even complete this post proper.
To sort out my thought clearly, maybe this can help alleviate the mess of glob in my head now. Let's see, what's wrong with me.
Friends that I'd stopped contacting called me up again to meet. I'm wondering if I should head out to meet them or not. In my present lonesome stage, going out and meeting people might do some help in preventing me from bursting and totally freaking out at nothing, but something at the back of my head nags at me if I do so. I gave my word to somebody that I would not meet these people again due to some conflicting interest (in its mildest term, this does sound pretty weird) and I really don't want to break my promise.
Aren't promises made to be kept?
But promises made to me are like disintegrating right in front of me. And promises I made are struggling to prevent themselves from disintegrating. If so, why have promises?
Actually, I hate to make promises. I hate promises cos I know they can't be kept. I'll try my very best to prevent myself from going about doing or not doing something, definitely, but to make me promise, I see it as very serious. I do want to keep my promises, but sometimes, it's not easy. Especially when I see the promises made to me falling apart right in front of me. These broken promises seem to shout out to me saying "Hey... See? They aren't kept, why are you still holding onto your promises? Just let it go, just like how I was let go of."
Every of the above words are like knives piercing into my heart, making holes in it, inducing blood to seep out. The blood first seeps our slowly as the cut is small, but as more and more blood seeps out, the pressure on the hole makes it bigger allowing more and more blood to flow out. In the end, the pressure is so great that the whole heart ruptures, creating a splash of blood spluttering out in all directions.
I think that pretty much summed up what I'm feeling now and what I'd feel if the status quo remains. Maybe I'm now about the stage where the hole is just widening.
Next would be my insecurities and my vivid imagination. They seem to always work hand in hand with each other providing disastrous results on me.
Cos I've a vivid imagination, I often tend to think too much. Cos I'm insecure, I often tend to think the worst-case circumstance. Cos I'm insecure and have a vivid imagination, I often then to think a lot of worst-case circumstances and try and compare which is the worst worst out of them then I'd lead myself to believe that it's true. This leads to me often mixing up imagination and reality.
I also think that the weather is getting into me too. Recently the weather has been pretty erratic, blowing hot and cold. On nights when it’s warm, I feel hot and stuffy. On nights when it's cold, I crave for something nice, warm and comfy as lonesome sets in. I think is also about the hot and cold thingie that is making my mood as bad as the weather. Hope that when the weather clears up my mood will clear up too.
Too many things on my mind now, and I'm still at the trivialities. The bigger more important matters are still tied somewhere deep behind my head.
Maybe I was thinking about setting deadlines. Maybe, I should give myself a time frame for everything. But would that still leave me in regrets? I hate regrets. Time is irreversible. Everything of what I do has repercussions and consequences. hai... Boils down to the fact that I always think too much. Damn! Remove my brain sia!
I don't know what have been going on in my life recently, but everything just seems to be wrong. I don't know how wrong is it, but it just doesn't feel right. I can't wake up in the morning, my head is functioning properly, my senses and rain coordination is almost non-existent, I can't do work, I can't play, I can't watch TV, I can't even surf the net, and at night I can't sleep. This sucks. And I've absolutely no idea what's going wrong with me.
This has been like that for quite some time already. At first I thought perhaps it might be pms, but I know for sure, it's definitely not. Then I thought perhaps it could be because I'm having my Theatre Studies practical examination soon and I'm emotionally drained from all the acting, but no, even though I feel emotionally drained, I don't think it’s due to my acting cos acting usually don't affect me that much. So here I am squatting down by my computer typing out my uneasiness.
Actually this feeling has been around since last week.
Maybe I'm dreading the upcoming exams. Maybe something is telling me to freak out since the exams are drawing nearer, but this is not my first exam so why would I be feeling much different. Usually, I'd procrastinate studying by indulging myself in other activities, but now, I cannot even feel the pleasure in any of my usual indulgences. Since taking my A levels, I've been reading the newspaper cover to cover to destress. Not that I don't read newspapers, but I usually take a longer time reading newspapers during the exam period. I can spend 2 hours just reading the bloody Straits Times. But I finished it in 5 min just now. Somehow, it didn't really interest me as much as it normally does. In fact, nothing interests me anymore.
Even chatting online doesn't appeal to me anymore. I tried to ka chiao my friends online, but they all seem to busy to entertain me. Ka chiao-ing people without any response is the most bored thing one can be doing, but I got bored of that even. I feel tired trying to strike a conversation with people. People whom I don't want to talk to would come and drop me messages, people whom I want to talk to are too busy for me. WTH?!
I think I'm like a kamikaze pilot. Knowing there danger and self-destruction lies ahead of me, but I'm bounded by traditions and ideals and self-imposed values that I’ve only to move ahead towards danger and destruction.
I know I'd get negative response from those people I want to go and ka chiao, yet I really don’t know why I still do it. I know that I’d be ignored, but I still want to go up and disturb them. I feel so hard-sell. I feel cheapened. I feel vulnerable.
I want to sign out of my messenger to prevent myself from exposing all my weaknesses but I still habour that little bit of hope in me that a message I want to see might come in. I want to throw away my phone to prevent myself from wasting sms-es, but I also still habour that little bit of hope that that fated sms would come in even though I know that chances are minimal, maybe around 0.001%?
At night I don't dare to sleep cos I'm afraid that once I go to bed the day would end and it would signify another day has gone by. Another day going bye would mean one day down. Time passes very fast. Memories fade with time. I don't want time to fly by so quickly cos I'm afraid that my memories would move on too. I still harbour hopes that memories can be refreshed, but as time drags on, hopes are diminished. Maybe I'm just an insecure, fickle-minded screwball.
Damnit... I can't even complete this post proper.
To sort out my thought clearly, maybe this can help alleviate the mess of glob in my head now. Let's see, what's wrong with me.
Friends that I'd stopped contacting called me up again to meet. I'm wondering if I should head out to meet them or not. In my present lonesome stage, going out and meeting people might do some help in preventing me from bursting and totally freaking out at nothing, but something at the back of my head nags at me if I do so. I gave my word to somebody that I would not meet these people again due to some conflicting interest (in its mildest term, this does sound pretty weird) and I really don't want to break my promise.
Aren't promises made to be kept?
But promises made to me are like disintegrating right in front of me. And promises I made are struggling to prevent themselves from disintegrating. If so, why have promises?
Actually, I hate to make promises. I hate promises cos I know they can't be kept. I'll try my very best to prevent myself from going about doing or not doing something, definitely, but to make me promise, I see it as very serious. I do want to keep my promises, but sometimes, it's not easy. Especially when I see the promises made to me falling apart right in front of me. These broken promises seem to shout out to me saying "Hey... See? They aren't kept, why are you still holding onto your promises? Just let it go, just like how I was let go of."
Every of the above words are like knives piercing into my heart, making holes in it, inducing blood to seep out. The blood first seeps our slowly as the cut is small, but as more and more blood seeps out, the pressure on the hole makes it bigger allowing more and more blood to flow out. In the end, the pressure is so great that the whole heart ruptures, creating a splash of blood spluttering out in all directions.
I think that pretty much summed up what I'm feeling now and what I'd feel if the status quo remains. Maybe I'm now about the stage where the hole is just widening.
Next would be my insecurities and my vivid imagination. They seem to always work hand in hand with each other providing disastrous results on me.
Cos I've a vivid imagination, I often tend to think too much. Cos I'm insecure, I often tend to think the worst-case circumstance. Cos I'm insecure and have a vivid imagination, I often then to think a lot of worst-case circumstances and try and compare which is the worst worst out of them then I'd lead myself to believe that it's true. This leads to me often mixing up imagination and reality.
I also think that the weather is getting into me too. Recently the weather has been pretty erratic, blowing hot and cold. On nights when it’s warm, I feel hot and stuffy. On nights when it's cold, I crave for something nice, warm and comfy as lonesome sets in. I think is also about the hot and cold thingie that is making my mood as bad as the weather. Hope that when the weather clears up my mood will clear up too.
Too many things on my mind now, and I'm still at the trivialities. The bigger more important matters are still tied somewhere deep behind my head.
Maybe I was thinking about setting deadlines. Maybe, I should give myself a time frame for everything. But would that still leave me in regrets? I hate regrets. Time is irreversible. Everything of what I do has repercussions and consequences. hai... Boils down to the fact that I always think too much. Damn! Remove my brain sia!
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Which Year Are You In?
Which Year Are You In?
Last semester I was pretty lucky in that I needn't have to do any projects. I just had 4 term papers to do. This semester I've to do 6 papers and 3 projects. I was supposed to do a 4th project but me and my project group mate ultimately split to do individual papers instead due to conflicting time schedules.
I was having a project group meeting this morning with my fellow mates from HY2242 Singapore Military History. This is a very interesting collection of group mates as this group was allocated by out tutor on grounds that there should have at least one history major in each group and no 3 life sciences major should end up in the same group. My group comprised of 4 arts students, me a European studies major, a year 2 history major, a year 2 political science major and a year 3 psychology major. They all sound very zai. Actually, if you choose to want to do a Farrell’s module, you should be quite zai. Unfortunately, I'm an exception, but this is another matter.
Since they all sounded pretty zai, I started asking them about their field of study and which year they were in. Then I realised that I'm the only year 1 among them. I'm the freshie, the greenhorn, the blurblock. Then this below conversation took place between me and my group mate:
jal: So, which year are you in? (after finding out that he's a year 2 political science major in the field of international relations)
group mate: year 2. you?
jal: I'm only in my first year.
group mate: First year only?
jal: Yup...
group mate: So it's first year second semester? (diaoz... then he realised his sheer stupidity of that question) Yea, I mean, I suppose so.
jal: So, this is your second year second semester la? (haha... for the fun of it)
then came the bombshell...
group mate: You don't look like a year 1.
jal: (shocked) Why?
group mate: Well, you can tell a year 1 student one, they look very (paused and sputtered thinking of an appropriate word but unfortunately not able to do so), well, they look very year 1. You'll look different when you grow older.
jal: And you were saying I don’t look like a year 1?
group mate: Ya, you look seasoned and more laidback.
jal: Which year did you think I was?
group mate: second year
Joan's face had this "okay..." look.
Okay... This is not the first time I’ve heard people say I don’t look like a first year student. Even during Oweek when I was a councillor, I've my freshies thinking I was older. Oh well...
Either I look old, or I look well fitted into this sort of university lifestyle.
I'd like to say I look well fitted into this sort of university lifestyle. Although I'm a very blur person who until recently never taken bus B or C, I'm in a nice little comfort zone around my arts faculty. I zip around my faculty with such ease that you might have thought that I'd lived there for ages. I know quite a bit of shortcuts around the faculty. I think I'm able to manage the culture shock that some people might have encountered when they first arrived here. I'm quite okay with angmo teachers around and I can understand them clearly. I'm quite living the life in university, taking things easy as things go by. Maybe it's this sort of ease and relaxed attitude that I put up that make me look more seasoned.
But then again, I think I might also look older than my actual age, which is a contradiction among my closer friends who think that I look younger than my actual age.
Maybe it's the attitude that I put up. With people I'm not so close with I'm very guarded about myself and I'll tend to put up a tough front like some power woman. I do so mainly to protect myself. I've to give people the impression that they can't mess with me, if not they'd have messed me up. With closer friends, I'm less guarded and I can forget to use my brains sometimes. People see me more like some blurblock, airhead, bimbo, yup... Something along those lines. This might make me look younger than what I'm really. That's why when I show people pictures of my sister, they usually guess my sister's age to be older than actual. Once, one of my friends even guessed my sister to be older than me.
I won't say I do mind people saying me to be old because of all the circumstances I've been through, I must say that I've aged quite a bit. That day I was chatting with a friend online and we brought up the topic of our first online chat together, so I looked back into my chat logs and dug out our first chat. As I read through it, I realised that he hasn't changed much in his tone of voice and his writings, but I've aged terribly. It's not about my style of writing since I've been writing like this all this while, but it's about how I put my words across. Like me teasing him, the way I tease people is different. Not how different but there is a sense of a larger vision of the world in how I sound. This is really called growing old.
Old or young is no longer about numbers, it's how you feel in your bones. I feel old, so therefore I've aged. That's how sad life is now.
I won't say I don't want to feel old cos I know somethings just can't be helped. Although it might be nice to always be that little girl by your father's side but as time passes, things change, and you grow old. I think this is why I like to refer myself as this little girl. As some of you may have noticed, I like to refer myself as such. It's not really because I really think that I'm young but maybe it's because I know that I'm no longer young liao that’s why I hope to still maintain some youth by calling myself younger. If I don’t make myself sound younger I like to make other people sound older, calling them uncles aunties. It's not really that I find them old or find myself young, but more so is that I want to make myself seem younger than what I think I am.
I think it's pretty selfish of me to do so, but what can I really do about it? I don’t know. Maybe I should put it in such a way that I've no idea what to think.
Last semester I was pretty lucky in that I needn't have to do any projects. I just had 4 term papers to do. This semester I've to do 6 papers and 3 projects. I was supposed to do a 4th project but me and my project group mate ultimately split to do individual papers instead due to conflicting time schedules.
I was having a project group meeting this morning with my fellow mates from HY2242 Singapore Military History. This is a very interesting collection of group mates as this group was allocated by out tutor on grounds that there should have at least one history major in each group and no 3 life sciences major should end up in the same group. My group comprised of 4 arts students, me a European studies major, a year 2 history major, a year 2 political science major and a year 3 psychology major. They all sound very zai. Actually, if you choose to want to do a Farrell’s module, you should be quite zai. Unfortunately, I'm an exception, but this is another matter.
Since they all sounded pretty zai, I started asking them about their field of study and which year they were in. Then I realised that I'm the only year 1 among them. I'm the freshie, the greenhorn, the blurblock. Then this below conversation took place between me and my group mate:
jal: So, which year are you in? (after finding out that he's a year 2 political science major in the field of international relations)
group mate: year 2. you?
jal: I'm only in my first year.
group mate: First year only?
jal: Yup...
group mate: So it's first year second semester? (diaoz... then he realised his sheer stupidity of that question) Yea, I mean, I suppose so.
jal: So, this is your second year second semester la? (haha... for the fun of it)
then came the bombshell...
group mate: You don't look like a year 1.
jal: (shocked) Why?
group mate: Well, you can tell a year 1 student one, they look very (paused and sputtered thinking of an appropriate word but unfortunately not able to do so), well, they look very year 1. You'll look different when you grow older.
jal: And you were saying I don’t look like a year 1?
group mate: Ya, you look seasoned and more laidback.
jal: Which year did you think I was?
group mate: second year
Joan's face had this "okay..." look.
Okay... This is not the first time I’ve heard people say I don’t look like a first year student. Even during Oweek when I was a councillor, I've my freshies thinking I was older. Oh well...
Either I look old, or I look well fitted into this sort of university lifestyle.
I'd like to say I look well fitted into this sort of university lifestyle. Although I'm a very blur person who until recently never taken bus B or C, I'm in a nice little comfort zone around my arts faculty. I zip around my faculty with such ease that you might have thought that I'd lived there for ages. I know quite a bit of shortcuts around the faculty. I think I'm able to manage the culture shock that some people might have encountered when they first arrived here. I'm quite okay with angmo teachers around and I can understand them clearly. I'm quite living the life in university, taking things easy as things go by. Maybe it's this sort of ease and relaxed attitude that I put up that make me look more seasoned.
But then again, I think I might also look older than my actual age, which is a contradiction among my closer friends who think that I look younger than my actual age.
Maybe it's the attitude that I put up. With people I'm not so close with I'm very guarded about myself and I'll tend to put up a tough front like some power woman. I do so mainly to protect myself. I've to give people the impression that they can't mess with me, if not they'd have messed me up. With closer friends, I'm less guarded and I can forget to use my brains sometimes. People see me more like some blurblock, airhead, bimbo, yup... Something along those lines. This might make me look younger than what I'm really. That's why when I show people pictures of my sister, they usually guess my sister's age to be older than actual. Once, one of my friends even guessed my sister to be older than me.
I won't say I do mind people saying me to be old because of all the circumstances I've been through, I must say that I've aged quite a bit. That day I was chatting with a friend online and we brought up the topic of our first online chat together, so I looked back into my chat logs and dug out our first chat. As I read through it, I realised that he hasn't changed much in his tone of voice and his writings, but I've aged terribly. It's not about my style of writing since I've been writing like this all this while, but it's about how I put my words across. Like me teasing him, the way I tease people is different. Not how different but there is a sense of a larger vision of the world in how I sound. This is really called growing old.
Old or young is no longer about numbers, it's how you feel in your bones. I feel old, so therefore I've aged. That's how sad life is now.
I won't say I don't want to feel old cos I know somethings just can't be helped. Although it might be nice to always be that little girl by your father's side but as time passes, things change, and you grow old. I think this is why I like to refer myself as this little girl. As some of you may have noticed, I like to refer myself as such. It's not really because I really think that I'm young but maybe it's because I know that I'm no longer young liao that’s why I hope to still maintain some youth by calling myself younger. If I don’t make myself sound younger I like to make other people sound older, calling them uncles aunties. It's not really that I find them old or find myself young, but more so is that I want to make myself seem younger than what I think I am.
I think it's pretty selfish of me to do so, but what can I really do about it? I don’t know. Maybe I should put it in such a way that I've no idea what to think.
Monday, April 11, 2005
A Joke Carried Too Far~
A Joke Carried Too Far~
I'm sure by now most of my friends would know that I'm quite a mischievous person. I cannot resist a good jibe when I'm in a bitchy mood. Okay, I won't say bitchy, but more of in a fun-loving, happy mood. I'd like to make fun of people. And I'm good at that cos I'm witty. A bit bhb liao, saying myself as witty, but well, it's the truth. To some people, I might be a brainless little bimbo, but Joan didn't come this far without brains. She's smart.
Since I'm smart and witty, I can make good jibes without getting ribbed back, and even if I get ribbed back, I'm always ready with a quick and good comeback line. And because sometimes I get too carried away with myself, I get lost in my own jokes. Too many a time I offend people unknowingly due to my careless words. I've been trying to note my limits and prevent myself from pushing it. This usually happens when I'm in a more solemn mood. When I'm more sensitive and well, plain nice.
Back to my main point, when I'm not nice. I push limits too far back.
Maybe before I describe my joke, I'll give my rationale behind the joke. I did it in good spirits and I thought that part was able to take it. I didn't realise the repurcussions it could have on me and others. When I did it I only thought of that person. I did it to lighten up the atmosphere and so that we can get to know each other better since we were going to be working with each other for quite some time. There were also other selfish reasons, like I was on a pretty high mood and I wanted to ka chiao someone and he was an easy target.
That target was my laoban.
Whatever I did, had no hidden meaning behind and no other meanings. The photo albums, the tribute, the everything was just a big jibe. Yes, it's pretty mean of me to say things like that, but I think this time I've taken this fun a bit too far. Not just for him, but also for me.
After doing so many things to ka chiao him, apparently everybody thinks that I like my laoban.
I must admit that my laoban is a very nice person, and I think that he'd make a good boyfriend, BUT it's not in my mind, or any sort of intention to have any feelings towards him other than him as my laoban. fullstop. period. that's it. ju hao.
But people don't seem to realise that. And now they are making fun of me and my laoban. This is bad. Not just for me, but also my laoban. And the worse thing is that this is a double-edged sword, no matter how I react to this it will reflect badly on me. I can't protest against it, or it might make me look guilty, nor can I appear excited about these remarks cos it maight seem like I do like him, so how am I supposed to react sia?!
Right now I'm putting up and indifferent front. And when people ask me about it, I just roll my eyes, hoping they get the hint that Joan is not interested in her laoban in that sense, but it doesn't seem to be working well. Not with her continuing to jibe her laoban. I really wanted to stop all the poking fun of, really, cos I think I'm taking it too far, but well, it's not easy to stop. this is the only upper hand I have of my laoban and I cannot put it down. hehe~ So far most of my friends' weaknesses are kept locked up in my mind so that I can always use it against them. Especially those who are ticklish, beware of Joan~ hehe~
I'm starting to sound very mean. But I do have my weak points too, just see if you can figure it. hehe~ Think so far, not many people know what it is, so I'm safe. hahahaha...
Oh no, this is bad. I'm supposed to sound apologetic and here I am so full of myself. damn girl! Okay, so now, Joan is making this clear that she would stop all irritants on her laoban. She would've revoked some of her past mischiefs of her laoban, like the yahoo photos album and the tribute, but then again, that is not just put up to ka chiao my laoban, but also a showpiece of my photography skills and my writing skills, so I've decided not to take them down. I'd have done it even for anyone else.
Maybe if I do up more albums and tributes people will then realise that Joan treats all her friends the same and she is not doing anything special for a certain person? ahh~ maybe... But nobody seems to like me doing these on them. hehe~ Really, who would sia? haha...
Some people are trying to probe into Joan's love life at the present moment, including my damn bagua sister, sad to say, Joan got nothing to report. Still single, lonely, and not looking. Think the status quo suits me fine. I've time for myself, time for friends, time for fun and time for serious businesses. Just hope that the status quo can still remain after my trip from Germany. Though one month isn't really a very long time, it's still quite long. Many things can happen, many things can change. If from the bottom of my sincere heart, I preserve the status quo during my trip, do you think it can remain like this?
Some things just aren't about individuals. Just like my laoban, id he hadn't done anything that might have encouraged me to ka chiao him, do you think I'd so gladly have went to ka chiao him?
I'm not pushing the blame to him. As what I told him before, if he really didn't want me to ka chiao him, I wouldn't do it. That's why I'm putting a stop to all these nonsense now.
Laoban~ baozhong ba!
Postscript:
Think I'm used to adding postscripts after blog entries.
I was thinking about my jibes on other people and I realised that between this other group of friends, there's also another jibe. Between the *ding-ding* there's the jibe on Stanley's brother. Stanley's younger brother, like yea right. Think I've only myself to blame for the consequences.
I'm sure by now most of my friends would know that I'm quite a mischievous person. I cannot resist a good jibe when I'm in a bitchy mood. Okay, I won't say bitchy, but more of in a fun-loving, happy mood. I'd like to make fun of people. And I'm good at that cos I'm witty. A bit bhb liao, saying myself as witty, but well, it's the truth. To some people, I might be a brainless little bimbo, but Joan didn't come this far without brains. She's smart.
Since I'm smart and witty, I can make good jibes without getting ribbed back, and even if I get ribbed back, I'm always ready with a quick and good comeback line. And because sometimes I get too carried away with myself, I get lost in my own jokes. Too many a time I offend people unknowingly due to my careless words. I've been trying to note my limits and prevent myself from pushing it. This usually happens when I'm in a more solemn mood. When I'm more sensitive and well, plain nice.
Back to my main point, when I'm not nice. I push limits too far back.
Maybe before I describe my joke, I'll give my rationale behind the joke. I did it in good spirits and I thought that part was able to take it. I didn't realise the repurcussions it could have on me and others. When I did it I only thought of that person. I did it to lighten up the atmosphere and so that we can get to know each other better since we were going to be working with each other for quite some time. There were also other selfish reasons, like I was on a pretty high mood and I wanted to ka chiao someone and he was an easy target.
That target was my laoban.
Whatever I did, had no hidden meaning behind and no other meanings. The photo albums, the tribute, the everything was just a big jibe. Yes, it's pretty mean of me to say things like that, but I think this time I've taken this fun a bit too far. Not just for him, but also for me.
After doing so many things to ka chiao him, apparently everybody thinks that I like my laoban.
I must admit that my laoban is a very nice person, and I think that he'd make a good boyfriend, BUT it's not in my mind, or any sort of intention to have any feelings towards him other than him as my laoban. fullstop. period. that's it. ju hao.
But people don't seem to realise that. And now they are making fun of me and my laoban. This is bad. Not just for me, but also my laoban. And the worse thing is that this is a double-edged sword, no matter how I react to this it will reflect badly on me. I can't protest against it, or it might make me look guilty, nor can I appear excited about these remarks cos it maight seem like I do like him, so how am I supposed to react sia?!
Right now I'm putting up and indifferent front. And when people ask me about it, I just roll my eyes, hoping they get the hint that Joan is not interested in her laoban in that sense, but it doesn't seem to be working well. Not with her continuing to jibe her laoban. I really wanted to stop all the poking fun of, really, cos I think I'm taking it too far, but well, it's not easy to stop. this is the only upper hand I have of my laoban and I cannot put it down. hehe~ So far most of my friends' weaknesses are kept locked up in my mind so that I can always use it against them. Especially those who are ticklish, beware of Joan~ hehe~
I'm starting to sound very mean. But I do have my weak points too, just see if you can figure it. hehe~ Think so far, not many people know what it is, so I'm safe. hahahaha...
Oh no, this is bad. I'm supposed to sound apologetic and here I am so full of myself. damn girl! Okay, so now, Joan is making this clear that she would stop all irritants on her laoban. She would've revoked some of her past mischiefs of her laoban, like the yahoo photos album and the tribute, but then again, that is not just put up to ka chiao my laoban, but also a showpiece of my photography skills and my writing skills, so I've decided not to take them down. I'd have done it even for anyone else.
Maybe if I do up more albums and tributes people will then realise that Joan treats all her friends the same and she is not doing anything special for a certain person? ahh~ maybe... But nobody seems to like me doing these on them. hehe~ Really, who would sia? haha...
Some people are trying to probe into Joan's love life at the present moment, including my damn bagua sister, sad to say, Joan got nothing to report. Still single, lonely, and not looking. Think the status quo suits me fine. I've time for myself, time for friends, time for fun and time for serious businesses. Just hope that the status quo can still remain after my trip from Germany. Though one month isn't really a very long time, it's still quite long. Many things can happen, many things can change. If from the bottom of my sincere heart, I preserve the status quo during my trip, do you think it can remain like this?
Some things just aren't about individuals. Just like my laoban, id he hadn't done anything that might have encouraged me to ka chiao him, do you think I'd so gladly have went to ka chiao him?
I'm not pushing the blame to him. As what I told him before, if he really didn't want me to ka chiao him, I wouldn't do it. That's why I'm putting a stop to all these nonsense now.
Laoban~ baozhong ba!
Postscript:
Think I'm used to adding postscripts after blog entries.
I was thinking about my jibes on other people and I realised that between this other group of friends, there's also another jibe. Between the *ding-ding* there's the jibe on Stanley's brother. Stanley's younger brother, like yea right. Think I've only myself to blame for the consequences.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
jal5eva
Welcoming the all new jal5eva...
As most of my friends would have known by now, my Yahoo! account was gobbled up by Yahoo! themselves. I think they don't like me or something... boohoo~ Anyway, I've been contacting their customer service and hopefully able to get things sorted out as soon as possible. *cross fingers*
The long story behind the loss of my account, in narrative form:
It was a dark night, the time was past 1am, Joan was online chatting, surfing the net and clearing her emails. Then suddenly her Yahoo! mail notifier dropped her a mail notification, the heading of that new incoming mail stated that it came from Yahoo! customer service, and that she've changed my password. On seeing that mail notification, she totally panicked. She dropped what she was doing and went to read that mail.
The mail didn't say much except that her password has been changed and she was to use her new password to sign into Yahoo! now. But the new password was not stated, and it was also not reversible. Joan really freaked out this time. She had not changed her password nor did anything about it. Immediately she tried to log into her account information see if she can changed back her password anot, but she can't enter her account information page as her original password was wrong.
There left Joan all alone online, not daring to do anything, not daring to log out of her Yahoo! fearing the she might not be able to log back in again. She tried going through the forget password page over and over agin, but still to no avail. Luckily her Yahoo! messenger was signed in at that time and she still had access to her address book and her online friends.
As the night was late, there wasn't any one online that might be able to help Joan except yup, you know who you are! hehe~ Let me give you a big huggies when I see you okay? Thanks for being there, calming me down, telling me what I should do instead of freaking out. Thank you! I think if not for you, I wouldn't have saved all my email addresses of my friends. hai... oh no... This is supposed to e a narrative, damn... I went off course again, better go back to where I was.
So thanks to the presence of Joan's friend, she managed to send emails to all of her old friends warning them of her plight and to note that Joan is no longer jal4eva. At every word she typed, her heart bled. The nick she used for 9 years under Yahoo! was just disappearing under her nose. She felt her heart just break into pieces just like that.
That night, Joan didn't dare to sleep. She left her laptop on throughout the night and her account, whatever left of it anyway to be left signed in. She was hoping that it was all a farce and when it's the next day, the nightmare would be over. Alas, that was only her wishful thinking. The next day, after fiddling with her account more, her Yahoo! mail log in session expired. She now could no longer access her email. She leaned onto her messenger even more. She was so afraid of signing out of her messenger cos that would mean that she would have jal4eva buried 4eva.
That's when friends come into the picture. Joan is so lucky that she always have a bunch of friends she can count on. Even though it's only a hug or an affirmation, it's enough for this girl. Even if it's only half an hour or 45 min, just the thought that you were there counted eternity. Another big thank you to you who whisked me off from the virtual nightmare and put in reality in my life. Also feel like giving you this big big huggies~ hehe~ Come collect it from me the next time you see me ba! haha...
So, thanks to this friend of hers, Joan shut down her computer and proceeded on with life. She now came to terms that this problem wasn't to be solved in a matter of hours, it would need days, weeks, even months to solve this problem. And in the meantime, she can rely on the fact that her friends are there with her and she had salvaged most of what she wanted to salvage.
that night, the paranoid Joan absolutely refused to touch her own laptop. At every sight of her laptop came back painful memories of the jal4eva of the past. She went to her sister's computer instead and used it. She set up another Yahoo! account.
jal5eva
Please no giggles, no sniggers, no comments on it. Get used to it ba... I'm starting to get so used to it that I'm thinking of opening a gmail account and a hotmail account of that nick. And maybe to set up another blog with the url jal5eva. lol~
I think I'm growing up. I'm slowly evolving, into a more critical, more mature person. Maybe this change in my nick will signify a change of me from a girl to a woman. No longer that dumb little girl too lazy to use her brains, now a confident power woman who can hold up half the sky. hehe...
Before I forget, the links by the side of my blog. My Yahoo! 360 under jal4eva is still there. When you click onto it, you can still see my big face, but I can't update it or do anything to it except look at it. I've a new 360, thanks to my friend for inviting me back it, at jal5eva. Yup, will be leaving the jal4eva one there too as a memorial, but pls do click on the jal5eva one if you want to see me. It's the same face actually, didn't changed the pics. hehe~ And my Yahoo! photo albums under jal4eva. There's nothing I can do about it. Actually, I wanted to privatise my laoban's album cos not very nice mah, put his cute face, body, particular anatomies online like that, but since I can't change the settings now, well, sorry laoban~ The Yahoo! photos are still valid. I won't be transferring the photos over to my new album, but when I start cresting new albums, they will go into my jal5eva photo albums instead.
Long big chunk of words~ oh well...
As most of my friends would have known by now, my Yahoo! account was gobbled up by Yahoo! themselves. I think they don't like me or something... boohoo~ Anyway, I've been contacting their customer service and hopefully able to get things sorted out as soon as possible. *cross fingers*
The long story behind the loss of my account, in narrative form:
It was a dark night, the time was past 1am, Joan was online chatting, surfing the net and clearing her emails. Then suddenly her Yahoo! mail notifier dropped her a mail notification, the heading of that new incoming mail stated that it came from Yahoo! customer service, and that she've changed my password. On seeing that mail notification, she totally panicked. She dropped what she was doing and went to read that mail.
The mail didn't say much except that her password has been changed and she was to use her new password to sign into Yahoo! now. But the new password was not stated, and it was also not reversible. Joan really freaked out this time. She had not changed her password nor did anything about it. Immediately she tried to log into her account information see if she can changed back her password anot, but she can't enter her account information page as her original password was wrong.
There left Joan all alone online, not daring to do anything, not daring to log out of her Yahoo! fearing the she might not be able to log back in again. She tried going through the forget password page over and over agin, but still to no avail. Luckily her Yahoo! messenger was signed in at that time and she still had access to her address book and her online friends.
As the night was late, there wasn't any one online that might be able to help Joan except yup, you know who you are! hehe~ Let me give you a big huggies when I see you okay? Thanks for being there, calming me down, telling me what I should do instead of freaking out. Thank you! I think if not for you, I wouldn't have saved all my email addresses of my friends. hai... oh no... This is supposed to e a narrative, damn... I went off course again, better go back to where I was.
So thanks to the presence of Joan's friend, she managed to send emails to all of her old friends warning them of her plight and to note that Joan is no longer jal4eva. At every word she typed, her heart bled. The nick she used for 9 years under Yahoo! was just disappearing under her nose. She felt her heart just break into pieces just like that.
That night, Joan didn't dare to sleep. She left her laptop on throughout the night and her account, whatever left of it anyway to be left signed in. She was hoping that it was all a farce and when it's the next day, the nightmare would be over. Alas, that was only her wishful thinking. The next day, after fiddling with her account more, her Yahoo! mail log in session expired. She now could no longer access her email. She leaned onto her messenger even more. She was so afraid of signing out of her messenger cos that would mean that she would have jal4eva buried 4eva.
That's when friends come into the picture. Joan is so lucky that she always have a bunch of friends she can count on. Even though it's only a hug or an affirmation, it's enough for this girl. Even if it's only half an hour or 45 min, just the thought that you were there counted eternity. Another big thank you to you who whisked me off from the virtual nightmare and put in reality in my life. Also feel like giving you this big big huggies~ hehe~ Come collect it from me the next time you see me ba! haha...
So, thanks to this friend of hers, Joan shut down her computer and proceeded on with life. She now came to terms that this problem wasn't to be solved in a matter of hours, it would need days, weeks, even months to solve this problem. And in the meantime, she can rely on the fact that her friends are there with her and she had salvaged most of what she wanted to salvage.
that night, the paranoid Joan absolutely refused to touch her own laptop. At every sight of her laptop came back painful memories of the jal4eva of the past. She went to her sister's computer instead and used it. She set up another Yahoo! account.
jal5eva
Please no giggles, no sniggers, no comments on it. Get used to it ba... I'm starting to get so used to it that I'm thinking of opening a gmail account and a hotmail account of that nick. And maybe to set up another blog with the url jal5eva. lol~
I think I'm growing up. I'm slowly evolving, into a more critical, more mature person. Maybe this change in my nick will signify a change of me from a girl to a woman. No longer that dumb little girl too lazy to use her brains, now a confident power woman who can hold up half the sky. hehe...
Before I forget, the links by the side of my blog. My Yahoo! 360 under jal4eva is still there. When you click onto it, you can still see my big face, but I can't update it or do anything to it except look at it. I've a new 360, thanks to my friend for inviting me back it, at jal5eva. Yup, will be leaving the jal4eva one there too as a memorial, but pls do click on the jal5eva one if you want to see me. It's the same face actually, didn't changed the pics. hehe~ And my Yahoo! photo albums under jal4eva. There's nothing I can do about it. Actually, I wanted to privatise my laoban's album cos not very nice mah, put his cute face, body, particular anatomies online like that, but since I can't change the settings now, well, sorry laoban~ The Yahoo! photos are still valid. I won't be transferring the photos over to my new album, but when I start cresting new albums, they will go into my jal5eva photo albums instead.
Long big chunk of words~ oh well...
Monday, April 04, 2005
A Tribute to My Dear Laoban
A Tribute to My Dear Laoban Ho Hon Hwee~
Before I start on my tribute, I need everybody reading this now to click on this link
http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/jal4eva/slideshow?.dir=%2F9a18&.src=ph
That was my dear Laoban from every angle.
It's not easy being Joan's Laoban cos as you all know, Joan is a very difficult person to deal with. As you guys should know by now, a girl who can think of something as dumb as the Da Tou Tie 10 Lian Pai, must be a really bored person, and when she's bored, she'll go crazy. On top of that, her Laoban must deal with her lack of sleep. Lack of sleep will induce this girl to either go crazier or more pissed. Since during this production period things were fun, Joan didn't get pissed, she just got crazy.
More about the production.
Lack of sleep, tight schedules, imminent deadlines, rising tempers all could not stop Joan from going crazy cos staging a production is fun. Even though all those friends who promised that they'd come didn't turn up in the last minute, there was still her that group of almost as crazy Chinese Drama mates there by her side. Kudos to you guys!
Let's analyse the couple of days in the theatre together...
Joan was in red during the production and on her first day, things were bad. But everybody was nice about it and well, since I was doing sounds, it wasn't that tough on me. luckily...
Okay okay... But to my dear Laoban...
After suffering under my hands over the past week, he is long due a good apology.
What did this girl do to him?
Actually, I didn't really do much. I just took the above shown pictures of him despite him hating to be photographed. And I just followed him around wherever he went. That's just about it. Only.
Reasons for my torturing of him (if you consider that as torturing):
- He didn't stop me from doing it. Maybe he did, but he wasn't that insistent on me not doing it, so I thought that he was merely acting shy, so I didn't give him the hoots and continued disturbing him.
- I was high from the lack of sleep. Well, not sleeping can make Joan do funny things just like alcohol can make some people do funny things. So this lack of sleep coupled with not having a clear state of mind led to joan disturbing poor Laoban.
Hmm... Think that's about it. Don't really think it reasontes me disturbing him, but still, not that I'm in a much clearer state of mind, think I was a little too childish ba. haha~ No offense hor Laoban!
Why did I start calling him Laoban?
Can't remember. Just like I can't remember when had I started calling Zhangting Zhangting shushu. But it sure wasn't too long ago.
Now, back on track with the tribute. In any tribute there should be a long list of the goodness of the person in the tribute, so this is my list of the amazing things of my Laoban.
Amazing things Joan seen in He Honghui:
- His pirating abilities.
Laoban is the biggest pirate I've ever seen. he can find and download anything you want him to find. His collection of songs, movies, serials, OSTs, and whatever stuff that can be downloaded from online is just wide wide wide. That is something that never cease to amaze this girl.
- His help to Joan.
When Joan was asked to do the sound for Rongrong's play, she had nothing to start of with. Joan collection of music is nowhere near 1% of that of Laoban's, so naturally she turned to her Laoban and cried, "Laoban... How?" Laoban immediately passed on a little portion of songs over to Joan to listen, but how did he do that? This is the amazing part. He uploaded the songs on his own site and gave me the link. I can just download all the songs from that link, just like that. Oh, did I mention that Laoban is the biggest pirate ever?
- His sound editing.
He can edit sounds just like Xiaxue can do photoshop. No wait, I think it should be, Laoban can edit sounds better than Xiaxue can do photoshop. Yup... His from School of Computing, so I guess there are some things that Joan can only look up in awe of her Laoban. And yes, have I mentioned that he's just the biggest pirate ever?
- His sounds.
His sound designing won loads of praise from the audience. The audience all liked his sound designing. The music he chose. And everything. Yup... In view of this wide support he got from the masses, he did up an OST! like way cool~ We'd have thought that he'd burn CDs and sell, but as we all know he's the king of downloads so naturally his OSt was put up on his site and he just gave the link to people to download the music themselves. Like amazing... And yup, he's just the biggest pirate ever.
- His mild temper.
Really, who can stand a hyper Joan for a day? Not many people, much less a week. And the fact that my Laoban survived without Joan coming to harm shows that he's just that amazing, right? Really, now thinking back, I'd have killed myself if what I'd did was to myself. haha~ So good that my Laoban can stand me. And of course, I must add on that my Laoban is like the biggest biggest pirate anyone can imagine.
So, after hearing the amazing qualities of my dearest Laoban, I'd like to ask if there are any takers? Do take a look at his pics in the link above and drop me a buzz via anyway, emails, msg or what you can think of to contact me.
Hmm... I'm thinking if I should put up his email and/or hp number so that you can contact him yourselves or not, but I think better not ba... Later this blog will end with this post then cham liao. hehe~ Yup... Remember interested parties do contact me!
Before I start on my tribute, I need everybody reading this now to click on this link
http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/jal4eva/slideshow?.dir=%2F9a18&.src=ph
That was my dear Laoban from every angle.
It's not easy being Joan's Laoban cos as you all know, Joan is a very difficult person to deal with. As you guys should know by now, a girl who can think of something as dumb as the Da Tou Tie 10 Lian Pai, must be a really bored person, and when she's bored, she'll go crazy. On top of that, her Laoban must deal with her lack of sleep. Lack of sleep will induce this girl to either go crazier or more pissed. Since during this production period things were fun, Joan didn't get pissed, she just got crazy.
More about the production.
Lack of sleep, tight schedules, imminent deadlines, rising tempers all could not stop Joan from going crazy cos staging a production is fun. Even though all those friends who promised that they'd come didn't turn up in the last minute, there was still her that group of almost as crazy Chinese Drama mates there by her side. Kudos to you guys!
Let's analyse the couple of days in the theatre together...
Joan was in red during the production and on her first day, things were bad. But everybody was nice about it and well, since I was doing sounds, it wasn't that tough on me. luckily...
Okay okay... But to my dear Laoban...
After suffering under my hands over the past week, he is long due a good apology.
What did this girl do to him?
Actually, I didn't really do much. I just took the above shown pictures of him despite him hating to be photographed. And I just followed him around wherever he went. That's just about it. Only.
Reasons for my torturing of him (if you consider that as torturing):
- He didn't stop me from doing it. Maybe he did, but he wasn't that insistent on me not doing it, so I thought that he was merely acting shy, so I didn't give him the hoots and continued disturbing him.
- I was high from the lack of sleep. Well, not sleeping can make Joan do funny things just like alcohol can make some people do funny things. So this lack of sleep coupled with not having a clear state of mind led to joan disturbing poor Laoban.
Hmm... Think that's about it. Don't really think it reasontes me disturbing him, but still, not that I'm in a much clearer state of mind, think I was a little too childish ba. haha~ No offense hor Laoban!
Why did I start calling him Laoban?
Can't remember. Just like I can't remember when had I started calling Zhangting Zhangting shushu. But it sure wasn't too long ago.
Now, back on track with the tribute. In any tribute there should be a long list of the goodness of the person in the tribute, so this is my list of the amazing things of my Laoban.
Amazing things Joan seen in He Honghui:
- His pirating abilities.
Laoban is the biggest pirate I've ever seen. he can find and download anything you want him to find. His collection of songs, movies, serials, OSTs, and whatever stuff that can be downloaded from online is just wide wide wide. That is something that never cease to amaze this girl.
- His help to Joan.
When Joan was asked to do the sound for Rongrong's play, she had nothing to start of with. Joan collection of music is nowhere near 1% of that of Laoban's, so naturally she turned to her Laoban and cried, "Laoban... How?" Laoban immediately passed on a little portion of songs over to Joan to listen, but how did he do that? This is the amazing part. He uploaded the songs on his own site and gave me the link. I can just download all the songs from that link, just like that. Oh, did I mention that Laoban is the biggest pirate ever?
- His sound editing.
He can edit sounds just like Xiaxue can do photoshop. No wait, I think it should be, Laoban can edit sounds better than Xiaxue can do photoshop. Yup... His from School of Computing, so I guess there are some things that Joan can only look up in awe of her Laoban. And yes, have I mentioned that he's just the biggest pirate ever?
- His sounds.
His sound designing won loads of praise from the audience. The audience all liked his sound designing. The music he chose. And everything. Yup... In view of this wide support he got from the masses, he did up an OST! like way cool~ We'd have thought that he'd burn CDs and sell, but as we all know he's the king of downloads so naturally his OSt was put up on his site and he just gave the link to people to download the music themselves. Like amazing... And yup, he's just the biggest pirate ever.
- His mild temper.
Really, who can stand a hyper Joan for a day? Not many people, much less a week. And the fact that my Laoban survived without Joan coming to harm shows that he's just that amazing, right? Really, now thinking back, I'd have killed myself if what I'd did was to myself. haha~ So good that my Laoban can stand me. And of course, I must add on that my Laoban is like the biggest biggest pirate anyone can imagine.
So, after hearing the amazing qualities of my dearest Laoban, I'd like to ask if there are any takers? Do take a look at his pics in the link above and drop me a buzz via anyway, emails, msg or what you can think of to contact me.
Hmm... I'm thinking if I should put up his email and/or hp number so that you can contact him yourselves or not, but I think better not ba... Later this blog will end with this post then cham liao. hehe~ Yup... Remember interested parties do contact me!
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