Universal Truth/ Nature

Is there such a thing as a universal truth? Is there a universal standard as what is natural? My view is that yes, if something is true, it's true. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody knows about it, it doesn't mean that the tree didn't fall. Is there a set of moral values that all humans agree to, is there a single value that all humans agree that is important? Are we all working towards something besides purely survival? Are we all working towards happiness, just that we haven't found a system where everyone can be happy? If there is a universal standard of what is natural and it's embedded somewhere us, why is there so much conflict between individuals?

How one is brought up determines a lot of how he thinks. I'm sure that if I've been brought up in a religious environment, I wouldn't be as atheistic as I am now. Talking about ghosts and souls yesterday, wonder why the topic came up, probably because of Halloween. Acc to some Chinese traditions (maybe it's part of Buddhism? Taoism?), 人有三个魂。在人死后，一个会去投胎；一个会跟祖先的魂混在一起；还有一个会留在人世，但是会慢慢消失。在人刚死不久时，很容易碰见鬼。讲这些的人讲得一本正经，好像真的有这一回事。而且觉得不相信的人实在是太不相信现实了。What do I say to that? BS. But if I was his daughter, I would probably think all these are true.

What is my point? I don't know. I wanted to make some point but nothing seems very pointy here. Maybe some point will come up when I can think clearly.

About the issue that caused the recent hoohaa over singapore blogging scene. Read this and this. What do I think? A characteristic with all governments or all forms of management is that policies are made aimed at the good of the society/ group as a whole, which because the people at the top of the society make a larger influence, the policies happen to side those people. And then the management decides that the people at the lower end of the group are marginalised, so they put in measures to help these people. As a result, the top end and bottom end of the group are both at an advantage. The majority, the middle part of the group, is ignored. Mr derek's complaints are completely valid, a view into what the middle part of the group thinks. Some comments by other people gives a look into what the top are getting, fast promotions, guaranteed success. As for the bottom, incentives have always been given to them, even if they're not much. More people visit old people in hospitals and nursing homes than people visiting healthy old people living on their own. Come on, healthy old people need people's care and concern too. The rich people have lots of money, the poor has social security, the middle people are left slogging and paying high taxes. Anyway the point is, the middle part of the group is always neglected even though they are the majority. Machiavelli says that the people must always be oppressed to a certain extent for the authorities to maintain sufficient control over the state, so I guess it's inevitable that the majority is not in the best position possible.

Professor induced temporary threshold shift in our audibility threshold in class. Siao, I still want my hearing lor.

So many classes I want to take next quarter.. which to choose?

I want to blog but I've been busy. Crazy week this week, at least after tomorrow, half of the craziness will be gone.

Am I that old? People around me are getting engaged, first it's my classmate who is a year younger than I am, then I stumbled upon a friend's blog and he says he just proposed and she said yes. Wow.

Coaching. I seem to coach a lot this term. Was the coach for the lect debate, meaning I slack while the rest go talk, and we have fantastic speakers and speeches, and brilliant brains churning out wacky ideas. We were arguing for the abolishment of private property. Gave a whole bag of chocs and sweets (wealth/ property) to the professor (the aristocrat), and he so sportingly told the class that he won't share any of those with the class cos that's his private property. Haha. I love our speeches and how our arguments could raise John's eyebrows and make him nod furiously. I would definitely have done this in a different way, splitting parts, everyone go write your own speech, make things formal and debate-like, but I guess what we turned out to do was much better. Maybe the arguments were not as sophisticated and well-phrased like those in an essay, but they are much more approachable, easy-to-understand, fun for the audience, and more importantly, both the professors liked it. And it doesn't hurt that we won. Spent almost 4h working on just the speeches though. But it's been fun working with these brainy and talkative people. =)

Coaching for a middle school science olympiad team. Can't believe it right? Me coaching for olympiad. But it's fun. Not the hard-core Bio O or Chem O kind of thing. It's called science crime busters and we do CSI kind of work, analyse evidence. Fun for me to learn too. The kids look so small, I don't remember sec 1s being that small.. I'm old..

Planning to go Hawaii in Dec. Hope I have time to plan. Seems like I'm the only one planning this time. And I do have a tendency to screw impt things up because of some misconceptions. I almost loaded proteins into a gel today without removing the comb, how dumb. I hope our Western work, cos we didn't load all the sample that we could..

I need to have more confidence in myself. A paper that has a 2nd opinion 12h before it's due isn't much different from one that didn't have the 2nd opinion at all. And I should be less lazy. If a drastic change needs to be made, it has to be made.

I want to stop spending money.

A big thank you to all who remembered my birthday, all you people who emailed/ MSN-ed/ facebooked/ blogged/ called/ celebrated it with me. =)

GPA's in danger this term. Can't guarantee an A for any of my classes, quite dangerous. Start of 2 crazy weeks tomorrow. Lab reports due, midterms, and Hum paper. And I still don't have a clue on what to write for Hum paper. Even chamber orch is more xiong this quarter. I'm going to heck Westerns and PCRs for a while.

More pretty stuff

Power of flourescent proteins. I like the Christmas one =)

Cellular Visions: The Inner Life of a Cell

Very very pretty
http://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/tprojects/6850.html

Wishlist

In order of importance..

1. D-Deck, or Tyros, or PSR1500 and above.. I've got my eyes on them =)
2. good friends to celebrate with
3. mobility.. otherwise known as a bike, or a license and a car
   
4. a boyfriend

There was a EL500 for sale lately at US$1700, good deal, but don't think it's feasible to have this 70kg monster around

Had a disastrous day yesterday where everything went wrong.. just not my day i guess.. I don't even want to list any of those things. I figured sometimes just don't think so much, just do things, maybe there'll be less screw ups. At least chamber orch was fun, class is huge this time, and pieces are interesting, it's going to be a dancy concert. =)

Got a ecard from aga. Weird. The email said "Surprise! You've just received a Yahoo! Greeting..." Yeah, it's really a surprise.

I don't know why he picked me, I know if he's counting on me to come up with some great arguments to win, he's greatly overestimated me. I can't think under pressure, I can't make myself understood without thinking over every word I use, and he knows that I always make half an argument and not state the significance of it. Gosh, I don't even understand Machiavelli. But well, I guess he has his reasons and i don't have a choice, but to take part in this debate. Seriously, I'd much rather do the film review.

He sounds really good, no jerky expressions, no broken lines. It's 6min long of variations on a simple melody but I haven't got bored of it yet. Of course part of the credit goes to Andoh, his compositions are great. Title of piece is Ayura.


Here's another one. September, again arranged by Andoh. Look at this guy's pedalling, he's Ron Nard by the way, looks like he's dancing there, doesn't he? I never did manage to play the pedals of this piece.

D-Deck

Chio. Should I just wait for this to be released? Or should I just get a PSR3000?