Vindicated
Posted: September 28, 2009 Filed under: Education Leave a comment“In this day of search engines, ubiquitous physical and virtual encyclopedias, and increasingly powerful handheld computers, nearly all required and desired information can be retrieved almost instantaneously. Just as the book made photographic memory a luxury, current computers render forced memorization even less important. And if one believes that it is desirable for individuals to memorize speeches or poems or melodies, such an exercise should be done for its own sake (“it’s beautiful, it’s satisfying”), and not for the will-o’-the-wisp goal of improving general mnemonic capacity” – quoted from a book by Howard Gardner
A simple paragraph like this goes a long way in explaining why I rebelled against my parents, teachers, classmates and the national education system and decided to detach myself from all the things that they do and teach at school. All they teach is memorization and how to ace exams anyways.
So when I decided I will not memorize, will not do good for nothing school homework, and will take my education on my own hands, people think I am destroying my own life and chose to become dumb. And now reading Gardner I wonder who the dumb ones were.
Who do I help?
Posted: September 25, 2009 Filed under: Things I Find Interesting Leave a commentThere was a street in the city that I frequented as part of my journey to my workplace. Just outside one of the posh hotels along the street, there was a man, completely bald on the left side of his head. An unpleasant skin texture enveloped the bald spot, suggesting he was a burn victim or was exposed to some kind of corrosive acid. He knelt before a small basket containing a few sparsely distributed coins and cash. holding to an harmonica trying to make a song.
Further down the street, there is an amputee, like others, making full use of his “unique selling point” to evoke the sympathy of the pedestrians. And occasionally, there is an old woman carrying a malnourished baby on one hand and fluttering her other hand. Read the rest of this entry »
The Problem with Shoes
Posted: September 15, 2009 Filed under: Things I Find Interesting Leave a commentI owned a pair of black working shoes. Because I regularly commute to work via public transport, I have to walk in the working shoes for quite some distance. Recently, I discovered that the shoe fabric linking to the heels was slightly torn. But my past experience had alarmed me that it is a matter of time before the heels detached itself completely from the shoes.
I find this very disturbing. It is like walking around with a time bomb that will explode soon, without me knowing when. Just why it is a time bomb? Why does it bring me so much vulnerability? Well, for one, having a broken shoe is unlike having a torn t-shirt or pants. You can show some skin and still try to conceal it, albeit discreetly, and act as if nothing is wrong. But a broken shoe will have you limping all the way throughout the journey, how very obvious and embarassing, especially so when you consider I work in this chic place that people go to be seen. Read the rest of this entry »
Lizard Encounter
Posted: September 13, 2009 Filed under: Things I Find Interesting Leave a commentFew days ago, while reaching my hand out to turn on the light switch in my room, I experienced a sudden twitch and immediately I took my entire physique a few steps backward. The switch buttons were just adjacent to the door frame, and affixed on the door frame was a good old baby lizard.
Being so close to a lizard (well, it is just inches away from my wrist when I was reaching out to the switches) was more frightening than seeing a ghost. I have always hated lizards. And animals, for that matter. Not the I-want-to-destroy-all-animals kind of hate, but I generally don’t want to touch them or be in any form of contact with them. I waved my hand in the air towards where it adhered itself, hoping that my (seemingly) threatening gesture would prompt it to leave me alone. Read the rest of this entry »
I am on Youtube
Posted: September 10, 2009 Filed under: Milestone, Music Leave a comment… finally?
It had been almost a year since I contemplated posting some YouTube videos of me playing the piano because it seemed everyone is doing it these days, and plus I would obviously love to share my work with a wider audience. But the YouTube account that I set up had been gathering dust and spider webs, possibly because of my round the clock busyness and my reluctance to get into the whole video and audio editing mess (I am a perfectionist, so my videos, if I post them, had to be perfect!)
Today I spent one solid day to get some videos up and running. So what prompted such a change in behavior? Well, last Saturday I did some piano performance and was asked if I am on YouTube. I said I did not. And while I said that I made a note to myself that it is about time I do just that.
Preparing the videos were …arduous, and the mere thought of it was enervating: Converting videos, editing audio, transferring files from the thumb drive and SD card, restarting the entire computer three times when the computer refuses to acknowledge the SD card as a hardware, constructing a video in Windows Movie Maker. That lastly mentioned task truly deserves a special mention. Windows Movie Maker decided to make life difficult for me by refusing cooperate. It freezes the audio and video at its will. I literally felt like torching the entire computer, throw all items on my desk to the ground, screaming my lungs out, “WHY WON’T THE SOFTWARES JUST … WORK??”
Somehow I persevered and ended up doing lots of extra, tedious work. The videos are up. No subscribers, not many view counts yet. But hey, Rome wasn’t build in one day, and once I figured out how to oil things up, “streamline” the process and get efficient – from the black and white keys to YouTube, I am hopeful that things will change. Or you can contribute to my number of subscribers and view counts by clicking on my YouTube channel and viewing the videos. And a comment or two make my day too!
The King And I
Posted: September 8, 2009 Filed under: Lessons I pick up from life, Music Leave a comment9.30am – the watch on my left wrist read. It has been 9.30am for quite some time. I wanted the performance to be over as quickly as possible, but as with all bad times, every second in the backstage seemed like an eternity. I stood mechanically in the backstage while resting the violin on my left shoulder complete with complex wirings of a remote microphone. But my calm façade was misleading.
Increasingly I grew conscious of the air gushing in and out of my nostrils as I recalled the grandiose reception for “the man” that I witnessed earlier of the day. Ushers bowed on their knees as he graced the red carpet accompanied by sweet sounding gamelan music. He then stood before the edge of the VIP viewing chamber. As the police marching band performed the national anthem the audiences below the VIP viewing chamber realigned themselves to front him, a dramatic scene not unlike the movie poster of the Disney’s Lion King depicting a lion roaring above the cliff while its subjects concede its authority. Read the rest of this entry »
The “Ambitious” Cynic
Posted: September 7, 2009 Filed under: Lessons I pick up from life, Things I Find Interesting Leave a commentIt had dawned on me that many of my acquaintances remembered me as “the ambitious guy”. At first, or rather, ostensibly, it sounded like an ego-massaging description that put you together with the famous people you see on newspapers who have routinely been assigned a desirable attribute. But I have since discovered that there is really nothing glamorous about being said to be ambitious.
Being said to be ambitious is unlike being told you look like Kang Sang Woo or you write like Hemingway or you are the next Tom Ford or Kenny G or Steve Jobs. Appraisals like these were manifestly more concrete and evident, not to mention challenging and difficult to achieve. Being ambitious is however, really quite an easy feat. Read the rest of this entry »
Aaron Lo 
