2011

Posted on 2012-08-09 | In Uncategorized |

At the Award Presentation Day, I was once again reminded what an excellent school Hwa Chong is. Looking at the 300+ awardees, I have to admit that there are a lot of smart people in the school, in this country, and in the world. I used to think that a prize that is given to hundreds of students has not much significance. But I have gained new understanding. I realised that Hwa Chong do nurture a lot of outstanding students. Every one of they has individual characters and strengths, with much gains from JC, all ready to move to the next stage of life.

They are my peers. They are also my competitors.

From now onwards, my batch of schoolmates will head towards various directions. We will track different trails, with the dream to lead a successful life. There is no longer clear black and white or right and wrong.

It felt like we have just left the starting line, some with better gears while others with more tattered ones. The queer thing is that there are neither judges nor the same ending point in this life long competition. The rule to win also varies, depending on individual’s definition of success.

This setting is so different from the school exam environment. I am not used to it.

I do feel the need to define my needs and wants. I want to plan clearly how to get them. And I must constantly remind myself not to too consciously compare with other SMART people, not to have the desire to fight against others, to win others, and not to apply a simplistic guideline to measure the level of success.

I live for myself, not for winning others. Others do not care whether I win them or not.

So, when deciding whether to convert to a Christian, I only examine my heart, free from others’ opinions.

When I want to start the adventure of investment, I must do it because I want to play this game of money. I want to participate fully in the contemporary financial world in a smart way. And I do not want to become money’s slave, bearing the burden of working harder and harder to meet my unending material desires. I must be clear that I do it for the fun and financial security of myself, not for outrunning others and trying to become the richest person or that sort of reasons.

When I go to university, I should focus on my learning and growing, not trying to show off to others how cool my life is in the UK.

Yep, I ain’t stupid, but not too smart either.

sociology - notes

Posted on 2012-06-14 | In Uncategorized |

It is not only information that they need - in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that they need - although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy.

What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It is this quality, I am going to contend, that journalists and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors are coming to expect of what may be called the sociological imagination.

When people cherish some set of values and do not feel any threat to them, they experience well-being. When they cherish values but do feel them to be threatened, they experience a crisis - either as a personal trouble or as a public issue. And if all their values seem involved, they feel the total threat of panic.

But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished values nor experience any threat? That is the experience of indifference, which, if it seems to involve all their values, becomes apathy. Suppose, finally, they are unaware of any cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat? That is the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which, if it is total enough, becomes a deadly unspecified malaise.