Temporal disconnect

Note to readers: This will not be a funny post. If you were looking for one, please go elsewhere. Check back another time when I actually feel like posting something funny.

- Temporal Disconnect -

In case some of you are wondering what temporal means, dictionary.com says
tem·po·ral –adjective

1.	of or pertaining to time.

2.	pertaining to or concerned with the present life or this world; worldly

3.	enduring for a time only; temporary; transitory

It has been bugging me for some time now, but recently I have felt a huge rift open up between me and the happenings in this world. Its like somehow I have become jaded, and suddenly everything doesn't seem to matter like it used to. Like how my life used to revolve around NTU. Suddenly I don't give a shit. Nothing matters. Not getting up on time for lecture. Not attending my tutorials. Not even studying for tests.

Just in case some of you actually think that I have suddenly become emo, I am really just jaded, and it might perhaps have something to do with eating the food from can 2 and can A one time too many because I live on campus. After a while everything is equally tasteless. It is probably a bad time to start feeling that right now, but I think I need a break. And the break isn't going to come till November ends.

And this general mood of "jaded-ness" has led me to question why I am in CS at all. When I go for a group outing, I don't know what to say or do because everyone is just fighting for attention and its not in me to steal the limelight. And when I do have things to say, I don't know if I should say it, and before I know it, the chance is gone. And it is scarier still when people start talking about popular culture and all their grand flashy plans to shock and awe everyone in CS and I realise that I have no interest or knowledge in what they are talking about.

I suddenly feel that my life is so empty, so two dimensional. I suddenly feel like I have never really lived.

I don't know where to go. I don't want to be there, because I feel so left out, but I can't leave either, because its not very nice. I don't know if you have ever been in that situation, but it is so difficult when you realise that your interests and those of your peers don't match. I try to fit myself into their conversation, but I realise that it is ultimately futile because it really isn't who I am.

And thinking about all that, I look back on my past.

I was brought up in a system where only the result mattered, where you were worthless unless you had a certain number on your report transcript. Teachers would shun you, and pigeonhole you into the worst classes and tutorial sessions if you so much as slipped up a little. Even your own schoolmates shunned you, because you were different. Defined by a different label, taught a different syllabus, and fundamentally just different.

Where every Chinese New Year you were defined as that kid from so and so school, with the obligatory back slap because you were the pride of the family. And I lived my whole life trying to be that person. Only to realise ultimately that it wasn't me. And by the time I did, there was no getting back the years that I had already lost.

I don't remember much of my formative years. If anything, they weren't really worth remembering. If anything, I wonder at how I have grown so isolated from the world around me that I live in.

But after this rift, with this temporal disconnect, I have learnt that perhaps, it is time to start living, for me.

To start leading the life I want to lead. But like a little baby, I fumble and fall. Because it is all so new to me. I have never heard half the music you people listen to and tell me about. I have never seen many of the movies or tv serials that you all converse about. I have never experienced the vivid school life everyone talks about. I have never been to all the countries and places you all have seen. And I still don't know what it means to have a best friend. Because it never seemed possible to me. Not when everyone was a competitor and not to be trusted.

I am fundamentally, empty. Like a little child. Who is already an adult.

But in the darkness, I look to the night sky. And I know that there is that one star there, just that one star, that shines for me, giving me strength. And from today, I will try to live, just for myself. Taking little baby steps. And when I look back in a few years, I hope that I will be glad that I made this choice, on this very day.

NTUSU? No, I vote for the NTUBS.

You're going to be late for class. The last two shuttle buses were packed to the brim and you couldn't get on. You see half a million 179s passing by and you wonder, why don't they go in the other direction? This is especially true if you live in the old halls cluster, on the wrong side of the route from CS to hall, so even if you're willing to pay you can't get to CS. You have to walk. A familiar scenario?

Here's another one. Its night. You are very sick of eating at can 1, 2, 4 and 5, and you would like to try some other canteens further off. You wait, and wait, and wait. One million 179s pass and mock you in the process. Finally, a shuttle bus comes, but you've already fainted from starvation. And when you finally finish your meal at these far off canteens, guess what? There aren't any more shuttle buses to take you back! You have to walk.

All these bring me to one question. Why do we even have a shuttle bus system? If I have to walk half the time, isn't the system redundant? The irony is, the closer you live to the school campus, the more redundant the bus system becomes. I guess its fine for those who live in the halls at the back like 11-15, because they live too far away from the school campus to really walk, and they have an added bonus of proximity to good canteens. But for those who live in the other cluster of halls, you have the option of walking, so you can still get to school, but you live far from good food, so you have to eat junk.

That's probably why hall 6 is where it is. Just close enough to walk, yet just a little too far from decent food. So since you have to exercise so much but you can't over nourish yourself, you become even fitter than you already are. As for the rest of us mere mortals, we just die of frustration waiting for buses or walking after realising they aren't coming. Or worse, we spend a long time agonising about whether we should walk because the bus could come anytime and we would miss it, compounding our agony further.

Another thing I don't understand is how one service can arrive 3 or 4 times more frequently than the other. Shouldn't there be equal numbers of buses going in both directions? And the best part is the service in question actually changes. At certain times, there are more blue buses, and other times there are more reds. But the frequency of 179s never changes, in the one aspect that it is still 3-4 times, or at night, 10 times more common than shuttle buses.

This shows us that firstly, the NTU shuttle bus system totally sucks. If anything its an abject failure because if someone were to do a calculation, one would realise that the majority of NTU students waste too much time and energy waiting for buses. However, we cannot squarely place the blame on the poor bus uncles and aunties because after all, the service is free so their pay is probably peanuts.

So what should be a solution? At this juncture, I turn to the NTUSU. I think everyone agrees more or less that they are really a useless institution. They are too far apart from the average student to do anything, and one often gets the impression that they are in their own world preening themselves, taking flashy photographs in business suits and polishing up their CVs.

I suggest that we pull funding from the NTUSU, dissolve them totally, and put the money into the shuttle bus system. We would get more buses, more drivers, and finally, the NTUSU never has to complain about the shuttle bus system again because that's really all they do isn't it? For once, rather than complaining about the problem, we solve the problem.

The NTSSU cares about your welfare? Don't kid me. The individual faculty councils are far more than adequate for such matters. 10 dollars a semester on the NTUSU is 10 dollars wasted. I'm sure if we were to do a straw poll, most would agree that we should put the money that goes into the NTUSU now into the NTUBS (NTU Bus System) instead, with the exception being the preening and posing peacock-sters in the NTUSU.

So I say NTUSU? No, I vote for the NTUBS.

Do yourself a favour, stop living the lie

Sometimes living in CS, you can't help but feel pressured and under siege.

You are defined by what you wear in CS, how you look and what you say. The superficiality of life, as one might say. Even your desktop wallpaper, msn picture and msn nicknames come under attack. The best part is you can't even use bochap-ness as an excuse. Why don't I have facebook? Well I don't give a shit. If anything I am anti-facebook. I don't need everyone to know that I have 500 friends, because I don't, and I don't enjoy playing scrabble. I don't have one million and one photos to upload either, because I've never really been a fan of photography. That's as easy as it is, but people will insist on finding a reason why I don't have it, including how I'm antisocial and all. If that's what you choose to believe, perhaps we shouldn't be friends, because I only need friends who truly appreciate who I am.

I've heard quite a few other reasons that I find quite laughable. Firstly that I have no personality. Sorry man but my personality isn't something you can display on a canvas sheet. Its a lot more than that and I don't care if you believe me or not. I personally don't give two hoots about what you think. If I believed what everyone said about me, I'd be wallowing in self-pity everyday because everyone seldom has something nice to say about someone else these days. when was the last time someone complimented you or praised you? And when was the last time someone criticised you? I bet you will find the latter far more familiar.

I will continue using my nature wallpapers and boring msn pics (or none at all) and persist with my blatantly boring nicknames because I personally don't see a need to tell you everything that is going on in my life. I get enough attention. I don't need to let the whole world know that my day sucks or how I can't find my socks, or how I need to study. We all need to study. Since it is so blatantly obvious, save me some precious seconds that are wasted when I read about your extremely normal lives. In case you think that I am lying about the part of me getting enough attention because you think I don't get any, I may not be the most charismatic person but at least I don't whine and bitch about it. I'm pretty contented with what I have. That already makes me a lot better then people who have a lot of it and still whine and bitch.

After all, aren't all these msn name-changing, picture changing, desktop wallpaper changing superficialities a desperate plea for attention? When you think about it, I bet you'd agree.

Another good reason I've heard is how I don't have a life. Since I can't define myself in a picture, or in a neat slogan fit for advertising billboards, I don't have a life. That's a rich one, considering that most of us are after all university students. How much of a life could you possibly have? And furthermore, I don't like to live in guilt. If you asked me to choose between having a life and doing what I'm responsible for, that is to get good grades and graduate, sorry I think I know where I stand. The life part is subordinated to the responsiblity, unless you enjoy feeling guilty every night before you sleep.

In case you are wondering, this is not directed at anyone in particular. If anything, it is just an explanation of why I don't really give a shit. So please stop asking me to change my wallpapers and whatever. I will when I want to, and if I don't, well I don't. Its as simple as that.

P.S. This post may sound rather fierce to some, but its really a response to people who have asked recently whether I have been *ahem* emasculated by the environment in CS. Totally pissed the shit out of me. So yeah hence this post.