WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE

Its a mystery to me why people nowadays would prefer to watch televison programmes about having fun at the beach rather than actually going out to experience it for themselves. They moan about never finding happiness. That's because they never pursue it. Happiness is not found in money, fame, or incredibly good fortune. I think happiness is hanging out with your friends, doing silly things that make no sense and enjoying the fact that you are here, and now.

Yesterday wasn't the perfect baywatch day at the beach. It was overcast and cloudy, it rained and the sea at east coast isn't the eye-catching turquoise blue. Yet, cycling in the rain with raindrops smacking into my eyes, running around for no apparent reason other for the fun of it and jumping into the murky-green sea of Singapore seems a hell lot more fun than any of those beach shows on TV. Being in an experience is far better than simply seeing it.

Actually, come to think of it, the fact that the day was so imperfect made it all the more memorable.





I am proud to say that I have finally learnt how to fully utilize my holidays after wasting most of them for about 16 years. And I hope to continue optimizing my free time before school starts for as long as possible.


Sham! Lesley! we all must do this again sometime soon. ;)

ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE

YOU JUST HAVE TO GRAB YOUR CAMERA AND GO.

BE RIGHT BACK, HIGH ON LIFE. (:

As The Tiger Cries.

It has hardly been a week and a half into the western new year, and yet, I think the Chinese year of the Tiger already has to deal with even more disasters dropped by the fleeing year of the Ox.

As if 2009 wasn't bad enough.

A week or so before, the South African Tongo football team were attacked with a hail of gunfire - killing two men and compromising South Africa's hard-won bid to host the FIFA World Cup later this year.

Yesterday, a massive earthquake hit the small Caribbean nation of Haiti - and has left uncountable people dead.

Today, an entire section of sea froze in China - as more families and people suffer from the cold snap that has been blighting the country since November.

Yet, as we flip through our newspapers and get on with our day, we never seem to register that all these stories are real, and not just ink printed on gray sheet, adorned with photos that don't register in your mind. With the Advent of the Internet, we become even less concerned with the goings-on of the world, even though the World Wide Web has increased the pace globalisation has started in connecting people. In a way, I really do think we have become more isolated and ignorant with the offering of information with the click of a button, the entire database of millions of individuals with a few mouse clicks. Instead of broadening our horizons, we narrow them, searching for our interests and only our interests.

Across the globe, right now, while I sit at my laptop under my comfortably whirring fan, the people of Haiti mourn their dead and the wreckage that is left of their country, and the rest of my world goes on with it's own concerns, like registering for my Junior Collage and wondering if I will be able to get into the Outdoor Adventure Club.

My mind tells me to leave this be, to think for myself and not to waste time mourning the troubles of people far away and strange, to get on with my life and to leave these thoughts to rot.

But I know that in the end, the troubles of those strangers on the other side of my planet are also my troubles, and their sorrow should also be my sorrow.

If we are a global village, why are we not just people?

Choices

Where do I go from here?


And do I take the risk?


JC is a whole new adventure. Let's take this thing by the horns.


(also, I am considering CJC with an awesome CCA combination of Outdoor Adventure Club and Photography. Natgeo, here I come!)