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Corporate Shill
It’s weird to think so, but McCafe is probably the most value for money place to get “higher-end” coffee. It lacks the variety that other coffee joints might offer, and the muffins are a little on the dry side. Other than that, however, they make decent coffee (and great hot chocolate, complete with marshmellows) and if you go to an actualy McCafe location (not one that’s integrated with a “proper” McDonalds) you can get pretty good (albeit slightly pricey) sandwiches.
And the McCafe Iced Latte, besides being “just chew”, is the thing to get if you need perking up. I suspect it’s more the sweet sweet milk (or cream) than the caffeine that does it, but I rode the Iced Latte bus /buzz for hours.
Snow on the Sahara Tigris
I don’t know why this isn’t bigger news, but last week it was snowing in Baghdad as well as in Islamabad and ice forming in Saudi Arabia, apparently. This has to be a sign I suppose, but of what? Climate change? God only knows.
bulimia of one’s surroundings
The new year(s) have helped instigate the great purge, or at the very least help push it along. I know I post about this every once in awhile, but this is one of the bigger efforts (I feel) in awhile to attempt to rid myself of as much garbage as possible that’s just been accumulating over the years.
Toys (click on the link for the entry over at UsDudes), magazines, clothes, books all made the cut to be tossed out. After which everything that was kept had to be rearranged. Not for the sake of feng shui, but simply because there’s an element of truth that we as human beings are affected by our surroundings and when the surroundings become cluttered and stale so do we.
One of the things I’ve realised in so doing is how much I don’t miss regular film photography. Beyond the fact that I’m a pretty crappy photographer as it is, so much about the quality of the print depended on the developing process which meant a lot of poorly developed photos which looked as though they were taken in the dark. Also, in hindsight it was horrible never knowing how a photo would turn out until days or weeks later, and also the ridiculousness of having to take photos of my house everytime I needed to finish a roll of film.
I’m very tempted to simply toss everything out (furniture-wise) and redecorate my room from scratch (I already have a rough idea of what I’d like to do), but I fear neither the logistics nor the financial aspects of it are feasible at this current moment. Perhaps the best way to approach this problem is frugality. Beyond saving money and combating conspicuous consumption, it really ensures you never hesitate to throw things out for the simple reason you never have much to throw in the first place. Also, fewer material possessions (God willing) means spending more time on the spiritual and the intellectual.
My room is still a mess, naturally, so this whole deal is a work-in-progress
And no, still no job prospects on the horizon. Yes, I have been sending out resumes by the scores but no luck so far. I can’t complain about 2007/ 1428 though. I earned my degree and I got my driver’s licence, two things that would’ve seemed unfeasible not too long ago. I’ve been able to take the time to reacquaint myself with my faith, which I’m glad about. Too often we sleepwalk through our religious beliefs (whatever they may be) without taking the time to understand what it is exactly our beliefs are and why we hold them. It’s difficult sometimes I’ll admit, but to expand my knowledge and to strengthen my iman can’t be a bad thing. If I gain nothing else from it I at least keep my prayers (the single most important thing you can and should do as a Muslim) and read the Qur’an on the regular now, and that is a blessing.
And on that note…
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Although a tubercular, acerbic dwarf whose poetry is for the most part of only passing interest to me, Alexander Pope is immensely quotable, with so many phrases he coined so often being commonly accepted as proverbial. If it’s not from the Bible, Shakespeare or Tennyson(whom I really have not had much exposure to) it more likely than not comes from Pope. I think I’d like to pursue my academic interests once more. I don’t feel like I’m being intellectually stimulated anymore. It’s been well over a year since I’ve set foot inside a classroom (a secular one, at least) and I feel the mental lethargy setting in. I’m not sure that I’d study literature once more though, although I’d sincerely like to simply for the breadth of knowledge literature exposes one to. I think history or political science are other options I can pursue.
Peace.
Lifehacker: Getting To Done: Down With Piles!
Meizu M6 Miniplayer
Meizu Mini Player6
Originally uploaded by Faustzilla.
I’ve been using this for the better part of the year, so I thought it might be nice to give it a review. This is the Meizu M6 Miniplayer and it’s a pretty good budget MP3 player. The company gets flack for ripping off Apple, but this is a sturdy, well-constructed player that belies its non-branded, Made in China status. However, a few flaws keep it from being the perfect MP3 player for those on a budget.
about the Bukit Ho Swee fire
The subject of my doctoral research is a watershed event, being the greatest fire in Singapore’s history, burning down a massive urban kampong (’village’ in Malay) and rendering 15,694 people, mostly low-income Chinese, homeless. In the aftermath, the fire victims were swiftly rehoused in emergency flats built on the fire site by the Housing and Development Board. I examine the inferno as a case study of the social transformation of Singapore in the first decade of the People’s Action Party (PAP) government. The Bukit Ho Swee disaster is officially depicted as a ‘blessing in disguise’ in clearing what was allegedly ‘an insanitary, congested and dangerous squatter area’ and enabling the ‘emergence of Bukit Ho Swee Estate: from desolation to progress’. Such an account of the fire indicates, as James Scott contended, the ’self-confidence about scientific and technical progress’ which typified ‘high modernism’; what is emphasised is the progress which came afterward, not what was lost in the flames. My thesis sought to establish what the fire meant to the fire victims and to the government which responded vigorously to the disaster. This involved research into the official archives and interviews with former kampong dwellers, many of whom still live in or visit Bukit Ho Swee, now a graying estate close to the town area.
To be born after the fire in present-day Singapore is to be ‘young’. There are several historical frames defining the ‘old’ and ‘young’ – the Japanese Occupation, the ‘trials and tribulations’ of political development in the 1950s and early 1960s and the unforeseen independence of the nation in 1965 – but all share the one requirement of having experienced the landmark events in recent history. ‘Young Singaporeans’, also labelled ‘post-1965ers’ in the press, are purportedly ‘without history’, having been born in the supposedly rosy phase of Singapore’s development after 1965. A generation ago, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew defined this divide by stating that while his generation ‘faced Japanese Occupation, conquest, hardships, brutalities’, the younger generation ‘have had relatively quiet and placid a life.
There’s a really good piece on sg_ljers positing the Bukit Ho Swee fire as the turning point in modern Singapore history. It’s apparently part of PhD research by this LJ user who has a number of excellent posts in a similar vein.
How did your year rate?
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You Had an Average Year |
 While you had some setbacks, your year also brought some good things. All in all, things mostly evened out. That’s just how life works. Focus on what went well for you - and what you can improve. A new year is a perfect reason to give yourself a fresh start! |
From lancerlord.
