i have done penence for contemning love,
whose high imperious thoughts have punished me
with bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
with nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs,
for in revenge of my contempt of love,
love has chased sleep from my enthralled eyes,
and made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.
o, gentle proteus, love's a mighty lord,
and hath so humbled me, as i confess
there is no woe to his correction,
nor to his service no such joy on earth:
now no discourse, except it be of love:
now can i break my fast, dine, sup and sleep,
upon the very naked name of love.


two gentlemen of verona

i'm sure many have seen this list of vices and misdeeds many number of times on different webbies. now its on mine.

1) smoked
2) consumed alcohol
3) slept in the same bed with someone of the opposite sex
4) slept in the same bed with someone of the same sex
5) made out with someone of the opposite sex
6) made out with someone of the same sex
7) had someone in your room of the opposite sex
8) watched porn
9) bought porn
10) done drugs
11) taken pain killers
12) taken someone else's prescription medicine
13) lied to your parents
14) lied to a friend
15) snuck out of the house
16) done something illegal
17) cut yourself
18) hurt someone
19) wished someone to die
20) seen someone die
21) missed curfew
22) stayed out all night
23) eaten a carton of ice cream by yourself
24) been to a therapist
25) been to rehab
26) dyed your hair
27) received a ticket
28) been in a wreck
29) been to a club
30) been to a bar
31) been to a wild party
32) seen the mardi gras
34) had a spring break in florida
35) sniffed anything
36) wore black nail polish
37) wore arm bands
38) wore t-shirts with band names
39) listened to rap
40) own a 50 cent cd
41) dressed gothic
42) dressed prep
43) dressed punk
44) dressed grunge
45) stole something
46) been too drunk to remember anything
47) blacked out
48) fainted
49) had a crush on your neighbor
50) had someone sneak into your room
51) snuck into someone else's room
52) had a crush on someone of the same sex
53) been to a concert
54) dry humped someone
55) been called a slut
56) called someone a slut
57) installed speakers in your car
58) broke a mirror
59) showered at someone of the opposites sex's house
60) brushed your teeth with someone elses toothbrush
61) consider mac, dre, e40 or mistah fab your favorite rapper
62) seen an R rated movie in theaters
63) cruised the mall
64) skipped school
65) had an eating disorder
66) had an injury
67) gone to court
68) walked out of a restaurant without paying
69) caught something on fire
70) lied about your age
71) owned an apartment
72) cheated on your boyfriend/girlfriend
73) cheated with someone
74) got in trouble with the police
75) talked to a stranger
76) hugged a stranger
77) kissed a stranger
78) rode in the car with a stranger
79) been sexually harassed
80) been verbally harassed
81) met face to face with someone you met online
82) stayed online for 12 hours straight
83) talked on the phone for more than 6 hours straight
84) watched tv for 12 hours straight
85) been to a fair
86) been called a bad influence
87) cursed
88) prank called someone
89) laid in the bed with someone of the opposite sex
90) cheated on a test
91) cheated on homework
92) held hands with someone of the opposite sex
93) been pushed into a pool
94) played pool
95) watched 5 hours of mtv straight
96) had a crush on someone 10 years older than you
97) had a crush on someone younger than you
98) wear eyeliner
99) skinny dipped
100) laughed at someone who was seriously hurt


55/100... long way to go for that bad boy persona.

i did mention that i was going to do a behind-the-scrubs post about my surgery but i realise that there isnt much to talk about, probably because i was drugged the whole time.

i walked in the day surgey centre with mum at 9:30am. half an hour later i was in a hospital gown (which really doesnt do anything for my figure or for the breeze at the privates) and on my very own bed. after another half an hour of waiting, i said goodbye to mum as two nurses in scrubs wheeled me off to my surgery room, where i waited another 30 minutes or so before finally getting butchered open. i was getting so impatient that i kept asking the nurse when it'd be my turn. any longer and i would've cut myself open.

it turned out that the guy before me was having some major surgery and so mine got delayed. how major i hear you ask? well lets just say that after the guy before me was through, a woman had to come in to mop the floor. and they took a whole lot of time to clean the whole operating area.

the anasthesia was kinda cool. at first all i could feel was my head getting really light and like it wasnt really there. the next moment i was out like a light and i woke up about an hour later in the post surgery recovery area. i did feel strangely restless though after the surgery and i just couldnt lie down and go back to sleep. so after getting dressed (with much difficulty) i asked for a wheelchair so that i could just wheel myself around while waiting for my mandatory 'rest' period to pass.

it's been 4 days or so since the surgery and there is still some slight pain when i walk but i'm guessing thats normal when someone cuts you open and sews you back up. so far i'm good with nothing major to complain about. i'm just hoping that this will finally end all the stupid crap that i've been dealing with.

while flipping through todays paper, i found a rather interesting article in the world section about couples flocking to the states to choose the sex of their baby. in life, there was also another related article; about a 'genius sperm bank' founded in the 1970s by robert graham 'who dreamed of saving humanity using the sperm of geniuses'.

eugenics is defined as 'a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention'. the forms of intervention may vary from something as beneficial like gene therapy to some more drastic like the holocaust, which undoubtedly gave eugenics a really bad name during the post-nazi period. even though the latter more drastic example of eugenics is no longer seen today (not in the open at least), this philosophy is here to stay and it is definitely finding more ways to express itself with the advent of technology and genetic engineering.

this new found power did help in the curbing of certain diseases in countries all around the world. china passed a law in '94 which prevented those with genetic or mental diseases from marrying and having children. in cyprus, a similar regiment existed to reduce the incidence of thalassemia. in israel, if a baby is diagnosed with tay-sachs disease (which is prevalent among the eastern european jewish) during a pre-natal exam, it is aborted. matches between couples who are carriers of the tay-sachs gene were usually also broken off. the list goes on.

this may seem harsh, disallowing people their right to marry whoever they like or their right to have a baby, but i believe that it is for the better. a child with tay-sachs disease becomes blind, deaf and loses the ability to swallow. mental and physical paralysis sets in and death usually hits before the child reaches the age of 5. would you want your kid to go through that? would you want to watch your kid go through that?

but, as is usually the case, technology moves faster than anyone of us can keep up with. with endeavours like the human genome project, the once fantastic idea of designer babies seem to be crossing the fantasy-reality barrier. as mention in todays papers, if you've got the cash you can fly over to the us and get yourself a newborn baby boy or girl, your choice. so what's next? eye colour? height? a chiselled nose?

but nope, physical characteristics isnt the end of it. want a baby with high iq? one who doesnt like to take risks? one who is less promiscuous? one who is less violent? the possibility is endless really. you can have just about any type of baby you want. freaky no?

where is the line drawn? i'm all for eugenics helping people prevent certain diseases and having healthy children but designing your newborn like michelangelo did david? thats just against nature. we dont have the right to throw away kids who dont have good features or even if they tend to be tempremental. having a temper is not an illness, neither is looking ugly (thats just unfortunate). personally, choosing your baby's sex itself is just wrong. so what if asians prefer boys and canadians prefer girls? the sex that i am is not a disease.

besides who decides what is a disease and what is a trait? with our colourful display of many different cultures and the complicated human genome, there is no common groud for deciding what is desirable and what is not. in some cultures it is better to be tall but in others short or average-height people are more culturally accepted. also with extreme eugenics we are drastically reducing our gene pool, leading to a loss of genetic diversity and this might, ironically, increase our vulnerability to diseases.

and to genetically engineer a child who will probably have a high iq or some other quality like good technical skills (with good and proper upbringing of course. genetics alone dont play a part in making geniuses. at least there is no proof that it does) is just plain unfair. imagine that a community of smart kids are designed, just like what robert graham (mentioned in paragraph 1) intended to do with the founding of genius sperm bank. if these smart kids want to have smart children of their own, they'd probably marry their own kind. and after many generation you'd see a distinct gap of smart people who have that extra advantage and normal people who are just normal. of course this is a really general example but you get the drift.

dont you think its just like us humans to distort something so beautiful and potentially beneficial like eugenics? we've seen what eugenics can do for us so why do we have to take it too far and open up the floodgates? just like nuclear energy. it has so many possibilities as the 'fuel of tomorrow' but we have to think up of nuclear weapons and use the atomic bomb on japan in '65. our appetite for power and progress is insatiable, so much so that we paradoxically result in the destruction of ourselves.

we are our worst enemy.

the operation went a-okay. i'll give a more detailed behind-the-scrubs version once i feel up for it.

i cant stand it anymore. thought i'd get over it soon enough but everytime i see it i cringe. i'm talking about the nus business school advertistment. not the one with the dude and his annoying little brother, the more famous (or infamous) one, with that caucasian gal simply bursting with joy that she got accepted into nus business.

when i saw that advert on tv, the first thought that popped into my head was, 'wow. nus's doing adverts now'. then as the advert continued, showing how the girl was so happy to get accepted to nus (even though she got letters from u penn) and a pleasing baritone at the end claming that nus is the 'preferred university around the world', it started getting ridiculous.

to top it all off the mother had to take a crack at the chewing gum issue in singapore and (infintely worse) how the boys were 'way too cute for her liking'.

it was embarrassing to watch.

the advertistment seemed so pretentious. in all honesty, who the hell would choose nus over u penn, especially so if you are already in the us, which is what the advertistment made the mother and daughter duo to be? why would you throw away an admission to a highly prestigious unversity and get stuck with nus, all the way in rigid singapore, where chewing gum is scarce and the boys are way too 'cute' for mummy's liking?

and the jokes the mum made about the gum and the boys... what was that about? it had nothing to do with the whole thing. some people might say that it needed humour, but trust me, the whole thing was funny enough on its own already.

the advert was too ridiculous that nobody, much less 'tomorrow's elites', is going to take the message that it was so desperately trying to get across seriously.

to watch this 47 second mockery go here. i just couldnt bear to put the whole thing on my blog.

i went to the IT fair at suntec this afternoon. really incongruous of me actually, being a tech idiot and all. cant tell my ram from my rom. but it was some army cohesion thing so absence was out of the question. definitely not how i would normally spend my thursday afternoons though. everything advertised to me was double dutch. all i could do was just nod my head while slowly moving away and disappearing once again into the ridiculous crowd. (have i mentioned how much i hate crowds and the whole cbd?)

but i really need to tech-up a bit dont i? some bits of information on technology would probably help me out once i get to university. and when i finally get down to teaching, a whole lot more of IT would probably find its way into the classroom, whether i like it or not. horrible.

ended up at the world bookfair (surprise surprise) which was happening concurrently with the IT fair a couple of floors below. i was expecting trolleys and stacks and shelves of books and magazines and all that kinda stuff for me to dive right into but nope. instead there were a whole lot of educational cds, computer-learning stuff, programmes for kids, a puzzle-iq booth, mandarin stuff and only a smatter of booths that actually gave meaning to the term bookfair. it was like another IT fair with books strategically placed to pass it off as a bookfair. see what i mean when i said that i need to tech-up a bit? everything's going techy.

but i did manage to ferret out two gentlemen of verona with a two page introduction at the bookfair. it was going for only a dollar. what could i do but walk to the cash register?

after that, i attempted to do some shopping with who i find to be the best person to shop with other than dear ol' sis: moi.

saw t-shirts that i liked, shoes that were interesting and more shirts that caught my eye. but the only thing i spent money on was food.

so with stomach full and hands bag-free, my objective was basically met.
now that's what i call shopping.