Appointment for Meeting in the Afterlife

Malcolm had something very interesting to say about my view of spending eternity with someone.

malc says:
if... it works out as u see it...
malc says:
all of us will end up in the same place someday for eternity
Shelly和小Ernie says:
not if you dun believe you will
Shelly和小Ernie says:
and the eternity is so large
Shelly和小Ernie says:
if you dun want to be someone
Shelly和小Ernie says:
you'd never find them
malc says:
and that being that... u prolly have an eternity to go for long visits to everyone u ever knew and more
Shelly和小Ernie says:
>.<
Shelly和小Ernie says:
not if they dun want you to find them

And then lyrics from the song 'Love Me' by Colin Raye started playing in my head.

If you get there before I do.
Don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through
I don't know how long I'll be.
But I'm not gonna let you down
Darlin wait and see
Cause between now and then, till I see you again
I'll be lovin you
Love, Me.

No mention of where this place is. They know where 'there' is.

I guess if someone wants to spend all eternity with me, we'll know where to meet in the afterlife.

The Journey from Life to Death, and Suicide as a Means of Reaching the End

This title of this blog seems rather apt for this post. My online existence is to me a Sanctuary from Reality. I hide here from the world that I pretend I am not really part of, and would prefer not to be part of.

I don't know what really happened in my life that I suddenly decided that not being alive would be an improvement. Perhaps it was a gradual thing that just hit me one day.

Once upon a time, there was a person who used to call me constantly and tell me about how much he wanted to commit suicide, that there was nothing in life for him, and that he was very depressed. I didn't really know him then, and the conversations generally shifted away from the suicide topic quickly to other things. But each call would start with the same thing. And I'd be so mortally petrified of hanging up because I didn't want him to do anything stupid. And even now, I'm still certain he didn't call me because he wanted to hit on me. Maybe all he needed was for someone to listen to him. For someone to talk to him.

To that someone: Will you be my lifeline when I'm drifting aimless searching for the courage to speed up my journey to reach life's ultimate goal?

No, I'm not here seeking attention from anyone in the pretence of being on the verge of suicide. I'm not comtemplating killing myself anywhere in the near future. I'm just in a really weird state now, having read a blog where the owner has just said goodbye to the world after having planned reaching the end of life's journey.

It has been suggested that that person was merely seeking for attention, as all bloggers are apt to do on their blogs. I will not disagree or agree with this statement here, lest I demean an actual intent on the owner's part to return to God.

I'm Catholic, and will be so until the day I die. But I'm not the type of Catholic that takes whatever is written in the Bible at face value, or what I was taught in Sunday school to be the ultimate truth. I believe in God, and I believe that He is omnipotent, and forgiving, and ultimately, that He will love me no matter what I do. I do not feel the need to go to church because I feel closer to God when I talk to Him in my own way, everyday, than in a church during a mass I do not feel intuned with, surrounded by people I hardly know. I trust Him in everything that I do, and I know that after the end of this journey, He will be there to welcome me, and take me home.

I believe this will be true even if I choose to end my own life. Maybe reading Terry Prachett has convinced me that in this world, just like on the Discworld, what the afterlife holds for you is what you believe it to hold. I believe in the theory of Evolution, and I don't think it conflicts with me being a Catholic. I don't find it demeaning that Adam and Eve could have been apes. God's special creations evolved to become present day human beings, guided by the hand of God. I don't see anything blasphemous about that. I also believe that God put us here to experience life and all its sufferings and joys, so that we can better appreciate the afterlife. Someone in my JC once said that she didn't believe God could exist because He couldn't possibly allow all that suffering to go on in the world. But without suffering we cannot possibly comprehend what happiness truly is.

This is also the reason why I can understand how people can use suicide and God in the same sentence.

To all the mice I've killed for my experiments: I really meant it when I told you I felt happy for you that you were leaving this world.

Relationships, and the end of them, tend to be the cause of many contemplating suicide, or actually committing it. '我宁愿他们用仇恨将我的生命结束，也不愿意放弃爱情来换取生存' - a quote from someone's MSN. But I was right smack in the middle of the longest and most serious relationship of my life, with no end of it in sight, when it dawned on me that I didn't really feel that there wasn't anything in particular in life that I wanted to continue living for. It wasn't a death wish. Rather, it was just a lack of wanting to live. At that point of time in my life, I saw myself spending the rest of my life with this person. And so did everyone else who knew us. But I also saw myself spending my afterlife and all eternity with him. He didn't believe in an afterlife then. He apparently does now. He said then that if I died, he'd come join me immediately.

To this person: Will you still come with me? Will you come walk the afterlife hand in hand with me? Do you still want to spend all eternity with me?

I know I only want to spend this life with someone who wants to spend eternity with me. I think I decided this only after I got attached to you, because it was only then that I could see eternity with anyone.

The net is a wonderful, terrible thing. Because of it, I have been able to decide the way I would commit suicide if I should ever wish to. I have also found support sites for people who want to commit suicide. Whole forums worth of them. Sites which rate various suicide methods in terms of painfulness, effectiveness etc. There are online support groups for people to discuss how they should meet their end. Where people can chat online with each other to give each other the courage to take the last step. Where people who don't want to die alone can find others to die with. Where people will wish you a happy goodbye and wish you bon voyage on your chosen death day, and say see you soon.

If I ever choose to commit suicide, I would never blog about it, or tell anyone about it. I might hint, but I don't think anyone will notice with the cryptic way I always word things I don't want to say outright. But I would say goodbye to all those important to me. So they won't ever felt I left having unfinished business with them. So they would remember me that way, instead of having my suicide imprinted in their heads as their most prominent memory of my existence.

I've never cried at a funeral before. I was pissed at my first two grandparents for leaving. Maybe I wasn't really. Maybe I wanted to be different and not be upset, so I channelled all my sorrow to anger. I came close at my paternal grandfather's funeral. Not because he left, and I missed him (I still do, I miss all of you). But because he didn't get to die at home, with his family, and I don't even know if this was important to him, but it was important to me, because I don't want to die alone, and I didn't want him to be alone when he died. And I was upset because I couldn't bear the thought of the last people he saw being the nurses and the doctors. I don't know who was there when he left. And I don't want to find out, in case what I suspected turns out to be true. I hope he knows we loved him and that we still do. Well at least I know I still do.

Right know, I'm only certain that I will cry at the funeral of one person, and I think I will be gone long before he is. In fact, I'm quite sure of that fact. You're the only person whose testimonial in friendster I really treasure, and you have no idea how much you actually mean to me. And of course I'd never tell you, because such things as just not done. By me at least. At this point of time.

Leaving off here, not to commit suicide, or to plan my suicide. My world has come crashing down on me all in one weekend, and I'm still alive, without a suicide plan (now or then), and without that special someone there to pull me through. Many believe that suicide is an easy way out, a coward's way of escaping. I'm in the school that believes that it actually takes courage to commit suicide, to find out what the afterlife holds for you.

The Generation Gap that Spawned Somewhere in 1984

It has occurred to me recently that in Singapore, there appears to be a generation gap between the people born before 1984, and the people born in or after 1984. It seems that nearly everyone in the 2nd group has a blog. All my tuition kids have blogs. Yes, even the one in Primary 4 has a blog. It seems that of all the people born in 1984 or after that, not only do they have blogs, but all of most of their friends do. My brother who is born in 1983 doesn't have a blog, or he's concealing it really well from me. (I seriously doubt this is possible though, because he is a 3rd year medicine student, and is also addicted to WoW. But he may still surprise me.) I don't really know why 1984, but it appears to be that way.

Well, there are plenty of people born before 1984 who have blogs. But there appears to be a great difference between the blogs of these people, and those of the other group. For some reason, those in the latter group tend to treat their blogs like their online diaries. The older group tends to blog about their opinions on issues; if they blog about their day, it's more like as a collection of experiences than a merely a record of what happened. Of course there will be exceptions in either catogery. One of my tuition kids is a very good example. She actually blogs about her many opinions. I would link up her blog here except she would complain.

My friend (Malc, was this you?) once commented that we are in the Gap between diaries and blogs. My generation appears to be the type to dabble in homepages (yes, homepages, not blogs) and visit BBSes. Is it actually possible that we abandoned diaries for new technology? I know someone from that generation who actually typed out his diary entries and stored them on his computer. For his eyes only though. Perhaps we are in that Gap because we were more interested in learning about new technologies than about ourselves, and had the conservative Asian view that one should not tell the world about oneself.

So what exactly happened such that people born in the year 1984 and after blog diary-style? I suspect it's got something to do with personal computers (emphasis on personal) with internet access becoming only widely available to Singaporeans somewhere starting in the late 1990s. It would nicely coincide with the people from that generation growing up with computers, and having internet access at a time in their life when they are still young enough not to consider it that much of a new technology. Possibly after being exposed to the apparently barrierless internet, young Singaporeans became less conservative about sharing their lives with the world.

Actually, I personally have nothing against people telling others all about their day on the blogs. I just think it's boring. Yes, what I write is probably boring to practically everyone too. But at least it interests me and since this will still interest me in years to come, I am fine with it being up on the net for the world to see. However, I don't think what mundane occurrences in my day (like rain splashing all over me on my way to lab or someone making me mad) will be things I will be interested in 10 years down the road. Come to think of it, it doesn't even interest me now. And because of my lovely selective memory which can behave like an elephant's for choice situations, it appears that if the incident is of enough impact, I will remember it many many years later. I sometimes remember the most ridiculous things too. So I guess writing about my life for memory's sake isn't all that important to me.

But then why 1984 exactly? I have no idea. Weirdly enough, all the people I know born in 1984 that I can think of now are, to put it politely, bizarre. One guy tried to break me up with my then boyfriend, and it didn't matter to him that I was in uni and he was, well, in secondary school. (Yes, currently a guy born in 1984 isn't really all that young to me, but then the age gap was really huge. He didn't succeed, btw, and I didn't date him or do ANYTHING with him.) One girl I know has slept with well, more people than I have fingers and toes. Another one of them guys apparently talks to girls who have insulted him in some way or another in Chinese because he claims it irritates them. I wonder if he is doing that to me now. I'm not too sure why a Chinese person speaking in Chinese would irritate anyone (unless you are my brother or Licai, and then you BOTH know why >.<), so all in all it's very puzzling.

3 bloggers I know are born in 1984. One is the (in)famous Xiaxue, whose blog link can be found in this sidebar. The other 2 are people I know in real life, whose blogs are, well, not going to be linked here because heh, it's not worth it in too many ways. There are however, so many similarities between these 3 bloggers (at least those evident from their blogs or public posts) I'm wondering if there is a trend with those people born in 1984 that caused that Generation Gap. All 3 of them have publically claimed to be intelligent. Xiaxue and one of other 2 by announcing their IQ on the net (and in the case of Xiaxue, her PSLE score as well). The other has said she considered someone smart because he went to elite schools and made it to university, implying that she is smart because she herself has such qualifications. (Oh btw, Xiaxue, her PSLE score is higher than yours haha.)

[I sincerely don't know what hype there is about IQs and intelligence. What's better? Being able to accomplish everything you set out to do in your life with a low IQ, or having this beautifully preserved intelligence rotting away while you... hmm... have dreams you are never going to obtain? Is it more impressive to have won a Nobel prize with a lower or higher IQ? I think my parents are never going to be proud of me for whatever IQ I am supposed to have, but rather of what I accomplish with my life. ]

Well, back to those 3 bloggers, all 3 do write about their daily lives in their blogs. Not everyday like some people, but they do post about a fair amount of their lives. And all 3 of them have flammed on their blogs someone or other who has insulted them/belittled them/rubbed them the wrong way/mentioned their name in a way they don't like it publically in real life or on the net. Yes this online flamming thing has been going on long before blogs became popular, but it apparently is still frowned on by majority of the Singaporeans I know, who still think that feuds should be taken out in private.

I was actually inspired to write this post based on a site which showed what Xiaxue apparently did in her attempt to get back at someone she didn't like online. [http://xialanxue.blogspot.com/2006/01/xiaxue-expos.html]
It was rather amusing the extents some people will go to just to insult you publically over the internet, and yet pretend that they don't affect you in the slightest bit. I guess pretending to be someone else works until, God forbid, someone finds out about your evil scheme and tells the world about it! Some people don't even bother to cover it up; one of the other 2 bloggers said that the person in question (unnamed of course) wasn't someone she could be bothered about at all, and yet she wrote 3000+ words in her post whining about how she was being painted as a villian when she was actually the victim of the entire situation. Perhaps these people think that with their high IQs, everyone else must have a lower IQ than them and hence be totally unable to notice what they are up to. It's just so hilarious.

I still haven't actually figured out why the year is 1984. Maybe it's because of the bizarre people who were born in that year. Maybe it's because the wave of new technology at that certain time in the 1990s. At least I am comforted that there other people in 'my' generation as bewildered as me that all those people born in 1984 or after have blogs.

About My Incapability to Dominate the Conversation on Skype

This post is dedicated to you, Mr Gideon Tan, because of your ridiculous comment to me on MSN.

Gideon serapuff.blogspot.com says:
hehe
Gideon serapuff.blogspot.com says:
i call you using
Gideon serapuff.blogspot.com says:
skype
Gideon serapuff.blogspot.com says:
i c how u dominate
Gideon serapuff.blogspot.com says:
*giggle

*

Gideon, you and I both know I have no mike connected to my computer. So it would seriously be freaky if I managed to dominate the conversation on Skype.

Arise from thy Slumber, Blog of Malcolm

This is Malcolm's blog, and like all the other blogs I've managed to invade, I have this feeling that the majority of the posts are going to be from me. Not only majority, but bulk as well. Yes. I do have this tendency to talk too much. I find that in 1-to-1 conversations I usually dominate the other party. Especially if this is over the phone. So I guess if I am actually quiet in a conversation with you, there is a high probability that there is something wrong, either with you, or with me.

Possible Reasons Why I am Quiet Instead of Talking
1. I have nothing to say to you.
2. I think you are talking crap, and if I open my mouth, I will get into an unwanted argument with you.
3. You have repeated that same story to me 1 million times, and since nothing I could say the other
999 998 times could shut you up, I'm keeping quiet.
4. I am thinking of what to blog about. Or my experiments. Or some bridge hand. Or some DOTA
game. In short, for some for some reason or other, I am not really in the conversation.

Oh well, since Malcolm won't be the first to prod some life into his blog, I have started by writing this post. All the previous posts by me are actually backups from another blog, of which the owner may soon kick me out of. And Malcolm still wanted me to delete his one and only post. Goodness. No matter what it says, it's your ONLY POST. Ecks. Still want me to delete.

Anyway the reason why I'm posting on other people's blogs is simple. On the start of my own blog, I will go and fiddle with the template for days on end, 1. neglecting my lab (not that I actually pay it much attention to begin with) 2. losing my precious sleep (not that I do sleep much anyway) 3. getting totally utterly frustrated with the stupid programming languages 4. screwing up the entire template such that I can't even blog anymore/the blog looks totally utterly bizarre 5. finally fixing it by reverting to some original thing, and in the end, being too tired and sian to finally write anything at all. Since it's someone else's blog, I'd just tinker with the template here and there, but won't bother too much with the layout because it's someone else's blog after all. Malcolm has already shown me that what I predicted from the starting of my own blog could be possible by himself editing the template for hours on end, and posting up only one post so that he can view his handiwork. And he already has the advantage of having a degree in Computing.

So hopefully I've injected enough life into this blog to awaken it. I'll try to post more soon because spewing out all the nonsense floating around in my head is actually more fun than leaving it to rot and disappear into oblivion.

DOTA Allies in a Class of Their Own

Trash talking DOTA Allies come in many forms. The most classic are the noobs, who come in and talk, well, nonsense.

Noob Example 1

Noobs who proclaim to the world that they have lost the last game because their team refused to buy wards, and hence got pawned by some hero with an invisiblity skill, e.g. Stealth Assassin, and thus cause the game to be lost. Sees that same hero in the game they are currently in, scream that we had all better get wards, proceed to get a 0-4 kill-death ratio with a hero that has an escape mechanism (e.g. Bone Fletcher), then quit the game.

Noob Example 2

Noobs who proclaim to the opposing team that they are going to own them, proceed to die to the opponent's hands many times, call them 'lucky', and proclaim that they are going to start feeding because they have a noob team. They usually then tell the opps they will be able to own them with some other hero, usually Bone Fletcher (why I still have no idea), invite you to come to their game to get trashed, blame the loss of the game on their teammates, and quit the game.

Yes, there is the easy way to ignore these allies, by using /squelch. But pubs are sometimes already so boring, and some of these trash talkers can actually be rather entertaining. Like one of the noob example 2s who kept going 'I'm going to trash you fuckers'. So now we all know the reason for his behaviour is coz he is sex deprived, and needs to take it out on people who can get what he cannot have.

The other type of trash talking ally is usually those who think they know what they are doing, and when they lose, proceed to blame you and the rest of their team for their loss. It doesn't matter if you haven't been feeding, are a late game hero, or actually even have some kills. It just takes you to do something they don't approve of (e.g. agrue with another ally about non-DOTA related matters) in the game for them to blame you for their loss. These type of allies tend to critise your play style, e.g the items you bought, did not buy, and the skills you took. It does not matter that they may have bizarre builds themselves, like Lina having a Blink Dagger as one of the first items (My friend suggested it was so the finishing move could be a really stylo one where Lina blinks in and Lagunas the opponent; I thought it COULD be to help aim the area stun properly by blinking in and stunning the area around herself - either way, bizarre as it may be, I don't critise you on your build because unique builds are the one that make the game more interesting).

These allies will ask you why your Sven doesn't have any lifesteal or a BKB (doesn't matter that you left Sven to solo the middle lane with lion as 1/2 of the opponents for 3+ levels, or that your hero is only level 14 and doing quite well even with the early game capping). They may also scold you for not turning on Metamorphosis with Terrorblade to fend off the incoming creeps, when you had already done that a few minutes ago and the spell is on cool down. I just don't play with them anymore. Amazingly, these usually turn out to be friends of my friends. I have no idea why. Do guys younger than me, especially those in NS, really have immaturity problems?

But of course, in the long course of playing DOTA, you will meet allies who are really in a class of their own. I just met one today. My friend on the same team (yup, the same one who suggested the use of the Blink Dagger for Lina) nicely helped my team find out how strange some people can get, by accidentally sharing control of his hero with that ally. As expected, that ally took 2 of his items, and had to be bugged to return them. He immediately returned the 1st item, but obstinately refused to return the 2nd item. He kept insisting he didn't take it. The whole team kept telling him he had it, but he kept protesting. Finally, approximately 20 minutes later, after being constantly bugged and followed around by my friend, he suddenly says 'it wd'. Another friend playing on the same team controlling the Witchdoctor friend messages us and said 'he give to me for fish!'. So we are all thinking crap this noob, can't even return the item to the right person.

But then that guy suddenly scolds my friend (and us all I guess) for his 'wrong accusation', and says that the Witchdoctor took the item in the first place. 'Next time see properly then say.' I almost died of laughter.

As expected, he leaves shortly after, having suicided again for the millionth time. But not before making friends with the guy who shared the same lane with him in early game. Some allies are really. In a class of their own.

Of MapHacking and DOTA

Ok I am putting my baby picture here coz I think I look so cute. And ya la I said I was moving out of this blog, but I have to say something about the ridiculous things opponents on Bnet say about MapHacking on a site which may actually have traffic (haha as opposed to any blogs I could start, or that stupid friendster one. I ABANDON YOU FRIENDSTER BLOG YOU SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF ME).

So with more and more people Dotaing, hacks such as MH will find their way into common usage. To me, opponents using MH are juz minor irritants, and usually those who MH in obvious ways are noob enough such that they lose eventually. Not a big deal. But it is amazing to see how many people accuse opponents of MHing just because of a successful kill. Ok so say you randomly got ambushed while farming neutral creeps, and you type on all 'MH! Teal! you MH!'. That I understand. No MH probably, but possibility is always there.

But it came to the point yesterday that I suddenly realised that even though many people have played Dota for more than a year, they are still very, for a lack of a better word, noob. The point came when I was Treant, and one opponent still accused my teammate of MHing. I immediately responded with 'Hello, I am TREANT.' To which he replied 'but i slowed and he still avatar', or something to that effect. It took me some time to figure out that he actually wanted to say was 'But I cast frostbite on Sven and he still could cast godstrength (and kill me)'. He then proceeded at a point later in the game to insist that Sven was MHing.

Some opps deserve to be squelched because of their ridiculous insults. Some allies too. But this opp. He was in a class of his own. Ok I'm laughing again thinking of it.

I guess I can take opps MHing. In pubs, if it will help them stay that much longer, if it will help the game be that much more interesting coz of a challenge, so be it. But what I really don't like is opps randomly accusing you of MHing when you are in plain sight of everyone, have sentries (esp if you have a treant on your team and have unlimited free sentries....), or just happen to be so suay to be there at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I shall go think of an appropriate thing to say to opps who accuse me or my teammates of MHing. Just to make DOTA that much more amusing =D.

Girls in Toilets

Woot bout of insomnia again! What's new... I wonder if YIH carries sleeping pills at a discount to students... heehee... But I digress....

Amusing post on handicapped toilets I have just read on Xiaxue's site. (Ya I do read her blog *gigglez* how else could I entertain myself at 5am... Lee Weiming, I blame you! heehee..) http://xiaxue.blogspot.com/2005/10/i-am-hungrrrrrry.html.

What amuses me about that post is that I do use handicapped toilets all the time. Especially in one shopping centre in Orchard. While I don't exactly agree with what she has to say about the rights of the handicapped and the toilets 'assigned' to them, I rather agree with the reasons on why she thinks it is alright to use them. Ok.. REASON, not reasons - it is unlikely that a handicapped person would need to use the toilet in that space of time in which I am in it. And yes, like her, if a handicapped person actually appeared, I would so definitely let him/her use the toilet first.

And this brings me to the point of this post. I really don't know what girls do in the toilet that makes the queues in the ladies so much longer than those in the gents (apologies to one of my ex-profs, but no matter what you say, I seriously don't think people could ever call the gents, erm lords.... =P). It is beyond me. I usually take like 1 min in there and am out. The only time I take longer is when I am having that girly thingy, and even when I do, it sometimes still takes only 1 min. Ya la... I tested as male on that silly gender test (http://community.sparknotes.com/gender/) every single time I took it, and the testers are more sure than I am male than everyone on my friend's list, with the exception of one person (thankfully, anatomatically male). But what DO girls do in there that takes them so long? Can't possibly be putting on makeup in the cubicle right? I also don't think having to sit on the bowl makes it that much longer >.<. So for efficiency's sake, I use the handicapped toilets, markedly those that are the unisex ones outside the male/female toilets, simply coz there is no queue, and the most a geniunely handicapped person would have to wait would be 2 mins. Now that the shopping centre I referred to previously actually managed to spawn like 20 cubicles in the female toilet (I don't know how they did it! But I am so happy!), I have not gone to their handicapped toilet (on that floor at least haha). That post on Xiaxue's blog and the comments about the handicapped toilets have, however, caused me to wonder. There are obviously people who think that since there are so few handicapped people as compared to nonhandicapped people, it is a waste of resources to for the nonhandicapped ones to use the handicapped cubicles when they are not being occupied. I vaguely agree with this. So following this argument, we girls should just use the male toilets which are usually so empty with no queues. Ok la, let's face the fact. I've actually never thought of doing that before in a crowded shopping centre, mainly based on the fact that some polite guy will probably usher me out of the toilet. Risk of that happening when using handicapped toilet near 0. But I think now that the idea has been planted, I will probably try some day xD.

Don't worry guys, I promise not to peek at you in the urinal.

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