"I'm still an atheist, thank God." - Luis Bunuel

***

"Couldn't happen by chance?... Rarity by itself shouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable." - John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences

***

"If a white man attacks an Asian, it's racial assault. If a black man attacks an Asian, it's robbery." - Dal Singh Dhesy, who runs a Sikh community group in Birmingham, presumably commenting on occidentalist attitudes

Someone: If a white man attacks anybody from another race, it is racism. If a non-white attacks a white man, it is not really his fault. We should look at the root causes. Ha!


If participation and dialogue on so-called women's issues is restricted to women, then by default all other issues are already relegated to men, which circumscribes women's rights as citizens and restricts their full participation in society.

***

The Master Test Tube Washer:

"In Singapore, we have a small population, we have no such luxury to do basic science. The key is to be practical. We cannot have everything. By nature, I want to see some outcome...I want something I can feel and touch, and knock."

"My job is to create jobs. It's not just to create great science and great things. Don't forget Nobel Prizes don't create jobs. Research, to me, is a means to an end. The end, to me, is to attract and encourage local companies and MNCs and create jobs for all Singaporeans, from the CEO down to the cleaning lady."


And this is why Singaporean research is doomed.

If you treat people like commodities, they will behave like commodities.

***

Someone on my first bank statement being rejected by immigration on a technicality and the second being lost because it was delivered to the wrong place: they better get u a limo when u land


Someone else on the "ah, what is truth?" school: wah lau, how to summarise half a year of me being intelleectually traumatised into one msn conversaiton

...

shit, it's 8pm, i have to shower

Me: why, the water goes off later?

Someone else: coz if you're a girl and you have long hair, it takes time to dryoh wiat, you have long hair too
what am i saying
haha

Me: yes
if you're a guy and you have long hair, it takes a long time to dry too
the laws of physics are immutable as far as gender is concerned


Me: ah well. no wonder literature is a doomed field haha

Someone: Hey considering what happened before, not surprised
Actually, doesn't post-colonial lit make assumptions of colonialisation

Me: yeah. always blame the colonialists
aiyah these lit people are too divorced from reality

Someone else: exactly!
if you don't drive yourself nuts first

Me: hoho
that's why they all kill themselves

Someone: I think the danger has always been the type of assumptions made tend to be bad for civil liberty

Me: either nuts or too depressing
it's not about assumptions, it's about probabilistic considerations

Someone: The left gone relativist

***

Me: how come you didn't come ah

Someone: its a stupid story
I missed the bus
from KL to JB

Me: uhh

Someone: look at it this way
more fodder for your anti-msia post

I missed the bus cos there was no indication where my bus was to be at
I had to search all the bus bays to find my bus plus the buses don't have numbers
and I had to ask all the people whether the bus was the one gg to JB
in the end I missed the bus
malaysia boleh!

Me: were there signs... in malay?

Someone: no signs at all
luckily the ticket only cost me 20 ringgit
lol
otherwise I'll feel fucking pissed if I wasted more than that amount

I guess the good thing about msia is that even though many things make you lose money (i.e. inefficiency, corruption), its affordable to us singaporeans cos of the exchange rate lol

***

My Favourite Misanthrope (MFM): I have trouble reconciling this melodrama with your usual frivolity
until I recall that you used to write highly emotional posts back when you were still a slave

Me: you call this melodrama?

MFM: the idea of you crying over ***

Me: by the standards of this sort of thing, it is not melodramatic at all

I am not given to strong emotion usually
but even I am human

MFM: bah. humans.

Me: we are weak and frail creatures of carbon