Posted in Uncategorized
Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
Why can’t women put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Why don’t you ever see the headline ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’?
Why is ‘abbreviated’ such a long word?
Why is it that doctors call what they do ‘practice’?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavouring, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
Why do supermarkets make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
Why do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.
Why do banks leave vault doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.
Why do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in our driveways and put our useless junk in the garage.
Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!
Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?
Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?
Posted in Uncategorized
I still can’t believe this… How can it be? I didn’t know him very well, but I still cried… Sigh…
How can Rajan be dead? Really….
Shocked
Posted in Uncategorized
Ok, before I have all the interesting quotes I found recently, let me update things on the life front.
1) Sai Things are piling up. The Zonal Youth Conference preparations are getting more and more hectic, and I’m starting to worry about not being able to cope with meeting all the expectations.
2) Debates – Tim and I ended on 6 points for SDOs. That’s pretty good, considering we always ended on 3 or 4 in other BP tournaments. The other 2 SP teams also ended on 6 points at the end of the tournament.
On the issue of certain people apparently “losing respect for our contingent”, here’s my response: yes, i agree it was a mistake we made, and I apologise. But honestly, here’s my other response: “Really, who the heck do you think you are? SO WHAT if you lost respect for us. We really don’t value your respect as important, so you can be as idiotically stupid as you want. It isn’t like we have the utmost repect for you either. So there.”
3) Internship’s going fine I guess. No “YAY”moments yet, but no “oh damn” moments yet either. So i guess I’ll survive this.
Ok here are some interesting quotes I found on quotesnphrases.blogspot.com. Of course I’m not gonna quote the entire blog, but there were some really eye-opening and then some really funny ones. So here they are:
That’s it I guess.
Posted in blog, debate, online, quotes, school
Tagged debate, inspirational, internship, quotes, sai
I know I haven’t blogged in really really long, but that’s because, well NCT ended, and internship began and I’ve been too caught up with that to worry about anything else. But I’m here because I realised that I failed to blog about a very very important event that happened towards the end of November, which is the wonderful Inter-Polytechnics Debating Championships 2009.
First of all, let me say this very proudly, WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!
Secondly, I won Best speaker of the Grand Finals! (YAY!)
Thirdly, SOME people need to realise that being sore losers in the public domain is pathetic. 
I know I’m saying this in the public domain as well, but that’s cos I really hope they read it. 
The reason why i say this is because SOME people think that our win wasn’t deserved because we said silly things like China and Brazil are developed countries.
Here’s my response: If I could somehow manage to justify that China and Brazil are developed countries in my speech, and my opponents couldn’t make enough of a rebuttal to refute something as silly as that, then well, I’m not the stupid one.
In a debate, a speaker does ANYTHING to help push their case forward, including saying silly things. I knew it was silly, even as the words came out of my mouth, but I still said it anyway, cos that’s what helped the case!!! If my opponents didn’t know what else to say except the circular argument of “China and Brazil are developing! they’re developing! they JUST ARE developing!” without explaining why….. then it’s not my fault that the judges gave us the win at the end of that round. pffft.
anyway, in case you’re confused now, we debated the topic on taxing goods from countries that had lower environmental standards, so what should have been the debate was abt the principles of economy vs the principles of the environment .
Of course, that was not the debate that ensued, but ah well… considering that it ended up being a feasibility debate, we did our best out o f the mess.
Another thing that I think is VERY VERY amazing in this tournament is that the freshmen came out top of the speaker tabs. The top speaker was a TP freshman, and even an SP freshman and and NYP freshman came out in the top 5 speakers. This is ABSOLUTELY a good thing. Because it tells us that the potential for a good tournament and a good challenge is evident even in the current juniors. I ALREADY CAN’T WAIT TO COME WATCH NEXT YEAR’S INTER-POLYS!!! it should be a tough fight… For SP, i potentially see very big threat in the TP juniors. They’re doing extremely well. I don’t see that much threat in the other polys as of yet, but I’m sure they’ll pick up in time for the tournament. So it should be good.
Anyway, heading off to SDOs soon, i think that i prob debate? :S not sure.
During NCT tutorial yesterday, Cheryl presented on Globalisation. A large part of her presentation was based on what Tom Friedman said in his book: “The World is Flat”.
“The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century is an international bestselling book by Thomas L. Friedman that analyzes globalization, primarily in the early 21st century. The title is a metaphor for viewing the world as a level playing field in terms of commerce, where all competitors have an equal opportunity. As the first edition cover illustration indicates, the title also alludes to the perceptual shift required for countries, companies and individuals to remain competitive in a global market where historical and geographical divisions are becoming increasingly irrelevant.” – Wikipedia
I think Globalisation is a very relevant thing to all of us today. Especially Globalisation 3.0, where the Internet brings us all closer to one another. Its amazing that Indians working in a call centre in Bangalore, imitate the American accent and solve American citizens problems with their electronic devices. Outsourcing is such a mind-blowing concept, esp in India that it brings up the question: Cultural Erosion or Cultural Integration? I personally think its erosion.
WATCH THIS VIDEO: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/519
This video shows Tom Friedman, author of The World is Flat giving a talk in MIT. When watching it, one sentence interested me: at 7:50 mins – The global economic playing field is levelling and the Americans are not ready for it
What do you think about Globalisation? Make your views heard!
The Sixth Sense
Augmented Reality– A concept that I never would have thought of until NCT tutorial that day. The thought of being able to know all of that information at the touch of a finger is exciting, yet scary too. When I think about such high technology stuff, I realise that while it means that I can find out more about everyone else around me, it also means that everyone else can find out more about me. The problem is this may be with or without my knowledge or permission.
This then brings to reality the importance of personal branding. In the video that Ms Kwa showed us (search for The Sixth Sense in ted.com), it showed a future ability of phones/mobile devices, to create a “word cloud” of the person we’re shaking hands with. This means that all things associated with you on the Net will appear in front of you when you shake hands with someone. Now this is a really scary thought. How many of us have actually thought through every single action of ours online? Not many. We would have done hundreds of things without even thinking, many of them which we would like to keep secret from our future employers. With this technology, nothing’s a secret anymore and everything’s out in the open. 
Personally, i think augmented reality can take its time becoming a commercial enterprise. The longer it takes for it to come into the market, the longer I have my privacy, and the more time I have to clean up my act before I shake someone’s hands.
During the last NCT lecture, author of Fashion Nation and owner of her own site, stephiesays , Stephie Tan came to talk to us about her career in social media. It was a real eye-opener, because I never imagined anyone being able to have an entire career online!
Stephie has an online magazine and a blog, she writes freelance for a number of other online magazines, and has her own online shop. This therefore means that 100% of her income comes from work online! I really believe that this is taking the Internet to a whole new realm of usability. To me, the Internet has always been a place for recreation, and social use. Its always been my portal for games, keeping in touch with friends/acquaintances and updates on news around the world.
However, I now finally see it in its full potential, where I could carve out an entire career from it. The possibilities are endless!
Posted in Media Industry, NCT, New Media, online
Tagged career, Fashionation, Stephiesays
When I chanced upon this article on the Miami Herald (one of the few papers i read for debate updates in the US, apart from Washpo and NYT), it really surprised me. I mean, I always knew that organisations using new media was not a new concept, and that it was becoming more and more common.
However, reading that Make-A-Wish was going into it as well just struck a very important nerve. I have always been someone who did put in alot of effort, time, money and even tears and blood towards helping non-profit organisations, and one VERY LARGE complaint that has been on my mind and ALL other volunteers’ minds as well is the lack of publicity for the organisation. This is pretty sad because of the importance that these non-profit organisations have on society.
This article therefore really struck a cord with me, and I’m really happy that they’re going into publicising on social networking sites too. Richard Kelly, the VP and CEO of Make-A-Wish had a really good point. “We understand the demographics and the way that people get their news has changed,” Kelly said. “People get their news in many ways and we’re going to deliver it that way.”
Do read the article from the Miami Herald!
Posted in debate, New Media, Volunteer
Tagged non-profit organisations, social media
I was recently watching Singapore Idol and I realised what the one difference between this season and the 2 seasons before this was.
This season, they have a Facebook, Twitter, an official blog, an unofficial blog and a Youtube page, in addition to the regular website for the Idol contest. In previous seasons, it was just the website, and that too was only advertised in the show itself. Now though, their Twitter, FB and YT pages are advertised in the show, online and at bus-stops etc.
Its funny that we have reached a point in time where even traditional media like TV shows have resorted to using new media to keep their market share attracted. Singapore Idol-makers have realised that their largest target audience ARE the teens and the younger generation, who ARE inevitably users of new media. Using that to their advantage, they’ve brought the show online too.
However, this inevitably then begs the question: Is this the beginning of the end of traditional media? I personally think that it is. We have reached a point where one-way communication on the part of the media is no longer relevant. Interactivity and audience participation are the name of the game. As the power of new media continues to grow exponentially, traditional media will become less and less relevant to our society.
SG Idol Blog: http://blogs.xin.sg/idol/
SG Idol FB page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=63560638281&ref=search
SG Idol Website: http://idol.mediacorptv.sg/
These are my thoughts on the subject. Please feel free to leave your comments on the issue.
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Viha
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