http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_625838.html
I first saw this on Facebook and believe me I didn't know NUS students can be this lame. I eat alone often because my lessons clash with many of my closer friends. I dislike eating with random new people and I won't call myself anti social. Many times, the canteen is overcrowded and you just want to settle your lunch quickly and get over and done with it. Will you not eat lunch just because nobody is accompanying you? All my friends I spoke to can't be bothered with this anyway. It's a waste of time and money.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Tech Speak: Google Drops Support For H.264
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/google-chrome-browser-h-264-video/
It is upsetting to know that Google and friends (Firefox, the open source people and the likes) are not continuing to support H.264, a common video codec widely used by Apple. As a user of H.264 (infrequently but still), I felt that it was a promising codec seeing how both Apple and Google supported it (Youtube was trying out a ton of H.264 vids if I'm not wrong). Still, there's no much hype about Web M which incidentally I only recalled upon reading the article above. At least Adobe is jumping onto the ship for Web M (a new open source codec project spearheaded by Google and joined by many many other platforms).
It is upsetting to know that Google and friends (Firefox, the open source people and the likes) are not continuing to support H.264, a common video codec widely used by Apple. As a user of H.264 (infrequently but still), I felt that it was a promising codec seeing how both Apple and Google supported it (Youtube was trying out a ton of H.264 vids if I'm not wrong). Still, there's no much hype about Web M which incidentally I only recalled upon reading the article above. At least Adobe is jumping onto the ship for Web M (a new open source codec project spearheaded by Google and joined by many many other platforms).
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Brain Storm: Seek Help, Keep Striving, Don't Give Up
http://metatalk.metafilter.com/20205/RIP-Bill-Zeller
I saw this post from a friend's Facebook wall. Out of curiosity, I read the post. This guy Bill was apparently a very capable and seemingly happy person. He committed suicide a while ago and left a letter to explain why he did it. It was really sad to read his letter and realise how hopeless he had felt against society, against religion, against family, against everyone. He was completely convinced that no professionals will be able to help him and even at the unlikely event that they can, they would have betrayed his trust by going to the authorities (and thereby revealing his secret to other people). He was raped when he was young and the dark shadows had never stopped haunting him since. It's a sad reminder again that no matter what kind of serious problem you have, you should always seek help. There's always a listener out there, and things will always get better. You just have to learn to trust, to learn to take that step forward. It may take some time. It may take a long time. But don't give up hope. Don't give in to the darkness. I shan't act righteous and say that suicide is a choice and it's not selfish to commit suicide because I still think it is. Not just because you'll make people sad. It's because there's still so much to live for, so much you can do for the society. You're selfish to yourself and to a greater good. This is especially so for him, as a talented programmer.
This also reminds me that not everyone is the happy person that he or she portrays himself or herself to be. Just like Bill, you'll never know what a person can truly feel and what that person has experienced before. Sometimes, it's not a badly thing to be slightly intrusive. Because you'll never know if you are the perfect help to the someone who needs it.
Below is the letter he left behind. It's a heavy letter to read to be warned. And to Bill Zeller, the world is saddened to have lost a great programmer and I truly hope that you're in a better place now. Rest in peace.
I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely draw the wrong conclusions.
My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.
This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold, plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.
At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming appealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of computers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would provide was like a drug. But the darkness always returned and built up something like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less of a refuge.
The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime is covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I feel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or constantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every hour of every day.
Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and furious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the control it has over my life.
I've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this hampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought and then be interrupted by someone saying "Hi" or making small talk, unable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around, viewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable to perform normal human niceties. I wondered what it would be like to take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better able to mask.
Alcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would always find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to escape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were the result of the darkness. Obviously I'm responsible for every decision and action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen the way they do.
Alcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my situation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had no future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven't touched alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my life in an honest and clear way. There's no future here. The darkness will always be with me.
I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source of my problems instead of something that I'll never be able to change. I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling. I'm not sure why I ever thought that would change anything.
I didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it is never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about him that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic interactions.
Relationships always started out fine and I'd be able to ignore him for a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return and every night it'd be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.
Relationships didn't work. No one I dated was the right match, and I thought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him. Part of me knew that finding the right person wouldn't help, so I became interested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I thought I was gay. I convinced myself that it wasn't the darkness at all, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over why things didn't feel "right". The fact that the darkness affected sexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I convinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college after my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity, not at Princeton), even though I wasn't attracted to men and kept finding myself interested in girls. Because if being gay wasn't the answer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but I was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I'm straight, I will never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will never leave.
Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met. Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so fucked up. Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had left behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her. It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had and I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn't stand, from him. I realized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or only me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside me. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of all of our interactions. I will never be able to be at peace or content or in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic part of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as soon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It's likely that things wouldn't have worked out with her and we would have broken up (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do) even if I didn't have this problem, since we only dated for a short time. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with anyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough. Nothing is enough. There's no way I can fix this or even push the darkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy feasible.
So I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time limit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn't last because of the darkness and didn't want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of problems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should have been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing what was actually going on with me, but this is not something I've ever been able to talk about with anyone. Losing her was very hard for me as well. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively quickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another relationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal connection I could ever have. This wasn't apparent to other people, because I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was very sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was because I will never escape the darkness with anyone. She was so loving and kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the circumstances. I'll never forget how much happiness she brought me in those briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of this letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing this.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a possibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only dated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She's just one more person in a long list of people I've hurt.
I could spend pages talking about the other relationships I've had that were ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the darkness. I've hurt so many great people because of who I am and my inability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is that I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.
I've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time.
I've told different people a lot of things, but I've never told anyone about what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they claim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a few years ago when I thought I was gay and told people. The more harmful the secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be betrayed. People don't care about their word or what they've promised, they just do whatever the fuck they want and justify it later. It feels incredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone and have it be between just the two of you. I don't blame anyone in particular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened to me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.
I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need to stop this. I need to make sure I don't kill someone, which is not something that can be easily undone. I don't know if this is related to what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this decision should indicate what I'm capable of.
So I've realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated with it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically harming others.
I'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me the monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know any other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel fundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke up one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world, living among creatures it doesn't understand and can't connect with.
I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to give. I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly. I think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through the darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel intimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I did try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt many of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget about me quickly.
There's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.
You may wonder why I didn't just talk to a professional about this. I've seen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other issues and I'm positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was never given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent a large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was. And I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both because I know it wouldn't help and because I have no confidence it would remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of doctor/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we'd hear stories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories that were passed down through generations. All it takes is one doctor who thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who thinks it's her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and have me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling herself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single doctor who violates my trust, just like the "friends" who I told I was gay did, and everything would be made public and I'd be forced to live in a world where people would know how fucked up I am. And yes, I realize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they're based on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a profound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.
People say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.
Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people have it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I really did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day for the last 23 years and I just can't fucking take it anymore.
I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant misery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a stronger person. It sounds pretty great.
I'm prepared for death. I'm prepared for the pain and I am ready to no longer exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will probably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do. My only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving.
—-
I'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional, dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a better place when they're dead—one with less hatred and intolerance.
If you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.
They live in a black and white reality they've constructed for themselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive by hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love. They don't understand that good and decent people exist all around us, "saved" or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage of their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by teaching them to practice the same hatred they practice.
A random example:
"I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the Koran, he will be a terrorist." - George Zeller, August 24, 2010.
If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were "saved" at some point), that's your choice, but it's fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.
Their church was always more important than the members of their family and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy their contrived beliefs about who they should be.
I grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never believe in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was literally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run by two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others were around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is going to Hell because she's Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist but then talk about the horrors of miscegenation. I could list hundreds of other examples, but it's tiring.
Since being kicked out, I've interacted with them in relatively normal ways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like having people I can talk to about what's been going on in my life. Whatever the reason, it's not real and it feels like a sham. I should have never allowed this reconnection to happen.
I wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time. At other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly believe the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me very much and tried her best. One reason I put this off for so long is because I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since she found out I wasn't "saved", since she believes I'm going to Hell, which is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going to change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is much less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot intellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her. Maybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will cause, shows that I am a monster who doesn't deserve to live. All I know is that I can't deal with this pain any longer and I'm am truly sorry I couldn't wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be done without hurting anyone. For years I've wished that I'd be hit by a bus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more acceptable, but I was never so lucky.
—-
To those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with all my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the person I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a better person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I never got very far.
I'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you can't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me.
Bill Zeller
—-
Please save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don't want people to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I might have otherwise because I'm worried that my family might try to restrict access to it. I don't mind if this letter is made public. In fact, I'd prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and drawing their own conclusions.
Feel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its entirety.
I saw this post from a friend's Facebook wall. Out of curiosity, I read the post. This guy Bill was apparently a very capable and seemingly happy person. He committed suicide a while ago and left a letter to explain why he did it. It was really sad to read his letter and realise how hopeless he had felt against society, against religion, against family, against everyone. He was completely convinced that no professionals will be able to help him and even at the unlikely event that they can, they would have betrayed his trust by going to the authorities (and thereby revealing his secret to other people). He was raped when he was young and the dark shadows had never stopped haunting him since. It's a sad reminder again that no matter what kind of serious problem you have, you should always seek help. There's always a listener out there, and things will always get better. You just have to learn to trust, to learn to take that step forward. It may take some time. It may take a long time. But don't give up hope. Don't give in to the darkness. I shan't act righteous and say that suicide is a choice and it's not selfish to commit suicide because I still think it is. Not just because you'll make people sad. It's because there's still so much to live for, so much you can do for the society. You're selfish to yourself and to a greater good. This is especially so for him, as a talented programmer.
This also reminds me that not everyone is the happy person that he or she portrays himself or herself to be. Just like Bill, you'll never know what a person can truly feel and what that person has experienced before. Sometimes, it's not a badly thing to be slightly intrusive. Because you'll never know if you are the perfect help to the someone who needs it.
Below is the letter he left behind. It's a heavy letter to read to be warned. And to Bill Zeller, the world is saddened to have lost a great programmer and I truly hope that you're in a better place now. Rest in peace.
You're never alone... Have faith...
Bill Zeller
I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely draw the wrong conclusions.
My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.
This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold, plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.
At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming appealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of computers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would provide was like a drug. But the darkness always returned and built up something like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less of a refuge.
The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime is covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I feel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or constantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every hour of every day.
Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and furious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the control it has over my life.
I've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this hampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought and then be interrupted by someone saying "Hi" or making small talk, unable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around, viewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable to perform normal human niceties. I wondered what it would be like to take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better able to mask.
Alcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would always find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to escape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were the result of the darkness. Obviously I'm responsible for every decision and action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen the way they do.
Alcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my situation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had no future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven't touched alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my life in an honest and clear way. There's no future here. The darkness will always be with me.
I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source of my problems instead of something that I'll never be able to change. I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling. I'm not sure why I ever thought that would change anything.
I didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it is never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about him that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic interactions.
Relationships always started out fine and I'd be able to ignore him for a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return and every night it'd be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.
Relationships didn't work. No one I dated was the right match, and I thought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him. Part of me knew that finding the right person wouldn't help, so I became interested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I thought I was gay. I convinced myself that it wasn't the darkness at all, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over why things didn't feel "right". The fact that the darkness affected sexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I convinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college after my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity, not at Princeton), even though I wasn't attracted to men and kept finding myself interested in girls. Because if being gay wasn't the answer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but I was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I'm straight, I will never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will never leave.
Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met. Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so fucked up. Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had left behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her. It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had and I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn't stand, from him. I realized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or only me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside me. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of all of our interactions. I will never be able to be at peace or content or in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic part of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as soon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It's likely that things wouldn't have worked out with her and we would have broken up (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do) even if I didn't have this problem, since we only dated for a short time. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with anyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough. Nothing is enough. There's no way I can fix this or even push the darkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy feasible.
So I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time limit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn't last because of the darkness and didn't want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of problems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should have been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing what was actually going on with me, but this is not something I've ever been able to talk about with anyone. Losing her was very hard for me as well. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively quickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another relationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal connection I could ever have. This wasn't apparent to other people, because I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was very sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was because I will never escape the darkness with anyone. She was so loving and kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the circumstances. I'll never forget how much happiness she brought me in those briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of this letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing this.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a possibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only dated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She's just one more person in a long list of people I've hurt.
I could spend pages talking about the other relationships I've had that were ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the darkness. I've hurt so many great people because of who I am and my inability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is that I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.
I've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time.
I've told different people a lot of things, but I've never told anyone about what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they claim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a few years ago when I thought I was gay and told people. The more harmful the secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be betrayed. People don't care about their word or what they've promised, they just do whatever the fuck they want and justify it later. It feels incredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone and have it be between just the two of you. I don't blame anyone in particular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened to me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.
I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need to stop this. I need to make sure I don't kill someone, which is not something that can be easily undone. I don't know if this is related to what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this decision should indicate what I'm capable of.
So I've realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated with it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically harming others.
I'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me the monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know any other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel fundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke up one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world, living among creatures it doesn't understand and can't connect with.
I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to give. I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly. I think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through the darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel intimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I did try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt many of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget about me quickly.
There's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.
You may wonder why I didn't just talk to a professional about this. I've seen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other issues and I'm positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was never given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent a large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was. And I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both because I know it wouldn't help and because I have no confidence it would remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of doctor/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we'd hear stories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories that were passed down through generations. All it takes is one doctor who thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who thinks it's her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and have me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling herself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single doctor who violates my trust, just like the "friends" who I told I was gay did, and everything would be made public and I'd be forced to live in a world where people would know how fucked up I am. And yes, I realize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they're based on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a profound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.
People say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.
Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people have it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I really did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day for the last 23 years and I just can't fucking take it anymore.
I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant misery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a stronger person. It sounds pretty great.
I'm prepared for death. I'm prepared for the pain and I am ready to no longer exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will probably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do. My only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving.
—-
I'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional, dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a better place when they're dead—one with less hatred and intolerance.
If you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.
They live in a black and white reality they've constructed for themselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive by hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love. They don't understand that good and decent people exist all around us, "saved" or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage of their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by teaching them to practice the same hatred they practice.
A random example:
"I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the Koran, he will be a terrorist." - George Zeller, August 24, 2010.
If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were "saved" at some point), that's your choice, but it's fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.
Their church was always more important than the members of their family and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy their contrived beliefs about who they should be.
I grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never believe in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was literally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run by two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others were around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is going to Hell because she's Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist but then talk about the horrors of miscegenation. I could list hundreds of other examples, but it's tiring.
Since being kicked out, I've interacted with them in relatively normal ways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like having people I can talk to about what's been going on in my life. Whatever the reason, it's not real and it feels like a sham. I should have never allowed this reconnection to happen.
I wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time. At other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly believe the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me very much and tried her best. One reason I put this off for so long is because I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since she found out I wasn't "saved", since she believes I'm going to Hell, which is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going to change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is much less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot intellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her. Maybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will cause, shows that I am a monster who doesn't deserve to live. All I know is that I can't deal with this pain any longer and I'm am truly sorry I couldn't wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be done without hurting anyone. For years I've wished that I'd be hit by a bus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more acceptable, but I was never so lucky.
—-
To those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with all my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the person I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a better person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I never got very far.
I'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you can't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me.
Bill Zeller
—-
Please save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don't want people to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I might have otherwise because I'm worried that my family might try to restrict access to it. I don't mind if this letter is made public. In fact, I'd prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and drawing their own conclusions.
Feel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its entirety.
Friday, January 07, 2011
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Tech Speak: What I Want To See In The Tech Scene In 2011
2010 was not a very exciting year for technology. We had the new iPhone 4, 3D technology, tablets coming up, but that's about it. I wouldn't even say the iPad was a good innovation because tablets existed long ago. Apple just knew how to market it. There were many things which were supposed to be hyped up but were not as impressive in the end. Things like Microsoft Kin phones, Google TV, more tablets (which ultimately were delayed till this year), Nvidia GT400 series, Google Chrome OS (which is delayed as well), were kinda failures, or didn't come as soon as I'd like. Here's a list of what I really anticipate or will like to see in 2011.
1) Mainstream ULV processors in laptops (Nvidia Ion 2 also can). It's hard to spot a laptop with Core i5 460UM these days. Now that the new architecture Sandy Bridge is up, I hope more manufacturers embrace the idea of relatively powerful mobile chips which has low power consumption.
2) Nintendo 3DS. Portable 3D goodness. Now that's something. However given Nintendo's track record of lower than desired graphics capabilities, it'll be a shame if it turn out to be some half baked product.
3) Android 2.3 Honeycomb. There's much hype about Honeycomb which is Google's answer to iPad. Right now, tablets like Samsung Galaxy Tab and ViewPad uses Android version 2.2 which is not exactly ideal as a tablet operating system. I'll never understand why Apple and other companies jumped to the tablet market without having a ready technology. I've seen what Honeycomb can do and hopefully it'll make tablets much more appealing. I look forward to MSI's Wind Tablet.
4) Chrome OS. Open source and free. It'll be cool for a laptop to be optimised for on-the-go usage. Chrome OS is basically a browser based operating system that emphasize on connectivity. There's a problem of what happens when there's no 3G or wifi and I have yet to see how Google is managing this problem. There's also rumours saying that Chrome OS will eventually be absorbed and integrated into Android. I doubt that will happen this year but it's still exciting to see how that can be developed.
5) Integration of Zune, Windows 7 Mobile and Windows 7. This is a biased want, as I own a Zune HD. But it's sad to see how disintegrated Zune is with Windows 7 and how even Zune and Windows 7 Mobile are so different. I mean, my Zune HD can't even play games meant for Windows 7 Mobile. That seems kind of ridiculous. And the Zune software crashes on my laptop lately. Really sad.
6) Wireless 802.11az standards. New wireless standards are underway and I hope to see them soon. These wireless standards are said to be better than wireless N and there are different versions. I remember reading about a wireless AB and a wireless Z or something. There was one which is supposed to be adhoc based (meaning a network between a device and another device). If this comes along, then the days of iPhone hating Android and thus cannot connect using bluetooth will be over. That said I look forward to Bluetooth 4.0 too (whatever happened to bluetooth 3.0? i dunnoe).
7) Better Li-Ion batteries. Dual core mobile chips are coming up. Intel processors are getting faster every year. It's a real pity that battery technology isn't catching fast enough. Battery life is often sacrificed for the sake of faster speeds.
8) Mozilla Seabird. Check it out here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG3tLxEQEdg Nuff said. I will jump ship to Mozilla immediately.
9) Better energy saving screens/dual screens. Who prefers to read an e-book on their LCD/LED screen over a Kindle's E-ink screen? Better widespread usage of LED screens would be better too, if they ever can be utilised in capacitive screens. It'll be great if regular lightbulbs use LED technology as well. Actually they already do, but they are quite expensive.
How many of these will actually happen?
What will/should be happening (if there are no hiccups)
1) Mainstream ULV processors in laptops (Nvidia Ion 2 also can). It's hard to spot a laptop with Core i5 460UM these days. Now that the new architecture Sandy Bridge is up, I hope more manufacturers embrace the idea of relatively powerful mobile chips which has low power consumption.
2) Nintendo 3DS. Portable 3D goodness. Now that's something. However given Nintendo's track record of lower than desired graphics capabilities, it'll be a shame if it turn out to be some half baked product.
3) Android 2.3 Honeycomb. There's much hype about Honeycomb which is Google's answer to iPad. Right now, tablets like Samsung Galaxy Tab and ViewPad uses Android version 2.2 which is not exactly ideal as a tablet operating system. I'll never understand why Apple and other companies jumped to the tablet market without having a ready technology. I've seen what Honeycomb can do and hopefully it'll make tablets much more appealing. I look forward to MSI's Wind Tablet.
4) Chrome OS. Open source and free. It'll be cool for a laptop to be optimised for on-the-go usage. Chrome OS is basically a browser based operating system that emphasize on connectivity. There's a problem of what happens when there's no 3G or wifi and I have yet to see how Google is managing this problem. There's also rumours saying that Chrome OS will eventually be absorbed and integrated into Android. I doubt that will happen this year but it's still exciting to see how that can be developed.
5) Integration of Zune, Windows 7 Mobile and Windows 7. This is a biased want, as I own a Zune HD. But it's sad to see how disintegrated Zune is with Windows 7 and how even Zune and Windows 7 Mobile are so different. I mean, my Zune HD can't even play games meant for Windows 7 Mobile. That seems kind of ridiculous. And the Zune software crashes on my laptop lately. Really sad.
6) Wireless 802.11az standards. New wireless standards are underway and I hope to see them soon. These wireless standards are said to be better than wireless N and there are different versions. I remember reading about a wireless AB and a wireless Z or something. There was one which is supposed to be adhoc based (meaning a network between a device and another device). If this comes along, then the days of iPhone hating Android and thus cannot connect using bluetooth will be over. That said I look forward to Bluetooth 4.0 too (whatever happened to bluetooth 3.0? i dunnoe).
New technology I want to see happening
7) Better Li-Ion batteries. Dual core mobile chips are coming up. Intel processors are getting faster every year. It's a real pity that battery technology isn't catching fast enough. Battery life is often sacrificed for the sake of faster speeds.
8) Mozilla Seabird. Check it out here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG3tLxEQEdg Nuff said. I will jump ship to Mozilla immediately.
9) Better energy saving screens/dual screens. Who prefers to read an e-book on their LCD/LED screen over a Kindle's E-ink screen? Better widespread usage of LED screens would be better too, if they ever can be utilised in capacitive screens. It'll be great if regular lightbulbs use LED technology as well. Actually they already do, but they are quite expensive.
How many of these will actually happen?
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Ramblings: Obnoxious People Stay Obnoxious
ORD should be a time of maturity. When obnoxious people leave the army, they should realise that the world has never been about them. Whether they had temporary power which disillusioned them or they were plain narcissistic, they should have noticed that nobody cared about them when they went back into the society.
I thought this should be the case. One year has passed and I was wrong. When I faced them once again days ago, I realised that they had learnt nothing. If army had taught me anything at all, it was that there are so many different types of people out there, you can never be the lowest. Elitist? No. Sadly, the annoying ones are mostly those who had environmental advantages. I feel sad for them sometimes, all of them.
Grow up people. You aren't the world. Your time is over.
I thought this should be the case. One year has passed and I was wrong. When I faced them once again days ago, I realised that they had learnt nothing. If army had taught me anything at all, it was that there are so many different types of people out there, you can never be the lowest. Elitist? No. Sadly, the annoying ones are mostly those who had environmental advantages. I feel sad for them sometimes, all of them.
Grow up people. You aren't the world. Your time is over.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Event: A Year Lived, Another To Come
2010 is the first year which I spent as a civilian in a long time. Army has finally ended. I can no longer have any excuses like "oh my year sucked badly cause I was in the army". No, for the first time, I could decide what I want to do with my life, especially with the long holidays before I entered university. For now, perhaps I should just look back at the resolutions I made last year.
1) Get a good paying job and really start saving up for university
2) Have a good start to university life, cast off my loner self and make lots of friends in university
3) Remember everyone’s birthday, for once, cause this coming year, most of my friends are turning 21
4) Work out consistently and get IPPT silver by end of March
5) Complete Sundown Marathon 2010 and StanChart Singapore Marathon 2010 with a timing of less than 5 hours
6) Restart my skills allocation program, to learn either cooking, instruments, wushu, Japanese, roller blading, computing, photoshop etc.
7) Start a Chinese blog, food blog and maintain them
8 ) Drink way less Starbucks
Looking at my resolutions in general, I haven't fulfilled half of them. For number 1, well I did get a decent paying home aka tuitioning but I didn't manage to save much. So oh well. For number 2, I think I did a pretty good job in making lots of friends in university. Superficial as a lot of them are, I do think that it wasn't as bad as I thought it'll be. The university experience was quite enriching due to the shit activities I got myself into. I don't know if its a good thing that people whom I don't know are adding me on FaceBook, or that people actually talks bad about me behind my back, but from a top down view, everything seems pretty fine for now.
For number 3, I think I bothered to wish most people happy birthday this year. Though I did I got fairly jaded towards the end of the year. I think I'll be happy to go back to my old self where I don't give too much of a care to birthdays including my own. That said, I'm still quite scared that time is passing so fast and before I know it, I'm turning 22 already. For number 4, I didn't even go for IPPT once. I'm going to be so dead. The deadline is in 3 month's time. Better act on it soon.
For number 5, I didn't get a good timing at all. I was injured for Sundown and I had exams before Stanchart Marathon. In general, the lack of training and the overwhelming activities during the period made me run really slowly. I am not joining Sundown anymore, after seeing the extremely lousy quality there. Can't imagine why Adidas sponsored them for 3 years but I hope they stop this coming year. For number 6, I did gear into gaining more skills. But I guess my attempts were futile and half baked at best. I joined cross country and Wushu but I ended up quiting within a couple of weeks. I really need to warm up to university life and start getting more disciplined.
For number 7, I didn't start a Chinese blog in the end. However I do have my own website/blog now, after joining up with a friend to get a domain. The food blog is kind of integrated into my blog now. I haven't been blogging for some time because I was really overwhelmed with work. Hopefully I can crank up my engine again and get more viewership this coming year. For number 8, I am proud to say that I drink a lot less Starbucks now. It's great to know that not all my money is going into expensive stuff like Starbucks coffee or Body Shop stuff which I haven't bought for half a year now.
Many many things happened in 2010.
I went to Taiwan with my closest friends and it was the best! I miss the trip so very badly. We had tons of fun despite me falling quite sick on the last 2 days and it was really warm heartening when Edwin and Ching Yee came back with porridge for me~ I will never forget the chilly winds, wearing shorts with Yinning, the amazing Hua Lien with all the cheap food, cong you bing, cool stone house, all the crappy jokes, the great nature, shopping in a maze, looking for money in the rain in Jiu Fen, seeing how Leonard irks at Chou Toufu etc.
I worked at a couple of banks before giving tuition full time. I missed going out in the mornings and early afternoons to slack with Danny and Jason because we are all full time tutors. I miss just lazing it out on the weekdays, though I have it quite rough on the weekends.
I made the decision to switch over to NUS from NTU. Frankly till now I have no idea whether it was the right choice or not. Since I did fairly badly in NUS as the bell curve sort of worked against me. I wonder if it will be better in NTU. Distance aside, that is.
I celebrated my birthday for the first time in my life. It was fairly okay, could have been better. But then again, this is probably the first and only celebration for the rest of my life already.
I went for my first social camp in years and reignited my "having fun and getting high" attitude. Though I daresay it is kind of failing me again.
This was a pretty sad year cause many of my good friends went overseas for a full year. Another one is leaving soon. Then I'd only be left with 2 blokes who are both attached. So I'm going to be so alone.
I took up quite a few CCAs and I have quite an enriching university life. Many of my close friends call me a "siao on freshie". Truthfully I don't feel so much like a freshie anymore. I am glad that I no longer have the "let's just forget it" attitude, though I don't know how long it'll last. I am surprised to see how much the university has to offer and I am exploring as much as possible.
I got an Android phone at long last. My G2 rocks!
I did pretty badly for my exams. I guess I really need to pull up my socks. I thought I could get back the discipline which I had in JC. But I was wrong. When the time came, I couldn't. Something is really distracting me too much and I really regretted getting too involved in my CCA. I overestimated myself and I guess next time I will have to weigh my options much more sensibly.
For 2011, things are going to get rough again with all my commitments. I'd have pretty much a life that's way concentrated on my university. I just hope that I'd last until at least the exams before I need a long break again.
1) Study harder. I need to regain back the discipline which I have in JC.
2) Regain back my leadership capabilities and style. I haven't gotten back fully into momentum. After seeing how the other leaders lead their people with their own characteristics, I need to go back into my swing as well. More charisma which I am lacking will be a nice touch as well.
3) Less procrastination. There were things which I was supposed to do in 2010 which I still have not done. Sorry just won't cut it and I need to learn to shake off the lazy feeling.
4) Think of what I'd regret. I managed to make 2010 a better one than I'd expected. But there were a few decisions which were still not promptly and sensibly made. My term of office will end sooner than I think and I will really have to consider carefully what I have, what I lack, what I want and what I need before deciding where to head to next. I also think that I am lacking quite a bit of life now. This is a good time to think about what I really want in life. Do I just want a nicer resume? Do I really need to take up all these commitments? Where will they get me and it is that necessary?
5) Stay fit. After talking to many seniors, they seem to be able to handle studying and keeping fit at the same time. Somehow I just feel exhausted all the time. I guess this has to do with learning to adapt to my new university life and to stop procrastinating.
6) Spend less money on useless things. I think my personality as a spendthrift has declined a lot, but it's still not enough. I can do better and really need to keep track of my spending I suppose.
7) Treasure my time with my loved ones. Spend more time with them.
8 ) Learn to be more punctual. I think I am generally quite punctual for meetings but this month I was late for almost every single one of them. Time to manage my timing properly.
9) Rest more. Sleep when I'm supposed to sleep.
That's all for now I guess. I hope 2011 is a year which I learn more, think more and do more.
My resolutions for 2010:
1) Get a good paying job and really start saving up for university
2) Have a good start to university life, cast off my loner self and make lots of friends in university
3) Remember everyone’s birthday, for once, cause this coming year, most of my friends are turning 21
4) Work out consistently and get IPPT silver by end of March
5) Complete Sundown Marathon 2010 and StanChart Singapore Marathon 2010 with a timing of less than 5 hours
6) Restart my skills allocation program, to learn either cooking, instruments, wushu, Japanese, roller blading, computing, photoshop etc.
7) Start a Chinese blog, food blog and maintain them
8 ) Drink way less Starbucks
Looking at my resolutions in general, I haven't fulfilled half of them. For number 1, well I did get a decent paying home aka tuitioning but I didn't manage to save much. So oh well. For number 2, I think I did a pretty good job in making lots of friends in university. Superficial as a lot of them are, I do think that it wasn't as bad as I thought it'll be. The university experience was quite enriching due to the shit activities I got myself into. I don't know if its a good thing that people whom I don't know are adding me on FaceBook, or that people actually talks bad about me behind my back, but from a top down view, everything seems pretty fine for now.
For number 3, I think I bothered to wish most people happy birthday this year. Though I did I got fairly jaded towards the end of the year. I think I'll be happy to go back to my old self where I don't give too much of a care to birthdays including my own. That said, I'm still quite scared that time is passing so fast and before I know it, I'm turning 22 already. For number 4, I didn't even go for IPPT once. I'm going to be so dead. The deadline is in 3 month's time. Better act on it soon.
For number 5, I didn't get a good timing at all. I was injured for Sundown and I had exams before Stanchart Marathon. In general, the lack of training and the overwhelming activities during the period made me run really slowly. I am not joining Sundown anymore, after seeing the extremely lousy quality there. Can't imagine why Adidas sponsored them for 3 years but I hope they stop this coming year. For number 6, I did gear into gaining more skills. But I guess my attempts were futile and half baked at best. I joined cross country and Wushu but I ended up quiting within a couple of weeks. I really need to warm up to university life and start getting more disciplined.
For number 7, I didn't start a Chinese blog in the end. However I do have my own website/blog now, after joining up with a friend to get a domain. The food blog is kind of integrated into my blog now. I haven't been blogging for some time because I was really overwhelmed with work. Hopefully I can crank up my engine again and get more viewership this coming year. For number 8, I am proud to say that I drink a lot less Starbucks now. It's great to know that not all my money is going into expensive stuff like Starbucks coffee or Body Shop stuff which I haven't bought for half a year now.
Many many things happened in 2010.
I went to Taiwan with my closest friends and it was the best! I miss the trip so very badly. We had tons of fun despite me falling quite sick on the last 2 days and it was really warm heartening when Edwin and Ching Yee came back with porridge for me~ I will never forget the chilly winds, wearing shorts with Yinning, the amazing Hua Lien with all the cheap food, cong you bing, cool stone house, all the crappy jokes, the great nature, shopping in a maze, looking for money in the rain in Jiu Fen, seeing how Leonard irks at Chou Toufu etc.
I worked at a couple of banks before giving tuition full time. I missed going out in the mornings and early afternoons to slack with Danny and Jason because we are all full time tutors. I miss just lazing it out on the weekdays, though I have it quite rough on the weekends.
I made the decision to switch over to NUS from NTU. Frankly till now I have no idea whether it was the right choice or not. Since I did fairly badly in NUS as the bell curve sort of worked against me. I wonder if it will be better in NTU. Distance aside, that is.
I celebrated my birthday for the first time in my life. It was fairly okay, could have been better. But then again, this is probably the first and only celebration for the rest of my life already.
I went for my first social camp in years and reignited my "having fun and getting high" attitude. Though I daresay it is kind of failing me again.
This was a pretty sad year cause many of my good friends went overseas for a full year. Another one is leaving soon. Then I'd only be left with 2 blokes who are both attached. So I'm going to be so alone.
I took up quite a few CCAs and I have quite an enriching university life. Many of my close friends call me a "siao on freshie". Truthfully I don't feel so much like a freshie anymore. I am glad that I no longer have the "let's just forget it" attitude, though I don't know how long it'll last. I am surprised to see how much the university has to offer and I am exploring as much as possible.
I got an Android phone at long last. My G2 rocks!
I did pretty badly for my exams. I guess I really need to pull up my socks. I thought I could get back the discipline which I had in JC. But I was wrong. When the time came, I couldn't. Something is really distracting me too much and I really regretted getting too involved in my CCA. I overestimated myself and I guess next time I will have to weigh my options much more sensibly.
For 2011, things are going to get rough again with all my commitments. I'd have pretty much a life that's way concentrated on my university. I just hope that I'd last until at least the exams before I need a long break again.
My resolution for 2011:
1) Study harder. I need to regain back the discipline which I have in JC.
2) Regain back my leadership capabilities and style. I haven't gotten back fully into momentum. After seeing how the other leaders lead their people with their own characteristics, I need to go back into my swing as well. More charisma which I am lacking will be a nice touch as well.
3) Less procrastination. There were things which I was supposed to do in 2010 which I still have not done. Sorry just won't cut it and I need to learn to shake off the lazy feeling.
4) Think of what I'd regret. I managed to make 2010 a better one than I'd expected. But there were a few decisions which were still not promptly and sensibly made. My term of office will end sooner than I think and I will really have to consider carefully what I have, what I lack, what I want and what I need before deciding where to head to next. I also think that I am lacking quite a bit of life now. This is a good time to think about what I really want in life. Do I just want a nicer resume? Do I really need to take up all these commitments? Where will they get me and it is that necessary?
5) Stay fit. After talking to many seniors, they seem to be able to handle studying and keeping fit at the same time. Somehow I just feel exhausted all the time. I guess this has to do with learning to adapt to my new university life and to stop procrastinating.
6) Spend less money on useless things. I think my personality as a spendthrift has declined a lot, but it's still not enough. I can do better and really need to keep track of my spending I suppose.
7) Treasure my time with my loved ones. Spend more time with them.
8 ) Learn to be more punctual. I think I am generally quite punctual for meetings but this month I was late for almost every single one of them. Time to manage my timing properly.
9) Rest more. Sleep when I'm supposed to sleep.
That's all for now I guess. I hope 2011 is a year which I learn more, think more and do more.
Happy new year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)