Washing hands

Have you ever analysed your own actions? Not decisions, but actions, for example washing your hands.

Do you rub both hands together swiftly but with a higher frequency or rub them slowly and deeply? Or do you treat each hand as a separate entity and each rubs itself?

Could there be a psychological reasoning for the method of washing hands?

Think about it.

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Can or Cannot

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to catch a performance held at the Esplanade concourse. As part of its Flipside festival, dedicated to showcasing the lighthearted side of life, 'Can Or Cannot' was hosted by Vernetta Lopez and a cast of three actresses and one actor.

The thirty minutes performance consisted of improvised skits where the cast had to think on their feet and come up with lines based either on random letters of the alphabet or based on lines contributed by the audience.

While the idea is most definitely creative, it certainly isn't original as any person who has watched Whose Line Is It Anyway would tell you. A blatant reproduction but with localized segment names.

Personally, I felt it was a flop. For one, the hostress was speaking too fast, and whether it be the sound system or her muffled voice, she was very unclear. While kudos to the audience for being active in cheering and clapping, the cast could have been more entertaining, this reviewer feels.

Indeed, if it weren't for blatant humor such as lines, written by the audience prior to the show, being read out at random moments, the show would have failed terribly.

One issue the producers might consider is that we do not have a definite spelling dictionary. K can be kingdom. K can also be kanasai. Also, perhaps one might play around more with a younger cast. There were times the jokes fell through, perhaps due to generation gap or age differences. There's a line between lame and funny. They were clearly in the former category.

I certainly look forward to future renditions of this 'format' of improvisation. Whose Line Is It Anyway did make it till the 8th season in the UK, and there is no reason why it cannot be replicated locally as well.

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Day you were born or days you are living?

Being up so early brings me back to my army days where I had to arise at four thirty in the morning to collect morning rations. I would wake up groggily and together with a platoon-mate, we would drag our feet to the cookhouse zombiefied to collect twenty-odd packets of food.

It starts me comparing between life then and now. Two different purposes, two different environments. Is it better to have a common goal or an individuual goal? Or both?

Each of us in the platoon had our own aspirations be it a graduate or employer or scientist or teacher. Yet, we all had the common goal to complete our army stint as soon as possible.

Have you ever wondered which is more important - the day you were born or the days you are living?

Most would say the day you were born becauuse without it there would not be days you are living. But what benefit did the day you were born provide, save for a slap on the butt?
Were you able to donate your tears, or counsel other newborns?

So then, I put it to you that yes the day you were born is important, but the days you are living is more important. It defines you, and others around you. Through it, you learn patience. and hardness, and wholesome development of your soul. You take on the lives of others and set and achieve aspirations and goals. Of what good use would the day you were born be, if you have been living as a drunkard or sluggard or more?

It is good to be born. It is better to be living.

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What am I?

I move people.

I am unbias, and unjudging. I enforce order in the lives of those who ride me. Yet, I do not complain. I endure the scathing insults of my pace, or lack of it.

I am but a constant in lives. I do not get a chance to travel the world and see its beauty, but I witness the beauty of those that make the world - people.

I watch babies sleeping in their mothers' arms grow to playful kids running around my metal shiny poles, to teenagers with earphones embedded in their ears, to working adults, to becoming parents again. The ageing transformation from black to white, I am but a silent witness.

What am I?

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dear child

dear child, why do
you frown so much
and so tightly?

Are the worries of the world
upon your shoulder
or only books of knowledge
and power

Is the noose around the neck
are deadlines stifling and
suffocating you
depriving you of air?

dear child,
why do you frown so much?
try to stop and smell the roses
or perhaps, spot them
first.

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We are mere mortals

I was working the other night for a local musical at an international acclaimed arts venue. After the musical, the artistes held an autograph session and I was positioned at the front of the queue to facilitate crowd movement.

Being at the front of the queue meant I was standing a feet away from a local male artiste, though he's more popular for his female role.

And our eyes met. Now before you start thinking of bizarre fantasies or homosexual chemistry tendencies, let me clarify that there was no love lost between me and him.

In fact, I had a brief glimpse of loneliness and fatigue. In that quick moment of clarity and bareness of the soul, I came to one realization. We are mere mortals.

No matter what positions we hold in social circles, or how high we are on the career ladder, or how famous we are due to some hit about a certain day of the week, or to never say never, we are just mere mortals.

Before you chase for fame or glory, or stab the back in front of you, pause and take a minute to know that the neighbor beside you is as human as you are.

We are mere mortals, not gods.

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Lead by example

As I blog this, I am seated at a kopitiam. The auntie (aunty?) sitting beside me has just commented how uncomfortable she is feeling due to a lack of coffee for a week or so. Then she moves on to ask why the coffee lady isn't around and no one takes her order.

All these, she says while she is eating her sliced fish bee hoon and seated five seats from the drinks stall.

Makes you wonder what example the younger generation are suppose to follow.

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