Midweek

It was a lovely day midweek: the sun was hard at work warming up the wintry land, while booming clouds sprang across the skies to provide occasional, soothing shelter. Work ended at one, and Eli ordered in Japanese teriyaki for our team lunch. Languishing on our full stomachs, ideas started popping up about the best way to spend the beautiful afternoon (it would be sinful to waste it otherwise!) Soon it was settled: Gary would bring us to this exciting joint near the suburbs for some GO-Karting action!

The journey, bringing us from Danville through long, desolate roads in the suburbs to the joint, was unforgettable by itself. Eli drove the 7-seater around, showing us ranches of horses, cows, even the rare llamas (camels with sheep wool on them!). There were some detours, detailing interesting places where Gary biked past. I never seemed to get tired of the hills and greenery... haha.

And finally, destination: Go-Kart. What do I remember?

The shuddering murmur of the engine. The burning smell of diesel and tires. Your vision, encased in aluminium, shrouded through a visor. A continuous landscape of scarred tracks and black walls, interrupted by spinning monsters that crashed you. Or you crashed them.

It was my first time go-karting. Very, very fun :) I did alot of reckless drifting and banging into the walls, and the jarring impact really goes down to the bone! Haha, good stuff. GS was a complete fail, and wound up doing 5 circuit runs less than us. Which means everyone lapped him umpteen times... you can see the scores below.

The rest of the day was spent with GS and Toby, exploring more of the towns around San Francisco... I just enjoy being with these guys so much! Really appreciate how they've been perfect hosts this whole time, bringing me around and catering to my every need. Owe a big, big thank you to them :)

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The beautiful weather continued.

Gary, needing to get out of the office for the day (he says he's prone to causing destruction while he's in the office haha), took me and his son Max out for a roadtrip. Well... except usually I associate "roadtrip" with a tough four-wheel SUV, or a sedan with peeps screaming out of the windows.

So would you call riding in a BMW M5 a roadtrip?

Oh well. You get what you get :p

We went cruising to the coast near Cliff House and the Sutro Bath ruins. A really unique attraction, accompanied by a rocky shoreline and crashing waves. We didn't explore every nook and cranny, but it was exciting just the same :)

The Bath used to look like this!

Next stop: the Marin Headlands across the world-renowned Golden Gate Bridge.

We rode way up to the top, where breathtaking scenery of San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge lay before us. The ruins of an old coastal fortress emerged out of the hills for us to explore too.

Close by, as we traversed the coastline, we found the Point Bonita lighthouse and Bird Island (without birds, they'd flown for the winter).

Nearby was beautiful seaside town Sausalito, and Point Reyes... Gary left it for us to explore next time!

We stopped for lunch at Mill Valley, a small but quaint town with an European feel to it. I kinda liked its architecture...somewhat Victorian, like old british cottage-ish. Tried my first burger in the U.S, a gigantic beef burger topped with an overly generous serving of Blue Cheese! It was really, really strong... i knew i should have gotten cheddar :p

We were sleepy after a long day of sightseeing and exploration... but we just couldn't miss out on the Muir Woods, a sacred grove of giant redwood sequoia trees, so we wound through the hills further, into the nature reserve. It bore great historical importance, being co-founded by President Roosevelt (that "Teddy" Roosevelt) and patronized by the U.N. committee. Deeply humbling to hear of the lives of the great pioneers that cared, like the naturalist John Muir, whom the woods was named after. These people fight for the things that are bigger than us, and themselves. Things larger than human society. We have the fortune today to look at what they had the foresight to see, envision and build.

At the same time, i don't think you have to be fighting for something more impactful on the world to qualify for greatness. Everyone can achieve greatness by doing the things they do. As Leo Tolstoy extolled in "War and Peace", we all make history, each and everyone of us; peasant to peasant, royalty to royalty. We all have our own paths in life. And i think it is so wrong to think that you're doing something more important than others, that you deserve more respect for doing so, that your time is worth more than others. Because anything we're doing can be so inconsequential in the course of history, yet so cardinal to the life of someone!

It was delightful talking to Gary too, learning from his experiences, understanding the american lifestyle and the values he held dear (and already tried to impart to young Max, haha). And about how financial trading is a trade, not a career, and how it makes a difference. In particular, i could relate to the fact that there is really so much more than the career landscape in SG that students like me can see from the tiny, tiny well that is SG. I'm tired of people gushing about, say, a banking or consulting job, about the "prestige" or the "high pay", when there is the world out there. Yes, the world. Shouldn't you WANT to see the world before making your choices? Or do you think you already know "enough"?

Call me stupid then. Because I'm still trying to know what i do not know. And slowly but steadily, i'm finding out :)

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First week, midweek.

California Dawning

Gooood Morning California!

It's my third day here in San Francisco, and everything's been new, varied and interesting. Plus I had great conversations with fantastic new friends and people.

My flight here was really memorable, and gave a great start to the trip. On my first connecting flight to Hongkong, I sat with a solemn, black-suited guy, more interested in his financial newspaper than me.. but on the longer flight to SF, i was with Danny, a bohemian guy - somehow his clothes, demeanor all seemed to scream "I'm an ARTIST!!" - and he was complete madness. I chatted with him, and he asked me what my job was. To my own surprise, i just said the first thing that came to my mind, "I'm an aspiring writer." I guess when people meet a writer, they feel a natural need to share their most exciting life story (and whose life story isn't exciting to themselves?). So he did.

And it was absolutely fun, crazy, and beautiful to listen to him. I jotted some notes down - hope to organize it later as a story! Didn't get his contacts, and Danny left off saying, "You'll find me in a corner of the world. Somewhere."

Well, I finally touched down in SF. It's cold, windy, and there just aren't people on the streets - everyone's galloping around in big cars and SUVs, and the BART, their equivalent of MRT, is literally desolate. GS and his friend and colleague Toby drove to fetch me to their place. And what a grand estate in the suburbs it was!

It's a beautiful place with scenic views, snuck between low, rolling hills that went on and on. I got to know and talk to the boss of the trading firm, Gary, who rented the house, and their other colleagues Elijah and Matt. They're all Americans, except for Matt, who's Korean.

GS' company is really special. It's a small team, they live and work in the same place, and their hours range from 6am to 1pm. Once the trading floor closes, they too stop their work and have the rest of the day to themselves! Plus the company culture is really amazing, it's a very cozy environment with no pressure at all (except on your part to earn on your trades). Gary brings the team out for lunch everyday and they're genuinely interested in talking and getting to know each other. It may be the people factor - i easily spent an hour (during their work hours, oops) chatting with Gary and Eli, about their travels, their missionary work, families. I really enjoy and appreciate staying here with them.

In the morning, i'd watch Warren Buffett on CNBC giving common sense comments, then look at the guys trading and see as their lots get gobbled up by other traders. Pretty interesting stuff. I'd then wait for the drizzle to stop, and wander off to the Sycamore Valley Nature Preserve, a vast expanse of grassy, green lowlands littered with great, withering oaks (it's the winter now). I lumbered up muddy paths ringing the rolling hills, and saw hares flit swiftly across the fields, and birds chirping among the oaks. I chased after grazing cows who stared curiously at me, till my wits gave way and i backed off. It feels as though Nature never gave up on America - humans may colonize the lands, but they will never tame the wilds. Looking to meet the roving deer, turkeys and the lone coyote on the other side of the hills tomorrow!

Descending from the hike, i'd pass by Tasajara Nursery, a largish farm for shrubs, trees and flowering varieties. It's a very pretty place with many interesting things to learn about, looking at the various species and types of plants. I talked to K, an old man who immigrated from Japan, studied business here and then pioneered the Nursery business now spanning the state. He lightly exhorted about the work ethics of the pioneers of his generation - working 15 hours a day, 365 days a year. It was insightful to hear his experience in the shrubbery business. Masako, his wife, was really friendly and endearing too. I somehow poured out my concerns to her about what i wanted to do in life, while she shared some valuable advice.

It feels refreshing to be out here, having great conversations with people who care, with bosses who are never too busy to talk. I guess that is one major appeal of the US and western cultures... the slower pace of life, the openness of the people.

Another day, we rode the BART downtown, then took a cable car ride through Chinatown to Fisherman's Wharf. Very lovely place, touristy and still beautiful, with all sorts of quirky shops and stalls amidst the docks loaded with ships and cruisers. Seagulls glide above your heads unabashedly, as you peek into the distance where the infamous Alcatraz Island - The Rock - loomed ominously in the gloomy horizons.

At the end of Pier 39, we browsed through shops selling breads, bath salts, candies, chocolates, Celtic stuff - all popping up randomly from nowhere! Turn the corner, and we find ourselves face to face with a throng of sea lions, basking lazily atop wooden platforms that floated inside the pier. They howled and yelped, posing for photos and begging for a fishy meal.

Further down the wharf, we entered the Musee Mecanique - an antique museum featuring some of the oldest arcade machines in the US. Fun, interesting, and somewhat hilarious... entertainment must be really scarce back then!

Dinner, atScoma's: a seafood restaurant mysteriously tucked behind dark alleys.

CIOPPINO ALLA PESCATORE

A San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf Original. Prawns, Shrimp, Clams, Sea Scallops,
Fresh Fish, and a 1/2 Dungeness Crab cracked in the Shell in a rich tomato broth.

Fantabulously fresh, absolutely flavorful, a bowl of seafood goodness all crunched up and served in a tender, juicy mix. Definitely a must-try!

Everyday serves up a new menu of fun, excitement and the unknown :)

Freundschaft.

Spent a good, full-bodied day today running around places and meeting friends!

Finally grabbed my german residence visa from the embassy, then went to school to meet Maran and discuss our FYP. We had some really exciting ideas and projects to work on, so i bet it's going to be a blast of a time next year!

He also passed me some pictures from our atypical dinner outing with JY... when we cooked our own dinner of unagi, silverfish and fried rice, then chopped and ate sugar canes raw from the cane for dessert! Never a dull moment with these frens :)

Afterwards, we browsed through the school career fair, and grabbed some brochures and such. Lunch was a hot, spicy meal with Mr Sun, followed by some Xbox 360 Kinetics fun in his room haha. He couldn't wait to show off his guitar skills too:

In the evening, had a nice chat with JY when he passed me my photoshoot pics. These are for the NTU College of Engineering, where I represented Computer Engineering :) Probably used for Openhouse publications and stuff.

Finished off the day having dinner at Gab and Dan's place, it always feels too long since we've last met. Those asses...always claiming to be busy haha.

Well, it felt great to meet up with my frens before i go :)
Auf Wiedersehen, Tschüss und Bis Bald!

Friday, 4th Feb

My family went away to Cambodia for a holiday tour, while i mulled to pass time in our lonely abode.

Planned and carried out a list of self-nurturing things to do within the day:

Bake Bread - not attempted, fail
Lay on the couch and watch a funny movie - fail, watched a teary one instead
Have breakfast in bed - fail, woke up too late for breakfast!
Enjoy a good cup of coffee with a friend - fail, my friend doesn't drink coffee..
Get a good massage - fail, amateurish massage by my friend made me tickle instead.
Have a good cry - fail, only dropped 2 tears.
Enjoy a bubble bath (with scented candles) - fail, too lazy to set the candles up.
Watch the sunrise or the sunset - complete FAIL, went to Changi Beach and saw nothing but happy campers and parasailors.
Visit a place that is special to you - no clue... so fail.
Make yourself a special meal - success! Made japanese curry with burnt rice, rock-hard carrots and overboiled broccoli. Wait, maybe this is a fail...

Haha... think I'd better try harder next time!

How to Build a Bridge

My father is incorruptible.

For the longest time ever, i've been thinking that my dad is a strong man. He perseveres through all the tough times in his life, and there have been many: motorbike accidents, getting a job without an education, and even after getting it, the menial nature of the job assuring each day to be arduous, brutish, painful. My mom's cancer later in life almost broke him down; but he found Faith, and the miraculous recovery of her cancer that accompanied it.

It takes a deep-rooted sense of discipline, courage and perseverance to be my father every single day of his life. To me, that was strength. Strength, pure and strong, able to overcome any obstacle in life.

Then he changed. With age, he learned the humility to suppress his chauvinistic, self-righteous self. With experience, he mastered control over his raging temperament. With wisdom, he gave a voice to his soul.

And i heard it today, steadfast, resolute and firm. That was the voice of strength. Not simply sheer willpower or endurance, for even the reckless have that. Nor constancy or discipline, for these may be misguided in efforts. I mistook strength for these, and blindly adored these values. But today I learned a most valuable lesson.

A strong person is the one who unwaveringly believes in and acts by his moral stand. A strong person never compromises his principles for money, power, popularity, status, or any lesser things. A strong person is incorruptible, and try what you may, you can never get him to sacrifice his values for self-interested material gains. Because as Socrates believed, it is in your self-interest to be moral. Because it is right, it is just; it is human.

And I've always felt, there exists such a wide, gaping chasm between the moral values you hold, and the actions you do in real life. Many never cross this gap. But today i listened to my father, and i saw the steadfast bridge he'd built over long decades of impetuousness, recklessness, stupidity and arrogance, mistakes all; and also good intention, grit, courage, blood and tears. I saw the way he strode forward straight into the sun, in the relentless belief that this was the right path. And i thought to myself, this is how a backbone is made.

Thank you dad, for showing me today how to build a bridge.

God's Algorithm

Today, I stayed so late in the office that i missed the last train and had to take a taxi home. No, i'm not usually that hardworking haha.

We had a great chat in our Moolah office, with arul, audrey and min. Then i had a call with pejman, marketing manager of GrowVC, about SEO and my idea for a crowdfunding event.

Well, thanks to this, i got to meet an interesting taxi uncle, and we discussed faith and religion. I ended up talking for some time in the taxi after stopping, and he even gave me a fatherly pat on the back when i left... Haha.

He believed in religion. That has always been something which i have always wanted to believe in, but didn't. Do we ever have a choice to 'decide' on the things we believe in? Or do our mind and personality, made up of all our experiences and thoughts so far, automatically make the connection, using some algorithm to match the dots together?

To extend it even further, how do natural events in the world 'choose' to occur? We have all these probabilities of them happening... at this very instant, the chance of a teeny-weeny asteroid hitting Earth is 0.2, and the chance of a dino-extinction sized one, 0.00000002. When we say that we leave something to fate, who or what actually 'decides' the actual event, out of a kazillion other random ones, to happen? If God is the one manipulating everything, does he have some automated decision-making system to churn out the outcomes for the many random events in this universe?
Pseudocode:

IF (human_behaviour == sucky) -> THEN (fricking_big_flood == ACTIVATED)

Now THAT would be God's Algorithm.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Wouldn't you know it... my U.S. trip got delayed due to issues with my German visa application.

The Good: Still in Singapore to celebrate Chinese New Year!
The Bad: My entire family has already booked a trip to Cambodia for themselves.
The Ugly: $500 ZUJI flight cancellation fee. WTF.

All thanks to the German embassy, whose inefficiency has given me new insights into how a failed system can screw up people's lives. Case in point: Out of the 10 over cases i witnessed while waiting for my turn, not a SINGLE one managed to complete anything they needed to do. One was asked to go download some missing doc from the net and come back another day. The next five people were similarly rejected. Another didn't have the exact cash for the processing fees, and had to go down to a nearby shopping centre to get it. Yet another was failed because of a minute detail that was conveniently unstated in the embassy website. Just one unreasonable little condition that ended up dragging the entire visa process by a month. Sadly, that last case was me.

But you can imagine. All these poor, needy souls submitting their applications anxiously, only to be rejected for the same issues over and over again, which could have been so easily solved with a little help, even something like a clearer instruction set on the website. Don't they even care?

These horror stories that recur every so often, that you wouldn't think possible in this day and age, especially not for an organization representing one of the most efficient of nations, Germany. It will shame Daimler, Volkswagen, Siemens to hear that their embassy still, for example, uses big thick books for some of their records. Or that it's downright impossible for them to pick up your phonecall queries. To illustrate it clearer: A long-term visa takes 1-3 months for Germany. It takes 4 days for a China one.

We get the idea. You just don't want any riffraffs in your country eh. That's a fantastic image of your country to portray, strong enough to override the beautiful impression i've had of Germany. All it takes is one bad apple to spoil the entire barrel.

Yea i'm pissed. All my weeks of planning... the short perfect holiday in Toronto with Wudao, the couchsurfing with strangers around the Bay Area... all gone in a flash.

As Archimedes once said,

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall bloody smack your ass."