Dating, by the book

September 1st, 2010
elsewhere
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This is an interesting idea: dating someone who has about the same reading list. I think it is interesting to meet someone who reads the same books to see what they love about the author but I don’t see how that would work for a woman, dating-wise. According to some stats folks, the optimal strategy is to reject the first 37% of all the candidates, and then select the first candidate who is better than any previous candidate.

In terms of reading habits,

1. Women read mainly fiction; men read mainly non fiction

2. There are more women readers than men readers.

So if the point is to match up based on reading tastes, this site doesn’t really let you implement that optimal strategy.

MBTI: INTP’s survival games

August 20th, 2010
elsewhere
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From here

In a nutshell, the worse thing you can do with ….
a Rational:

• challenge or question their competency;
• stifle their drive to achieve;
• dismiss their ingenuity

“How do the four temperaments react when
under extreme stress or feeling threatened?” They react by playing certain “survival games.” For example:

Rationals

Play the game of “Robot” when they fear a loss of their ability to
continue to be competent, achieving, and resolved. Variants of the
Robot game include:

That’s Illogical: keep others on defensive by asking lots of
questions, and once others try to defend or explain themselves, then accuse them of being Illogical.

Super-Intellectual: behave as very intellectual and devoid of
emotion. Appear cold, stiff, distant and impersonal to others. They intellectualize everything — even emotions.

Nitpick: they become preoccupied with minute details, completely disregarding the big picture. Rarely satisfied, perfectionistic. The book makes the example of the graduate student who never finishes her dissertation.

Superstition: go to extreme to avoid something — like germs. May also engage in repetitive rituals like cleaning, counting or chanting or hand-washing.

Blanking Out: experience moments when they can’t think of familiar words, names or numbers; most likely to happen when performing as in taking a test.

Haunted: cannot make unpleasant thoughts go away, such as a song playing in their head, or become obsessed about loved ones.

Shifts

August 16th, 2010
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“I can’t afford to go to Chestnuts. I’m on a very tight budget,” I said.
Roguestampede was very sympathetic.
“Come volunteer for Front of House,” said the marvelous girl. “You might get to watch.” The conversation turned to work discussion – their work was the theatre. I met R and her friends for lunch before watching December Rains (雨季). Listening to them talk about their work, I struck me that most folks in my line wouldn’t talk about work with interest much less excitement. Risk folks are a naggy bunch. The joke about changing lightbulbs? Put them together, the light bulb gives up and returns to life.

Lately I’ve been thinking about my priorities. Talking to people older than I am, I wonder if it is only natural to substitute some excitement for stability. Honestly, I can’t imagine being bored all day. But I might surprise myself.

J’s wedding

July 11th, 2010
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As J and the rest of us came down from the tenth floor of the hotel to go to the church – the groom was already there waiting – we saw another couple standing in front of the ballroom, waiting to enter. In the lift with us was friends of the couple, taking turns to yell into the phone about bottles of wine. In contast, we were calm, collected and on time. There was no shrieking, no panicking, or nervous crying. We had spent the friday working on small tasks in preparation of J’s wedding on saturday: hand bouquets, flowers for the button holes, ironing, time-checking, general tidying up. By 3.40pm, we were loaded and driving to the church.

J looked beautiful in her green and gold sari. It sounds like a terrible cliche but that she was happy and not wrecked with nerves made her beautiful. Even her white veil, which she sewed the night before, was perfect.
(That was what we didn’t do. Sewing is no one’s specially. I enjoyed spending time, working together with my friends. V, at the ironing board, me and Z at buttonholes, and later, taking turns to help each other put on our sarees. We have been friends from when we were young and snippy with each other. I prefer how we are now – calmer and more considerate with each other.

Faceless Corporations

July 5th, 2010
elsewhere
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From Interacting with Machines:

Instead, these interactive platforms are a rare opportunity to endow a brand with agency, to inject some emotion into an emotionless corporation.

I’m not sure how this can work. Even if they inject emotion I might still not believe it it comes from a corporation. I would still think it comes a human not the corporation.

Conversations

June 16th, 2010
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Seven thirty in the morning. C was lying in bed with pains in his joints.
C (musing):…unless my kidneys failing to process the acid. What if my my kidneys fail?
Me: You can have mine. I’ve got plenty!
We grinned at each other for a moment and I return to my making up.
Me: Anyway, you’re not jaundiced.
C: What?
Me: You’re not turning yellow-eyed. Your kidneys are not failing yet.
C: Oh, so the yellow eye demon actually has jaundice.

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields & Joshua Bell

June 14th, 2010
music, theatre
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I don’t know how to talk about a musical performance but this is the absolute most bestest of the top best performance I have ever attended. It was exciting! It was beautiful! It was damn hot! If it was a man, it would be Robert Downey Jr. First day was hotter than second day but still hot. It makes me want to misspell hot to emphasize how hot it is.

12th June
Beethoven Coriolan Overture, Op 62,
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op 64
Beethoven Symphony No 7 in A, Op 92.

13th June
The Marriage of Figaro (momentarily bored)
Beethoven Violin Concerto in D, Op 61
Beethoven Symphony No 4 in B flat, Op 60

Celeb sighting: gssqwho very kindly told me that there is very little difference between cheap and expensive because the acoustics for Esplanade is very good unless I am of the hardcore type.

11 and 12 / Emily of Emerald Hill

June 14th, 2010
theatre
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1. 11 and 12
There is something not theatre about this piece of theatre. It feels too preachy and I think the blah-di-blah-blah on religion/spirituality, peace, tolerance is not particularly insightful and is almost tipping to being annoying (but never actually goes that way). A show shouldn’t be tipping towards being annoying, shouldn’t feel preachy even though it has a message/moral. The pieces of rugs as cloths is good idea but that’s unimportant to me as an audience. I want a story.

What didn’t work for me was perhaps the way the play is structured. Right at the start, we were told how by a gentle narrator that the source of the conflict is due to a change in rituals. Then, we see this conflict escalate, we see drama, fighting and killing, but we don’t see the discussion, the argument, the rationalisation to revert to 11 (times they repeat a prayer), which to me, is important to understand the conflict and to resolve it with the audience. Telling us the answer right at the start creates emotional distance and trivialises the arguement which I think made it difficult for me to appreciate the show. The narrator is a problem too. If the writer has to address the audience, I would prefer him to stick to the start and the end, leaving the characters to do all the work of story-telling because that’s theatre. A film can have a narrator, a book, a radio program because for films, books, radio shows, it can be first person and I can enter the mind of another person. For theatre, I am watching the goings-on onstage so I would prefer that the audience be addressed as little as possible.

2. Emily of Emerald Hill
I was curious about the show: I have never seen a one woman show and I didn’t know how it would work. Emily is a simple story of a strong, astute woman who knows what she wants and gets it – with some sacrifices in the way. I was surprised to find out Casey Lim did the multimedia for the show and I am very glad they pared down the multimedia (that’s what they said in the post-show dialogue) because he can really go nuts with the stuff and distract it from the performance. The script was well paced, well-structured and easy to follow. Margaret Chan had a powerful presence and she really commanded the whole performance effortlessly. Not any one moment did the stage feel empty. I told a friend after that it reminds me how much I miss good local theatre, even if all they talk about is HDB flats and coffins. I love seeing acting done well. It captures you and transports you to another place while you are in your seat.

Tomfoolery

June 13th, 2010
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Half past eleven at my grandmother’s with my cousins C and N.

C, on a chair: I am the greatest and tallest of them all!
Me: Oh, Greatest and Tallest! I want to go home, please!
C [giggling]: I grant you a spaceship! You can take spaceship number 1!
Me: Where is this spaceship?
C: You have to look for it.
Me, checked her ears, under her shirt for said spaceship. We were laughing so hard, she came down from the chair and was squirming on the sofa.
N now takes over to stand on the chair: I am now the greatest and tallest of them all!
Me: You! The last one said she will give me a spaceship to go home! I want to see a spaceship before I believe you.
N: There!
Me: Where?
N: At your foot.
Me, lifts foot, stares at floor: Uh-oh…
By this time, all of us were rolling about laughing.

Conversations

May 29th, 2010
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Aunt: “Whenever we talk about you, it always ends with ‘Jie Jie is very weird’.”
Me: “So do my friends.”
My cousins cackle in laughter.