Transcendence, Part 3

Photography by Nguyen Thao Ngan

Here we are at last. The end of this little Transcendence trilogy, and therefore, in a way, an end of this self-defining, four-year journey of mine.

Dear readers, thank you for coming all this way. It sounds cheesy and overused as hell, but it really does mean more than me than any of you may realise. Some of you have been here since the very beginning (my first post was a cringe-worthy commentary on the movie New Moon), and I’m honestly stunned by your constancy in a world of variables, to quote a dear friend of mine. Some of you picked up along the way, several maybe only starting to read recently. That’s fine too; you don’t mean any bit less to me. I’ve been doing this for six years now, and there’s no greater joy than to discover that someone is reading and commenting on your latest post; that they can relate or, even better, that it helped them in some way. I’m humbled to have been able to write for you, and entertain/amuse/shock you for a brief part of your day.

I may sound extraordinarily reflective today, and it’s no coincidence: this is my last major contribution to Suburban KID, and quite possibly the last feature post from Suburban KID, ever. There will possibly be a lot of questions arising from that statement, and I promise to answer some of them both in this article, and in a follow-up post after this.

Before that, I’m going to start with a lesson on — stay with me here — economics.

Transcendence, Part 2

Photography by Nguyen Thao Ngan

In part 1, I celebrated the personal resurgence I was blessed to have in Junior College. I recalled how attitude can be the ultimate factor in determining your happiness; in other words, one has the final power to put on a smiling face in the face of difficulty (pun mostly unintended). What this means is that, theoretically speaking, you can always be happy; it gets harder the more difficult your life is, but it is still always possible.

However, I think that most of us understand that we aren’t always strong enough exert that sort of control over our feelings. Sometimes life throws more than what most of us mortals can handle, and we lose it. After all, always possible hardly means always (or even largely) achievable.

The following are stories of some of those times. These are times that are not easy to look back and reflect upon, much less write about. Therefore, I hope that revealing these low points of my life will provide some good to you, dear reader; may they not sadden you, but instead help you see hope where there seems to be none.

Transcendence, Part 1

From the very start, this was a daunting post to write. How exactly do you sum up four years worth of memories, feelings, hardships, trials, reflections and discoveries? Would it really be possible for me to do justice to this one period of time and this one fascinating - and occassionally rather strange - place that has altered my life so drastically?

Some say that Singapore is one of the most mundane places in the world. And you’ll find that I won’t entirely disagree with that; it’s not exactly a very exciting city most of the time. However, I suppose that makes it even stranger that this supposedly boring country has had such a profound impact on not just my life, but (I believe) also the lives of many others.

I don’t know if this series of articles will do justice to the experiences that I’ve been blessed to have, and the people who have shared or created them with me. But I’m going to give it my very damned best. Transcendence is my attempt to catalogue the most important experiences and lessons of the past four years with a focus on the latter two, since Gliding Over All already covered the first half.

And, as with many good reads, this one starts with a story.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Interstellar Review

At 9:30pm, I stumbled out of the cinema, having concluded a 3-hour journey in Interstellar's universe. I felt dazed, awestruck, and quite stunned. This is quite normal for me if the movie was good, or at least sufficiently thought-provoking.

It was when I was sitting quietly at a bench at 11:30pm, still dazed, still awestruck, still stunned, and with the movie's soul-tingling soundtrack still ringing in my head, did I fully accept that I had witnessed something quite spectacular.

Why Inception Is The Best Movie of All Time

"You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure."

Looking back, I don't even remember what made me decide to watch Inception. Perhaps it was an online review, perhaps it was a friend's recommendation. What I do remember is finally having some time for myself one boring afternoon and the movie on my laptop (I never caught it while it was still in cinemas - one of my lifetime regrets). So I sat down and took a proverbial train ride, not knowing where it would take me.

That ride ended 2.5 hours later, and with it, my life had changed.

[SPOILERS AHEAD] [IT'S BEEN 4 FREAKING YEARS]

What's Better Than One Bullseye?

February 26th, 2014. I woke up rather groggy that morning. It might be because everyone else was already awake. Normally, I would be the first one to rise, and any attempt to wake my dorm mates up would be in vain. Why, of all the 72 days being stuck in this hell-hole, did they choose this particular day to be so eager to wake up? Simple - on this glorious day, we get to fire a Colt M16A1 rifle.

The Sun Sets: How Jit Sin's Book Throwing Marks the End of an Era

Not too many hours ago, a hot topic began circulating on social media regarding a disciplinary case of a top-ranked school in Malaysia. Apparently, the school authorities had decided to take action against students that left their books in desks after the end of class due to the heavy timetable, which was against school regulations. This in itself came as no surprise; what was far more shocking was the way they decided to go about it - the books were collected and thrown into a heap in front of the school. Students were given an ultimatum: collect the books and receive 6 demerit points (nearly one-third required for expulsion) or not collect them and risk getting caught through the names on the books, which would then result in double the demerit points. To make the situation even more humiliating for the students, the teachers reportedly took the opportunity to take photos of the students while verbally insulting them.

The school in question is Jit Sin High School (JSHS), Bukit Mertajam, also known as SKK Jit Sin. My alma mater. In fact, the alma mater of the entire Suburban KID team. As such, though this post is written in my own personal capacity, it's needless to say that we're all concerned about it. While our school has shown itself to be capable of making bone-headed decisions at times, never did we think that such a proud and prestigious institution would resort to such barbaric methods of 'educating' students, methods which I suspect are more effective in sending the wrong message more than any sort of discipline.

However, this is but one new milestone in the long decline in JSHS, and the vernacular Chinese education system in Malaysia as a whole. Despite its long history, it now suffers the threat of becoming one of the most outdated educational systems in the region, and maybe even the world. This opinion piece is intended to show, through my own eyes as a student that has gone through the grinder, why this is the case.

I See the Future: The Rise of Virtual Reality

Words by Gregory Goh and Matthew Chiam

Additional writing by Terence Wang

We've heard of it before, the staple in so many sci-fi movies, books, comics, games. It simulates one's physical presence in virtual worlds; worlds that mirror our own, worlds of fantasy, anything you can dream of. The reality of virtual reality (VR) today is that, well, it's no longer virtual. I won’t deny that VR has been around for awhile, way back in time, even before I was born. Projecting a virtual world right in front of your eyes definitely sounds exciting, but having to put on a bulky, cumbersome helmet that threatened to snap your neck was not. That’s why VR remained as a dream, floating in man’s imagination. Virtual. 

Until now.

Gliding Over All: Singapore, A Two Year Journey

Words by Terence Wang
Picture editing by Lh Isurgranddad

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; 
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; 
It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; 
It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; 
It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

On 21 November, 2013, I departed Singapore for home, closing the first half of the four-year-long chapter that began from the moment I received the fateful email informing me of my successful entry into the ASEAN scholarship. That journey has been fruitful, surprising, heartbreaking, mind-blowing, and life-changing.

This article is a final summary chronicling this two-year journey, and the people that have been part of it.

Remembering Nokia, and How It Changed Our Lives

In all industries, companies rise and fall. Some, sadly, fall quicker than others, and this is perhaps no more true than in the dog-eat-dog tech industry.

Within this decade alone, we've seen Apple rise to become a giant, watched as Google spread its wings to become much more than a search company, held our breath as HP suffered the equivalent of a near-death heart attack as it announced its pullout from the PC business (only to schizophrenically do an about-turn soon after), and mourned the slow crumbling of RIM Blackberry. Even so, arguably the greatest shock arrived a mere five days ago when Microsoft announced to the world that they had purchased the entirety of Nokia's phone manufacturing business, and licensed their "Lumia" and "Asha" brand names. Nokia, as a phone company and brand, was no more.

You've probably read the news, witnessed the collective shock expressed by the many tech blogs out there. But we believe that, more than anywhere else in the world, those of us living in Asia will be the loudest mourners at Nokia's funeral - over the last few decades, Nokia has gradually built a fortress here, with an overwhelming majority of phone owners having purchased a Nokia at some point of our lives. Not seeing the familiar, two-arm logo grace another boot screen will surely be a huge mental shift for many of us.

All of us on the Suburban KID team have owned Nokias. Through this article, we'd like to offer a tribute to our "Connecting People" devices that have changed our lives, in ways both big and small.

Missing Pieces

Words by Siangling Tan
Additional writing by Terence Wang


Inspiration comes at the most unconventional and unexpected of times. Sometimes the search for it takes weeks, months, and sometimes every ounce of effort is for naught. And sometimes, it is painfully obvious, unexpected, and comes in the most unguarded moments.

Every single person who has tried creating anything - be it a piece of writing, like this very article, or a music composition, a painting, any piece of art, a dance - will undoubtedly agree.

For example, today, I suddenly started singing Bohemian Rhapsody. A search on Youtube led to a compilation of Beatles Hits, which I started listening to and singing along to like a maniac. Seriously, though, you don't want to hear me sing. And suddenly, I was overwhelmed by an enormous tsunami of inspiration.

The Casual Hermit

Words by Gregory Goh

A hermit is someone who, by choice, lives a solitary life, withdrawing from any social activity whatsoever. Casual means informal, lacking serious interest or devotion. As such, a casual hermit would be someone who prefers to be alone, but occasionally enjoys company. This is my modus operandi whenever I play online multiplayer games, especially MMOs (short for Massively-Multiplayer Online Games).

Nexus 7: Six Months Later

Words by Matthew Chiam

                    

As some of my close friends may know, I have owned a Asus/Google Nexus 7. I got it as a Christmas present last December. Immediately after getting it, I went straight to reviewing it, which was kinda stupid, given the fact that the time I held the device only added up to a mere 5 minutes. Now, 6 months have passed and I think I have more experience with it so I decided to do a revisited post on the Nexus 7.

May 6: Aftermath

I admit, initially I was disappointed too.

I was disappointed that we didn't manage to make that leap of faith, into the unknown and a probably drastically different future. It was such a chance to change things for the better.

Now, the People's Alliance/Pakatan Rakyat not only failed to take government, they lost a state too, and did not manage to retake Perak which they did win last election (although complicated matters followed...). A bad, bad day for the opposition and its supporters, then?

No. Not really.

May 5: Approaching the Crossroads of a Nation

My name is Terence Wang, a 17 year old Malaysian.

Usually, I refuse to write political posts on this site, primarily because I wanted to avoid being affiliated with any organisation or ideology. However, recent trends mean that, for once, I must break my own rules.

Tomorrow, 13.3 million voters will set out to decide the outcome on what is arguably the most contested general election Malaysia has ever had. For the first time ever, polls and surveys conducted by various institutions have decided that the race is "too close to call". In other words, these voters will be ultimately deciding the fate of what Malaysia is to become in the near and distant future.

As the heat rises by the hour, I'm taking a look back at my own journey these past few years, growing up alongside the great journey that the nation has walked over the decade, leading up to where we are today.

Guerre Sainte: An Article About Religion

Whether you believe or God or otherwise: I would like you to, just for a moment or two, imagine hell.

That is, hell in its most literal form. Full of burning flames, crumbling rock, screaming souls, what have you. Now imagine there’s a cliff that hangs precariously over this madness, just low enough so you can see and imagine what can happen to you if you’re so unlucky to trip and fall over.

Writing this article makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of that cliff.

Hyperbole aside, there are good reasons why people tend to shy away from talking, much less writing, about religion. Probably the most sensitive subject on the planet, one slight misstep in this article will offend somebody out there.

So I beseech you, dear reader, to read the following with an open mind like never before, and hopefully this article will do something for you.

This point forward, I will criticizing many. And I’m going to split my criticism for two groups: fellow theists, and atheists, starting with the former (but I hope atheists will read it too, and vice versa).

Why Malaysia Should Stop Trying To Be A High-Income Nation

Just recently, at the Barisan National Open House in Penang, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak reiterated his government's stand to make Malaysia a high-income nation by 2020.

By this, I assume the government means that it intends either to push up our income levels to "rich" levels, or create a much larger class of wealthy people compared to what we have today

While it is certainly comforting to dream about our future lives of fat pockets, fast cars and large bank accounts, this mindset is, to put plainly, foolish.

Emotions, Online

“@terencewang101 hey, long time no see bro... How’s life?”


On 11:44 a.m., 19 September 1982, Scott Fahlman became the first person in the world to use an emoticon.

Posted to the Carnegie Mellon University computer science general board, he was proposing characters for people to express themselves online better. In particular, their emotions. In an early digital world that communicated purely in text, Fahlman knew it would be important to have a means to replace one of the most significant parts of human interaction. And so he decided on three characters - a colon to represent the eyes, a dash for the nose, and a curved bracket for the (what else?) mouth.

I suspect, however, he never imagined the crude, yet ingenious smiley would live on to become an irreplaceable staple of the online world.

"I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
:-)
Read it sideways.  Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends.  For this, use
:-( "

Calling Home, Part 6: In Between

Calling Home is a series of articles dedicated to cherishing the memories made when away from home, and the people who make them. In Part 6/6, Terence Wang wonders about roads taken, and ones that lie ahead.

A slight scowl of annoyance must have crossed over my face as the ear-piercing screech emitted from my bicycle’s front disc brake, which cut my (admittedly dangerously high) acceleration enough to avoid the creaky red truck (which had no business being in this neighbourhood anyway) passing a few inches too close for comfort on my right. Damn that truck. Damn my brakes too.

But to be fair, I’d abandoned my bike so long, it was probably getting rusty anyway. Not coincidentally, so was I.

Wiping the little layer of sand sprayed across my face (I’m looking at you, you stupid truck), I straightened my bike, put a firm foot on the left pedal and continued forward. Down the wide road with the park on my right and semi-detached houses on the left, deeper into the scattered, and arguably more interesting, lanes of the continuously expanding housing estate that was Taman Impian. My home territory.

Except that, in a way, it wasn't. Not anymore.

Calling Home, Part 5: Fifteen Thousand

Calling Home is a series of articles dedicated to cherishing the memories made when away from home, and the people who make them. In Part 5/6, Siangling Tan takes a step back to reflect on tough choices.

15,000 km is one-point-five Trans-Siberian railways.

I like looking out of the bus window on my way home, as clichéd as it may sound. The autumn leaves of every shade of red and yellow litter the ground and form a breathtaking collage. Kids wave at us as the bus drives by, the setting sun illuminating their chubby cheeks, their blue eyes sparkling with joy and childhood innocence, their blond hair tousled by the wind. The calm and serenity provides a stark contrast to all that I have known for the former 14 years of my existence, and as much as I like the view, it is a constant reminder of everything I gave up and abandoned for this chance for a better future.

The bus rides home are often monotonous but they bestow upon me the quiet and peace to let my thoughts roam free. Often, I think about my big plans for my future, or plan out the coming days in my head, but lately, I have been reflecting a lot, thinking about the implications of all my actions, and the consequences that they bring.