I See You

#shortstories is an ongoing series of articles recounting some of our interesting real life experiences.

As with many things, spotting her was a pure coincidence. Or luck, depending on what you believe in. I lay back against my chair, partially relieved from completing a long, tedious chemistry worksheet. Massaging my neck a little, I leaned slightly to my right, momentarily enjoying the sweet joy of completion.

I saw her.

Healing

What is it that makes relationships so important to us?

Even forgetting the romance movies, the chick flicks, the chick lit (getting a bit sexist here, I know), love and attraction is just... I don't know, such a big deal. Not to everyone, perhaps - some people couldn't care less - but I think I can safely say it's a big majority. Myself not excluded.

Note to Readers #6

Hi internet, it's your favourite online editor back again with a short update.

You may or may not have noticed a slight decline in Suburban KID posting activity lately. Regional readers will know that nearly our entire team is caught up in various national exams, also known as Very Serious Matters, a natural consequence of being in the final grade and all. Hence the decline in posting frequency.

That line sounded way too much like Physics-cum-Social Studies for my liking. Anyway.

We have yet to emerge from the dark pits of big equations and even bigger textbooks, but I personally am in a more, 'available', state than before. So while we won't be fully operational just yet, I can at least start warming those engines in preparation.

In preparation for S.K.'s fourth anniversary, that is.

Chalking up another year is always a huge excitement for us, and naturally we try to inject some life in commemoration of the event. As you might have seen last year, our third anniversary also saw the launch of v3.0 of the site, which was a complete revamp and relaunch, and the Calling Home series of articles. This year won't see such huge changes - contrary to many rumours, the SK team does sleep - but we will officially usher in v4.0. Actually, that's not quite accurate; v4.0 has actually resembled something of a 'rolling release', and we've been pushing out small updates and bug fixes over the past couple of months, which will accumulate to make version 4 (an example was the site optimisation we announced, which has managed to lower load times by up to 60%).

There are also be some special articles in the pipeline, including a new series that will be launched soon: #shortstories, a series of short (duh) articles of little experiences we have had that were interesting, funny or entertaining in some way to us.

All in all, there is quite a bit of stuff coming up, though we can't announce much yet - need some suspense in life, no? - that we hope you, the reader, will enjoy and love as much as we enjoy and love creating them. Watch this space.

Oh, before I forget: to our readers who celebrate it, happy premature Halloween!

Jetball

The following is a fictional story based in the video game 'Firefall' by Red 5 Studios. All portrayed stunts are conducted by gamers professionals; do not attempt them at home.

It was indeed a proud moment for me as I was hailed as the top scorer for my team. All the time spent training has finally paid off as I scored the winning goal, securing a spot for my team in the finals. It was my first amateur tournament, and getting so far was not a walk in the park.

The year is 2233. It marked the advent of personal flight propulsion systems, more commonly known as jump jets. Also a time when teleportation was at its infancy. It was developed to replace jump jets by instantly transporting one’s physical body from one place to another in an instant. However, the process isn’t exactly appealing nor comfortable, so it didn’t garner the attention of the general public. Instead, it found a home in competitive sports, namely Jetball, my personal favourite. My grandfather calls it a blend of basketball and rugby with a sprinkle of jump jets and guns on top. Well, non-lethal guns of course.

Excuse Me: The Curious Case of Singaporean Apathy

Next to kiasu-ness, one of the most well-known and self-admitted faults of the Singaporean society is, supposedly, its apathetic, ungracious attitude. Specifically, the attitude that's being attributed to for little social issues such as not giving up seats, cutting queues, impoliteness... stuff along those lines.

Why, ever since that article claiming that Singapore was the "least emotional" society in the world, it's been excessively quoted in numerous thousands of student discursive essays nationwide - including my own, yes, but I insist that was done under duress. Regardless, I think that exhibits that the reasons behind this attitude, on a nationwide basis, have been more than sufficiently discussed. I, instead, want to draw attention to something that surprisingly few people have mentioned or observed: the gaping differences across age groups when examined for this phenomenon.

The Fine Line Between Being Indifferent, and Being an Asshole

Some time back, I was embroiled in a conflict that I personally considered extremely petty, and unraveled into something much larger than it really had any business being. In the best interest of all parties involved, myself included, I don't feel like discussing the issue itself anymore. It has, however, made me ponder a lot recently - how does one go about being as objective with oneself as possible, while not being too self-critical?

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.