I was having dinner with Lone a couple of days ago, and this hypothetical question just popped into my head. I wondered what Lone's take on it was, so I asked him,
"If a genie appeared right now, and said you'd have to choose either one of these two choices, which would you pick? One, you'd be filthy rich and gorgeous but stupid, and you'd drop dead in ten years. Two, you'd live to be a hundred years old, healthy and knowledgable, but you'd be poor and ugly."
Hypothetically speaking, if you picked the first choice, you would never have to worry about working or losing weight or being healthy or anything, you'd just be naturally rich and gorgeous, and you'll never suffer a sick day until the day, ten years later, you drop dead. But you'd also be stupid til the day you die, no matter how many books you try to read and no matter what you try to learn.
If you picked the second choice, you'd never have a sick day too, you'll have a long healthy life, and you'd be the wisest, most knowledgable person, but you'll never be able to make yourself rich, despite all your knowledge. You'd be poor and humble, and really ugly, but you don't have to worry about food or shelter because you will always have the bare necessities.
So what would your choice be?
I asked Lone.
He took a very very long time to think... but finally he answered, "I'll take the second choice."
"Why?" I asked.
Well, he said, I don't mind being ugly, and as long as all my bare necessities are provided, I don't mind being poor. I'm just thinking about what I would be able to do with each choice, and I feel that I'd be able to do more with the second choice, because I'd be wise and knowledgable. I would be able to help people.
Aww...what a swell guy. He wants to help people and make the world a better place. =)
Then he asked me which would I choose.
Initially, when I asked him the question, I didn't know what my answer would be too. But while he was taking such a long time to think, I thought about what my choice would be.
And I told him,
At first, I thought of taking the first choice, because I couldn't stand being hideous, and I don't mind dropping dead in ten years as long as I didn't suffer. It's not about how long you live, after all, it's about the quality of your life. And then I realized, no way... if I took the first choice, I'd be stupid no matter how I try. What kind of quality would my life have then?
So I decided, I'd rather have knowledge than beauty and wealth.
For purely selfish reasons.
I wasn't thinking like Lone, about how he could help others if he was wise and knowledgable.
I simply value the pursuit of knowledge above all else. It's of secondary importance to me whether my knowledge help others or not, or even if I did anything with it. What I wanted, was just to learn as much as I could absorb.
So...
What would your choice be?
Music by SpaceBlaze and YZZY
I love Blake Lewis!! =D
Just wanted to say that.
He is so talented!! I love his creativity, his musical sense, his moves, his style...
I think I'm in love.... *dreamy sigh*
Seriously... what an awesomely talented musician...
If anyone knows his number, please let me know k. I'll make sure you get invited to our Christmas dinners after we're married. ;)
................
On a serious note though, I think Melinda is the best singer of them all, and she deserves to win. She's got the best control, which I really respect. A powerful voice, which is definitely good in AI. She really makes you *feel* the song, she's never given a single boring performance, and you're constantly amazed at what she can do with her voice.
Yeah sure, she's a little challenged on the looks department, but this isn't a beauty contest after all. And when it comes to singing, she is the best out of everyone that has ever been in AI in the last six seasons.
She probably won't sell the most records, I think Blake will sell a lot more than her, but giving credit where credit is due... Melinda is *the* best.
My other favourites are Jordin Sparks and Chris Sligh. I think Jordin has huge potential, I love her voice. And Chris is a musical performer and just really likable.
Most of the others are boring... and I think it's time for Sanjaya to go home.
It's a year for marriages.
I've got four couples I know getting married, and who knows? I'll probably hear about more as the year goes by.
Signs that we're growing up.
I'm already an aunt (from cousins, not my brother), I'm looking forward to more nieces and nephews.
I'm a quarter of a century old.
Eventually it'll be my turn to get married, and then I'll have kids of my own.
Eventually my kids will have kids of their own, and I'll be a grandmother.
Enjoy your youth. Live your life to the fullest. Don't waste a single wonderful moment.
Time doesn't wait for you to be ready to live. Soon time will have passed you by if you're not careful. And once you have lost time, you can never get it back.
Enjoy this moment while it last. Enjoy every moment that will eventually come.
Life is meant to be enjoyed. Enjoy it.
I've been reading a lot about the SPM results in the newspaper the last couple of days, ever since the results came out.
So we have students taking 17, 18, 19 subjects and getting all A's, or getting mostly A's, or getting really great results out of the many subjects they signed up for. Good for them!
My first question, out of annoyance at what a big deal they're making out of this, is, who the hell cares?!
My second question, out of concern of how this would affect our future children, is, what kind of message are we sending out to our future generations?
Ok, so it's good to celebrate the 'intelligence' of all these over-achievers, but if it was me, I'd only feature it in a small article, like a by-the-way kind of thing, as in, 'By the way, so-and-so got a hundred A's for their SPM. Wow! Let's applaud them for an achievement of a 'life-time'.'
Oops, sorry. Was my sarcasm a little too thick for you to wade through?
Seriously, what are their reasons for taking up so many subjects in the first place? Do they need to do it? Will it really help them in their future? Other than the fact that they prove themselves to be show-offs and over-achievers for taking a lot of unnecessary subjects(keyword here being 'unnecessary'), what else do they prove?
Will they get better jobs in the future? Maybe, but not necessarily. If I was an employer hiring them, it would tell me that they were good at taking orders and could juggle many tasks at a time, but it wouldn't prove that they would be good leaders, or creative and resourceful when it came to solving a problem. And in fact, seeing all the unnecessary subjects they've taken, I would think, is this the kind of person that will take the long way around to achieve something, when they could've achieved the same thing with less effort and manpower, and in less time? In other words, efficiency.
Good results at school can only take you so far, but it won't take you the rest of the way. And we know all too well, there is so much further for you to go after you've finished studying.
The amount of publicity given to this SPM results thing is ridiculous. Getting great results for SPM is *not* an achievement of a lifetime, it is *nothing* in the whole scheme of things. It might get you a good job, and that's it. Nothing you studied for at school will apply to living in the real world. And no one will even care that you were top student in the whole of Malaysia in a couple of years when you come out into the working world. Do you think your employer will actually introduce you to everyone he knows proudly as the person who got the most A's in 20**? He doesn't care! He only cares if you do your job well.
Look, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do well in school. As someone who enjoys learning, I could never put education down. So it's definitely not a bad thing to do well in school, but it's not a life-and-death thing either. And my problem is that, this is the message we're sending out.
Get a 17-19 A's in school, and everyone will coo and praise you. Get 10-17 A's, and you get a pat on your back. Get 5A's, and you'll get 'oh, well'. Get less than 5 A's, you get sympathetic noises. What is that?!
Do you know the amount of pressure this kind of publicity causes the rest of the world who don't do as well? Doesn't anyone remember a couple of years ago when a student *committed suicide* because she didn't get all A's?! Fuck it! She got better results than me and she committed suicide! And I was perfectly happy with my results. In fact, I was indifferent about it because to me, numbers on a paper doesn't define who I am, or my intelligence and ability.
It's stupid!
That girl was a perfectly intelligent and capable person, who could've had a bright future in front of her. She committed suicide because of all the pressure put on her to get meaningless A's on an exam that wouldn't have mattered nuts when she's in the working world.
Imagine the pressure within a family, when the parents expect a younger child to do as well as an older child did. Imagine how a child would feel when he couldn't achieve what his sibling did. Imagine the insecurity, the low self-confidence and self-worth he feels because 'my parents love (sibling) more because he's smarter than me', or because 'I'm stupid, I'm not smart enough, I couldn't get enough A's', or 'my parents will be so disappointed in me'. Imagine what kind of person he's going to grow up to be because in his mind, he wasn't good enough.
I've had it with all this hype about the SPM over-achievers. We need to start focusing more on the emotional intelligence of our children rather than just their education.
Phantom of the Opera,have u watch this movie?
how about, if u watch in LIVE? at Singapore-Esplanade Theater?
you can see from these pics, is really cool place..can u imagine u sitting in this theater?
i am planing to go with my dear..hmmm cant wait huh?
is lovely movie, few songs in this movie touch me~ till i am too hyper cant wait to go .. somewhere April or May..i am still thinking..when...:)
who want to join me?>>> anyone?
check out this web site:
http://www.sistic.com.sg/cms/events/index.html?content=525
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