Atonement isn't about atoning at all

I was fortunate today: a friend of mine (who works not far from where I work) had a couple of tickets to Atonement last night. She wasn't able to make it: her boyfriend had free tickets to something with Hossan Leong in it and both mutually forgot to inform the other. She decided to give up Atonement for Hossan Leong, and I got myself 2 free tickets to an Oscar-winner-to-be.

My own date's version of events is that the Hossan Leong show costed more, and therefore, in pure economic terms, giving up Atonement was a far better deal. Upon learning about Hossan Leong though, I told my friend that it was far more prudent to give up Hossan Leong instead.

Like she would. :)

And anyhow, I think I would have enjoyed Atonement alot more - why would I blog about it, no less?



Ed note: before proceeding further, there're going to be a whole lot of spoilers (from my POV at least), so read on only after you've either read the book, or seen the movie.



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When I read Atonement a few years back, it struck me that I had probably just read the best book of my life (I think I've scaled higher peaks in literature since then, but alas, I've recently regressed a far lot further since). Atonement was, for me, a writer's novel. It takes someone who's read well and read a lot to empathise with the protagonist, and, by extension, with the author himself.

The movie as I saw it yesterday night (this being only a few hours ago) was faithful to the novel - this must be because Ian McEwan himself was a producer on the movie. The movie neatly segments into four parts, just as in the novel itself:

- there was the story of that one fateful day where Briony saw her sister jump into the fountain before the manservant Robbie, and the tragic misunderstanding borne of an overactive imagination;

- there was the horror of war and what it wrought on the young men of a generation, the story of Robbie and his promise, the promise to return to the woman he loves;

- there was the story of Briony and her atonement, and how she slowly understood what she had wrought. There was her experience as a wartime nurse and her wanting to tell the story that is consuming her;

- there was the story of the aged writer, Briony finally realizing the story, her last, and what it meant to tell a story itself.

Ultimately, the story that is told in Atonement is not about Robbie and Cecilia, though one will think it is, given that they get all the coverage. The story is also not about Briony: it is, cleverly hidden from the reader / viewer who the person pulling the strings was, and the smart reader / viewer will have already discerned, early on, that the writer was telling the tale, and the writer is Briony.

But... be a little patient, and listen carefully when Briony makes her soliloquy (in the novel, this was all in Briony's head; in the movie, it came out cleverly as an interview). What Briony was essentially talking about was about storytelling, and there were a few themes in there which made the book more than just another frame story (a mise en abyme), and which made this the Booker prize winner. The truth of the matter is this: I believe Briony, in this last part of the story, is actually Ian McEwan talking about himself; and particularly, himself as a storyteller and what it meant.

I remember reading the story so many years ago, and it still struck me how, in this last part of the book, everything that was fabricated earlier was an exposition in the struggles of a storyteller: telling it as it was (fact) or telling it for what it is meant to be (fiction); imagination and the dangerous course it sometimes runs; one's experiences in life, and how they come to be important in shaping the story; and what it means to set things right, even if they were never to be achieved in reality.

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I felt for the characters: I truly did. It hurt to be wronged, disgraced and shamed; and set in an English class struggle it is all the more tragic what Robbie himself went through. It hurt to be separated from your love, and the pain of separation which drove Cecilia to part from her family, distraught and angry with your kin, is one that is beyond bearing. It must have been distressing to be Briony, to realise that you have wronged someone, and was ultimately the cause for the suffering and hurt to, not just our two protagonists, but, to a whole family as well. Briony realised that her actions of that evening was the cause of it all (like the first domino in a long chain of tragic events).

I felt it must have been carthatic to write about it all, and seek release - and I smiled when she talked about the happy ending that she wrote. An irony at the end: the truth is tragic, and the novel would have had closure the way it was without the fourth and final part of it. But that was Briony's closure, not ours, and Ian McEwan recognised that the novel wasn't great until he tore away the veneer of falsehood over it and pulled away the wool that covered our eyes all along.

That made the novel a masterpiece - and I can think of no better compliment than that for a writer.

Instead, Instead, Instead

I'm appalled at the state of English spelling on the Internet. Kids out there seem to have brought their IRC-speak into SMS-speak and eventually allowed all of that unintelligible nonsense become some form of netspeak.

I'm not complaining though: I'm guilty of using my own abbreviations and shortened words as well, but a google search I did a long time ago (back when I was thinking about applying to B-school) showed me something interesting about misspelling words. I googled "INSEAD" and when analysing the search results, I saw links to: INSEAD's various websites; newspaper articles referring to the school; the odd gushy blog post from alumni, participants or newbie; and a whole ton of unrelated pages trawled out by the fantastic search engine.

The unrelated pages all had ONE trait: on each and every one of them, the author of that page had mis-spelt the word "instead". Instead of typing "instead", their quick fingers missed the 'T'. It's probably one of those mistakes which are rather easy to miss when scanning for typos. When Google bolds each and everyone of those mistakes though, it can end up somewhat embarrassing to look at.

Fast forward to present day: I ran the search again in Google today and it turns out that the search engine's code has been updated - it looks for INSEAD in keywords, titles, and in articles where words such as 'B-school' and 'MBA' appear. Sure took them long enough to fix it - probably attributable to the recent spike in Google hirings at INSEAD.

For the heck of it, I also ran the same search through Technorati and Google's Blog Search. Technorati's 5th ranked search result was a typo (top 4 were INSEAD related). Blog Search did better: result #75 was its first typo related retrieval.

Moral of the story? Having a name that is one letter shy of an easily misspelt and often used word is probably not a good idea.

PS: Some folks here have made a business out of helping folks out there with misspelt translations. Interesting stuff, but INSEAD is unfortunately not a misspelling for 'instead'... it is a real-life B-school alas.

PSS: Some folks mentioned in this article cashes in on the spelling misfortunes of others to make that quick buck on eBay. Damn... I should have thought of that. Sure beats some of the stupid business ideas I've heard in B-school.

PSSS: I'm putting a lot more hyperlinks in my blog these days - it makes the Snap Preview so much cooler (I do have a nagging feeling though that some folks out there dislike having hyperlinks blow up like word bubbles in a comic book)

A Man Goes on a Journey - Through His Cluttered Mind

This is strange: I'm supposed to be really busy this period, but I've actually found time to blog more.

Earlier this year, it felt like a good week when I managed to write something, anything, at all. Then when it took two weeks, I didn't feel bad either, because I was genuinely tied up and I actually gave more thought to what I wrote.

This time around though, I'm not thinking that much anymore: I just wrote what I felt and whenever I felt like it. Reading some of that output though hasn't been satisfying: I think I thought I have been thinking less. In fact, I think I've been plagiarising a whole lot more.

And that's what I think I want to talk about: My Plagiarism.

Most written work are derivative in nature: they originated out of one source or another. For example, you will find that most themes have their roots in the Bible, whether intentional or not. Brother kills brother? Read Genesis for the story of Caine and Abel. Small guy beats the odds and thrashes big guy? David and Goliath. There is little in terms of thematic structure or plot that hasn't been written about before.

As an aside, I once wrote sometime back about how it was viewed that all stories take one of two forms. To reiterate, the two forms are: "A man goes on a journey" and "A stranger rides into town". It is too much of a stretch of generalisation to apply such a cookie cutter approach to stories. Using the idea of themes instead of plotlines (which is what man-journey and stranger-town fall into) should be the better way to go.

So why am I coming to this topic then? See, I'm beginning to see that this blog lacks a solid thematic structure: it is trying to be everything and nothing at the same time. I thought giving it the name of greyscalefuzz (used to use that nick in IRC chats I think) was appropriate: generally, it was kind of grey and fuzzy what I thought I wanted to blog about.

The theme? To call it a log of my personal thoughts and happenings seem to fall short in describing it. It's not really about my personal thoughts: it is sometimes about the thoughts of others, and my interpretation of something else I've read or heard or seen. It's rarely my idea or my thought - hence the derivation-driven quality of it.

And it certainly doesn't record much of what's happening (though, of late, I seem to be dumping some of the frustration I've felt at school). I don't meticulously bore people or myself with what's happening in my life. If you really want to know, I woke up this morning, feeling hungover without having drunk anything, brushed my teeth, spent my morning with Ron walking through the flea market, etc etc. Oh yes, come to think of it, if I wrote about Ron's life though, it DEFINITELY will be an interesting blog, but alas, I can't live his life (as he so succintly reminds me everytime, I haven't quite sufficiently screwed myself up enough).

So... the theme again? How about calling it a photoblog? Somehow that doesn't work either. I don't take photos often enough. And I only really start snapping when I'm on little trips overseas, either by myself or with others, but I tended to be more prolific whenever I went on trips by myself. I like some of the photos I've taken, but silly Shutterstock kept rejecting my batch submissions. See, you have to send in 10 photos, and have at least 7 of acceptable quality. Everytime I submitted (twice), only 6 passed their selection criteria. There were even photos which passed through the first time, but not the second (and here I wonder why). So alas, my photos aren't quite stock-photo quality, and I can't call this a photoblog much (not enough photos, no camwhore here I'm afraid).

Food blog? Forget about it. I'm the last thing to being a foodie: I just eat what's on the table. There are four words in my food vocabulary and they are Sour, Sweet, Bitter and Spicy. For one thing, I think Ms X has given up on educating me about the intricacies of French food and the fine dining experience. Food in front of me, I eat. Only care that it is something I've eaten before and it doesn't smell too strongly of garlic. Menu in French? Ok, point here, give me that (of course it helps when I can recognise words like Oeuf, Pomme de Terre, Poisson etc). Oh, okay French-idiots, it's Egg, Potato and Fish respectively.

How about theming this a blog expounding on political ideals and ambitions? Denounce Lee Kwan Yew! Singapore's an autocratic country! Enlightened Despot! Benign Dictatorship! The PAP sucks and all that crap!

Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha.

I'm just not interested I suppose. I think its fine and all to discuss politics, especially in the arena of the blogging world, given the freedom of expression. But I sometimes don't really care: this little island will take its time to change, and no blogger or other person for that fact can complain enough, write childish Today articles enough, denounce the government from unheard-of American universities enough, hold ineffective demonstrations enough, and a whole lot of other enoughs to accelerate the pace of change in Singapore. It just takes time, and you can already see that it will get there. So patience: the course of politics is not for you or me to alter.

Ah, I digress again. Ok, let's call this the 'Ah, But I Digress...' blog. Shit, doesn't that make a cool name for a blog? Oh, and speaking of names, have I told you about how I came to call this blog 'Greyscalefuzz'? I've not? Must have been busy, and sure as hell, this week was really loaded: I had to send another ton of applications, sift through my dings, go to Markstrat classes...

Yup. I can definitely do that with my blog: Digress. But that's as good as saying that I cannot focus on this blog, and to no small extent, that is very true. I don't focus.

And I think that's why I have friends who read this: they find something they like somehow.

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Focus. I once dated someone who wrote a little poem to the Straits Times about concentrating and focusing. The thing is, we didn't go out for very long: in fact, it was more like 2-3 dates and then I never saw her again. Some things just didn't feel right about it, and I was distracted with things at my university at that time.

So it was with some surprise when I read the little poem in the Straits Times and I remembered her. I didn't try to get in touch, nor made any attempt to find out how to.

I think there are people in life that you just lose touch with, and when given the chance to, you don't quite bother to make the effort to catch up. For, after all, what can you say that is going to make any difference in what you did? (okay, so I didn't call, but here I am now!)

There were times when I passed an old NS friend or other on the street and the face became instantly recognisable. But I never did initiate any form of contact: I always recall the bad things about any relationship where I don't stay in touch, and my NS days weren't exactly the glorious fantasy that is Army Daze (for one thing, I was in the Navy).

So what of it? Lose touch forever? Rather that than an awkward smile and nervous laughter: I always laughed too loudly - it's very unlike myself.

Lose touch forever.

Stringing It All Together - Analogising it

If someone emailed you a notion of hers, and you find it thoughtful, maybe even somewhat meaningful. And after a moment (oh, perhaps something like a month later), you think that it might be something that you want to blog about. Maybe it is an idea, but you want to expand on it, give your own version of it. It's like, taking a song and remixing it - maybe call it the greyscalefuzz blogrot remix (except that it's with a piece of writing). It is essentially your own thing, but with a premise taken from someone else. You know, borrowing, re-doing it... perhaps even giving credit for where it came from.

So, if you did all that, does it count as plagiarism?

I don't know, but if this post gets taken offline for some reason, you know why.

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A friend told me in an email (not so long ago) that a relationship is like a piece of thread. When you embark on a new relationship, it is akin to cutting a length of the thread with a pair of scissors. As the relationship progresses along, through all its ups and downs, there might come a point where it breaks into two - perhaps it is an event that prompts a break up, or maybe something like an extended period of being apart. When a thread breaks, it is possible to mend it back together again - perhaps using glue, or maybe some sticky tape.

However, no matter how much the thread gets put together again, it is undeniable that it was separated before - everyone will notice that it has been mended. It's like that patch that one sews onto clothes: the patch covers up a tear or hole, but it is undeniable to one and all that the clothes are ruined and that patch only served to accentuate that. The thread is thus noticeably weaker - everyone around can tell. Why not then cut a new length of thread and start again? Perhaps this new length won't break so easily.

I liked my friend's analogy, but I decided that, like countless analogies I've heard in my life, it bears expanding upon. Think of it as an exercise in helping people make sense of the world: analogies help us manage as if the world was a simpler place to live in. Analogies were the first real and crude (and perhaps even oral) instances of models of the world. Models were built to help people simplify and generalise the world they live in - using analogy is just a way of doing that.

As for the thread analogy, one should think about what the thread is made out of first. Is it nylon thread? Or perhaps just ordinary button sewing string? Or is it layered and thick like a rope? A thick thread made out of a tough material is surely harder to break, or cut, than the ordinary string. It might even bear more weight and can take more strain if anyone tries to pull it apart.

Likewise with a relationship: if the relationship was built on more solid ground, then it is perhaps more able to stand most stress and strain put onto it. A relationship built on common goals, principles, faith, and background has more 'fibre' than one based on lust, money, companionship and availability. When it is important attributes (principles, faith etc) that connect two people, it is less likely that one can find these attributes in other people (probably because it takes too much out of one to dig out such gems).

On another point in the thread analogy, the bit about mending a thread seemed kind of odd. People don't usually mend thread - they just throw it away and use a new one. It should be kind of hard sticking two separate pieces of thread and expecting it will function like a new one, right? Perhaps, instead of a relationship being like a piece of thread, I think everyone is like a thread of their own. When one thread finds another thread, they may want to get together and form a bend knot (something like... tying the knot, but not in the marriage sense). Note: Bend knots are knots formed when two pieces of rope are tied together at the end.

It is the kind of knot tied that determines the strength of the relationship. Oh, and whether the two threads were compatible in the first place (try knotting together sewing thread and nylon). It is not impossible for two incompatible pieces of thread to be knotted together. It depends on what kind of knot is being used to bring the two together. A well-tied knot ensures that the two separate threads stay together under pressure - they don't come apart easily.

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Being home now, I sometimes tune into NewsRadio FM93.8 while driving (this being in Singapore). This is largely because it supposedly has more informational content (it does make for less mind numbing fare than the typical morning show tripe). One of the items I do enjoy are the interviews they put on the air, and there was one which I heard three times already (well, they can't do THAT many interviews, so some of them get substantially more airtime).

This interview was with a Singaporean ex-priest with an education in public policy and an MBA to boot. He is now running some sort of leadership coaching program for Singaporean undergraduates. Unfortunately for me, I didn't manage to catch his name (despite 3 hearings of the show), otherwise I would have googled him.

The interviewee witnessed an interesting coaching session using a familiar analogical exercise: a jar is provided to the participants along with the following items: some fist-sized rocks, pebbles, sand and stones of varying sizes. The objective was to fill the jar with as much of the rocks, pebbles and sand as is possible to fit within the jar. As is the case, if one had filled the jar with the sand first, it would have been impossible to put in any of the rocks or pebbles since the sand would have packed the jar tight.

When asked what the exercise had meant, the textbook answer was that the items represented priorities in life, and the rocks and pebbles, being the biggest, were the biggest priorities in life. If they were sorted out first (i.e. placed in the jar) then any space leftover may be filled with the sand (the small things in life). If the small things were to be done first, then there would have been no space for the big items, since the sand would have filled the jar without leaving any room for other stones.

The interviewee then mentioned one particular response he heard which struck as being somewhat very incisive. One participant's view was that the rocks and pebbles, the big things, were one's dreams, while the sand was but the itty-bitty stuff of life. If one were to fill his life living out the itty-bitty stuff, fussing over the mundane and unimaginative, then there would have been no space for the dreams. The dreams, according to this participant at least, are the most important things to address in one's life.

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I am wondering, and am still wondering to no end, whether or not I am achieving my dreams: I still don't know what they are, and I still don't know whether the path I am walking down leads unto it. There is no analogy or model that can help direct my life: there is only analogy or model to help me understand how best to live it.

Of Reading Lists and Postcards from Barcelona

Given the time out from full-time student life, I've come to appreciate the fact that I can finally read fiction work again. It sounded strange when I first verbalised it to myself: as a student in uni, I consumed fiction voraciously. Textbooks were full of gibberish and the only thing I counted on were notes and scraps of paper.

Then that monster known as work came along. Consulting is not for everyone, and was definitely not for the fiction afficionado. So I compromised: I read less. Still, I could consume enough books to satiate that lust for stories. I read stuff from all over, and it was during this time that I started liking Margaret Atwood's feminist gab and David Mitchell's dreamy sequences.

Along came biz school and this time round, reading anything other than the required cases for class is a travesty. What's more, the profusion of reading material on the net (I speak of blogs, newspapers, whatnots) meant that my whole day is spent in a constant infusion of text into my brain. I just did not have enough bandwidth to consume fiction as well, and it was on a sad note that I stopped reading anything interesting (hey, some business texts are interesting in their own right - just go read Blue Ocean Strategy... but they aren't stories).

So summer without an internship was a kind of blessing in disguise. I've read David Mitchell's Black Swan Green (I like his previous work better), Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in a Time of Cholera (I never thought I would touch that novel, to be honest), and Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore (very weird stuff in this book... very very indecipherable). And due to the dearth of good fiction around the house, I'm actually reading the Da Vinci Code (after having seen the movie).

The Da Vinci Code reads like a person driving a car with both the accelerator and brake pedals depressed: start-stop-start-stop-start-stop-start... the protagonists find some new clue, and then the action stops at a critical juncture, and you ask yourself "Gee I need to know what happens!!!" and so you read on. Until the next critical juncture. Ad nauseam. Very useful device to convince the reader that you have an engaging and interesting book (but seriously though, the book reads like someone throwing his high-school history+art+bible lessons at you, wrapped around a treasure hunt story).

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Someone once said that there were only 2 kinds of stories in the world: "A man goes on a journey" and "A stranger comes into town". Every other story is a variation of the 2 themes, a combination of both, or a sluice of something in between. Try looking for these themes the next time you read a book.

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As promised, here are the photos from Barcelona. While there, I met up with a friend who was learning Spanish there (lucky guy) and he introduced me to some of his classmates, one of whom was Italian. That Italian lass and I sat glued in a pub watching the World Cup finals: I cheered for France; no questions who she cheered for. And for my efforts in cheering the losing team, the Italian lass gave me a lesson on what Italian hooligans sing about (they were everywhere in that pub and sang the lewdest songs!), and of course, goaded over their goddamn undeserved victory.

Anyhow, photos:

Go to Barcelona, if for nothing else, thn to see Gaudi's irreverent artwork

La Pedrera

Parc Guell

And the Sagrada...

...with its interesting doors.

The only place where skateboarding can be done around gothic buildings...

...and demonstrations take place outside the mayor's office regularly.

Art, in whatever forms it assumes, is always being restored. The lady here is painstakingly restoring a letterbox carved during the renaissance for the building formerly used by a lawyer's guild.

Port Vell, where a shopping centre's front arcade features mirrors on the ceiling. Perfect for the narcissist in all of us; and a strain on the neck.

Oh yes, the bridges also tend to break up often. :)

Also, do not miss Las Ramblas for the street performers - to be honest, I find them all a tad too touristy and profit driven. Much preferred the occasional guitarist or opera singer I encountered around parts of the Gothic Quarter (a maze to certainly get yourself lost in).

Due to space constraints, check out the rest of my Barcelona impressions here.

Traffic Woes

This site isn't generating much traffic eh? :)

It got me thinking - what's the point in blogging if you aren't attracting the kind of hits those big blogger boys (or girls for that matter... sidenote: girls make more interesting bloggers) are getting? After all, most bloggers are doing it for the attention. Oh yah, forget that crap about writing their inner thoughts and feelings, and not being exhibitionist. You do not publish your thoughts online if you weren't into some attention. (another sidenote: use less double negatives, it confuses readers and the folks here aren't your dumbass clients).

Maybe its because I just feel compelled to write (oops, I like to do this don't I? sidenote: every goddamn blogger is compelled to write too, so what say you?). Maybe I just need an outlet to talk to myself. Maybe its just to talk shop therapy - you write what you think you want to write, and feel better as a result.

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Its weird - the compulsions we feel. Sometimes, those little voices give you little ideas about what to say. You feel that little tug to do something - clean that table, say a compliment, write your thoughts down. Sometimes you act on the urge. Sometimes you don't. But those little buggers never go away, and you're left with that empty feeling that having done some things somehow make your life somewhat improved.

Sometimes, the sum of your somes dilute the somehows somewhat. And then some. Urgh...

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I was in the zoo two weeks back (screaming kids and hassled parents; avoid the zoo during June hols!) and do you know what's the best part about being a zebra?

Ans: Having colour co-ordinated ass.


Now I know what a tail's true function is...

Of all the animals in that stinking zoo, I think I liked the zebras best. They have the most composure, and are real cool to the folks gawking at them.

Oh, and I didn't know zebras come with hair on the neck.



I think I like the fact that they come in black and white.

Frankly though, I think the whole zoo thing is kind of disappointing. I think I enjoyed it more when I was a kid. I remembered a screaming kid and his fascination with the kangaroos at the zoo. He was yanking on his mum's arm and excitedly yelling that he's seeing kangaroos.

His mum's reply in Mandarin would have killed any young eager tendencies to be a zoologist: "I see until don't want to see already lah."

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She'll be back soon and needs the table space. I go now.

Memory - or the lack of it

I write to remember. I write to forget.

I pen things down so I can recall them later, like the notes I write when I listen to people speak. They're there so that I can later recollect the thoughts that went behind what they said. It helps to reinforce information that I've filtered through, my thoughts and my analysis of its arguments. That's why I write. The day I turn an amnesiac (and it isn't far off), what I've penned down will serve to jog my memory into recovery.

I also want to forget. If I were to write it down, it is as if the thoughts were channeled through my thin arm, tingling nerves in my fingers, and finding release through pen and ink. Thoughts flowing freely, black ink on paper. Thus these children of mine leave me, and I can forget. I can free my mind for other things - it is unencumbered by the past, the truly trivial (though I seldom write anything I consider trivial down). Oh yes, I can also forget the hurtful memories.

I write so I don't need to write no more. I write so I don't hurt from remembering. I write so that I can fly free - my thoughts can leave me, and rejoin me later if need be.

I write because I write - when life offers you little else, what you write leaves others a legacy of stars. Writers are unselfish people, for they willingly expose their bare flesh to the reader's torment. Writers are deceitful people, for they lie and hide their real thoughts, obscure the facts.

I regret that I started writing, for it will never stop. No wait... it did.

In the Public Domain

It always interests me how some things start off with one intention or aim, and ends up something else altogether. When I first started work, I did not intend to work in my current workplace for more than 3 years. Now, I'm near my 4 year mark, and work is still interesting.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make was with regards blogs. I remember how, when blogs were first introduced, they were meant to be online journals, kind of online diaries; an electronic record of your thoughts and deeds. Blogs were introduced to allow people to easily create a site where all they needed to do was to pen their thoughts. Of course, the idea is not new - its just that now, some clever folks have created the engine to do it easily (damn I wished it was me).

I think the nature of blogs have changed somewhat. Sure, people still use it to pen their thoughts and deeds, but these blogs are often not as interesting as that other blog variant - the celebrity blog.

Celebrity blogs write for an audience - its hard to keep penning your private thoughts and deeds when everything you write down is in the public domain (Note to self: there are still private blogs in existence, with restricted access, but few folks are that publicity shy nowadays). Instead, people cater to an audience - they write funny stuff, they write thought provoking stuff, they put up pictures of themselves doing all kinda stuff, they write stuff that do not really belong in a diary. Heck, they write stuff like the kind of stuff I write now.

There is a very strong appetite for ideas propounded by ordinary folk such as you and I - we are the free press of the world. Our commentaries, opinions and thoughts are freely available and largely uncensored and uncensured. Of course, the odd blogger or 2 gets sued (defamation extends to the internet too). But by and large, we get off with writing what we want.

So the written word is cheapened. I guess its the price we pay for the freedom of expression - when everyone can express their opinion, and everyone can have a voice, then no one has a real voice anymore. The cacophony drowns out the voice of reason. A parliament of rooks judge the solitary raven.

Some stand out though. Applauded and celebrated for their insights, witticisms and brazen popularity. We are an indecipherable bunch, comprising many differing viewpoints and styles, expounding different manners and expressions.

The grand aim of providing a voice for everyone has achieved that. And more. As before, we have to compete again - when you open the barriers to expression, new boundaries are drawn. The ones who know the terrain and play their chips right get the headstart, and look the better for it.

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Funny how thoughts turn out when you give in and resort to that device known as "stream of consciousness". You can really write rather meaningless stuff with rather zen-like statements this way. I started this post with the intent of saying how blogs were created to be online diaries that morphed into public newsreels. I ended with a whimper of an excuse for my behaviour.

Correction: I end with a punctuation. Some school kids don't even do that.

Writing an Essay of a post

Inspired by Foccacia, I've decided to do a blog of my own. Here I am!

The problem is that I have little to say. Its not that I have nothing to say - its just that I have not really thought about what I want to post. Seriously though, I am from the school that thinks that every post should be well thought out. Somewhat like GP essays or those essays which I wrote for my GMAT test.

They go something like this - start by taking a position on an issue. "For", "Against" or "Damn, I don't really know but let me digress". Then, come up with 3 points which support your argument or basically provide information in relation to your topic. Ideally, this comes nicely packaged in 3 paragraphs which 'flow' naturally into one another. Lastly, sum it all up in a summary kind of paragraph.

It is kind of boring, predictable writing. But I'm told that it is succinct and clear that way.

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In other news, I'm finally going for a LASIK operation. (At the moment, I've told no one about this blog, so nobody should really care right now. Still...) It will take place tomorrow on my left/right eye. And then, on Friday, the nice fellows at the Eye Centre will do my right/left eye. It has always intrigued me what LASIK patients do with themselves in between the 2 operations.

Look at it this way (haha...), you have one good eye and one bad eye for about 24 hours. Do you:

1. Cover up the bad eye and use the good eye to see?
2. Cover up the good eye and use the bad eye, coupled with your soon-to-be-defunct glasses, to see?
3. Close both eyes and be a blind man for a day?

Personally, I'll go with option 3 - far easier to be Ray Charles than Captain Hook I feel. I even bought the sunglasses.

I'll see the world through new eyes soon.