yihrae

[yihrae]

Market Norms vs Social Norms

I've been doing a lot of work at Kada lately. When I go with my "employees" out for lunch, I usually end up paying out of pocket for them. It made me wonder if adhering to social norms or market norms were intrinsically more beneficial for work.

Market Norms - An economic transaction. For example, the salary paid by an employer to their employee or the $8 we pay for a coffee.

Social Norms - A social transaction. For example, you don't pay for your the dinner your mother cooked or a gift your friend gave to you.

One might argue that if you have an employee you're paying a regular salary then you've already imposed the "market norm" idea within their head. However, this is only under the assumption there is a fixed pay structure in place. If the payment of your employees are flexible (for example, someone working in a startup that is billed by hour), you might argue that imposing a social norm may encourage employees to feel a sense of gratitude and under-report hours (for example, if I worked 1 hour and 15 minutes, I may only bill an hour).

There is also the consideration that imposing a social norm could increase employee retention rate. Employees form an emotional connection to the company culture, diverting attention away from the salary or monetary gain they derive.

This was something I thought about when we were hammering in grass tiles for the launch event the next day. It was 11:00 pm but we were on all fours hammering in tiles. Most people would say they have to go home or that we should call off the event. But that thought didn't occur to us on that night.

Anyway, social or market norm I'm very proud of the Kada team. They make me really happy. Our director theorised that it's because we've got a "startup" spirit of sorts. There is no standard SOP and people just do what they are entrusted to do. Maybe working in a startup really has its perks.

[yihrae]

Jingle Bells Rap

Speeding through the white,

One-horsie big sleigh,

Fields below our sight,

We laughing on the way.

Bobtail bells be ringin'

Spirits all shining bright

We be riding and singin'

The greatest song tonight, ho!

Jingle bells (hey), jingle bells (ho)

Jingling till we cray

Ain't it fun, riding this tide

With a big horse sleigh

Floor be turning pale

Do it in the youth

All them girls tonight

Sing this through your roof

Get the bobtail here

100 on the dial

Send him to that large, large cart

And you'll go a mile

Oh, jingle bells (hey), jingle bells (ho)

Jingling through the day

Ain't it fun oh ain't it fun

Riding in this biggity sleigh (hey)

Jingle bells (hey), jingle bells (ho),

Jingle all the way,

Ain't it fun oh ain't it fun

Riding in this biggity sleigh

Ain't it fun oh ain't it fun

We gonna take this all the way

[yihrae]

On small things I'm proud of

People often cite the importance of celebrating the small things. Below is a collation of some of my small wins lately:

I figured out how to automatically generate subtitles using Davinci video editing software and a script I found online. This was a rather difficult and meddlesome process because I had to do some configuration in the terminal to change the versions of some things. I also suppressed the background noise. Honestly it was a fun process improving my video editing skills.

I played Tchoukball during the mock run for Waikiki. I would say I played pretty well and it was a lot of fun!

I submitted my essay for the Ivypanda essay competition.

I was accepted into the Esplanade volunteer channel where they send opportunities for Esplanade Volunteers.

Two people told me my Waikiki playlist was really good and asked for it! This made me feel proud because I put a good amount of effort into curating a playlist that would appeal to everyone and would be suitable for the atmosphere within Waikiki.

My freshmen told me I was a good facilitator and that they could tell I care immensely for them (this made me really happy)

I taught a class at unity primary and they said I was a natural and my kids were so excited to see me the second time I taught the class. I truly enjoyed teaching there and I was quite touched when they all remembered my name and told me they wanted me to teach them more.

I completed The Last Of Us part 1. The story was so moving and I’m not sure if I’ll ever enjoy a game again so immensely as I had this one.

I passed my Basic Theory Test and my Final Theory Test on the first try.

I arranged a couple bouquets of flower that I am proud of. Will show them off in a separate post!

---

I believe it's important to celebrate small wins at times. Often, people lose sight of their vision or their reasons to continue trying when they forget the things they've already accomplished on the way. Remember to celebrate your small wins today!!

[yihrae]

I had a strange dream.

I was dancing in class, a lip sync sort of. I pretended to play the piano and sing along to the song that was playing loudly, in a rather dramatic fashion, I might add. When I opened my eyes at the end of the song, the seminar room was packed full of people and they were all applauding. This happened 2 or 3 times in a row.

At the end of class, as I was packing my bag, my teacher asked me to give her some foolscap. Think she was asking for my worksheet, I happily handed it to her. She then clarified she wanted the entire roll of foolscap I owned, and that she needed it tonight, and that she would pay for it. I was taken aback but I agreed. I tore off the roll of foolscap and handed it to her and said she didn’t need to pay me any money, she could repay me with her courtesy or some nonsense. Afterwards she requests I find her after school to pass some worksheets to her.

Anyway, come the end of school and I’m walking around looking for her. I walk past several classrooms but I don’t find her but I find long strings of numbers that are supposed to be student IDs as well as an NTUC. I enter the supermarket and come out defeated.

Outside the NTUC are a few cafe tables situated near two trains. The trains are quite like the trains they have in Japan, they’re open-air meaning there are no guard rails or shelters whatsoever. Just the two platforms on either side. As I am sitting down on the table, a note flies into my hand. I run over to what I suspect to be the source of the note. My Sports Clan clan mates are sitting in there in their green Vireo jersey’s, saying the teacher has asked them to pass this to me.

The note reads:

####

You are celebrated because you are different and people celebrate differences.

Google oogles the people who Google

Apple is not sure what their next quarter is like but they know it’s in the green

And ## what you’re doing ###########. Is it human?

To the extent where you’ve ### a classmate to wear headphones.

Surprised I could see through so easily?

Don't be mad,

Ms Chen

On the bottom right of the note there is a picture of a wilted red carnation. The petals have faintly dark outlines. The“#”s refers to parts of the note I can’t remember now. The first line is clearly referring to my lip-syncing. The second line I’m not sure, but on the note Google wasn’t written, but was more imprinted on the note by firm deformations along the paper. The third line in the note was implying that Apple will make things more expensive in the next quarter. It was a cut off from a newspaper extract and the word “green” was in green. The last few lines were all handwritten in scratchy thin pencil marks. However I couldn’t recall which classmate I had made wear headphones.

[yihrae]

I went to Universal Studios the other day. Celeste had acquired tickets via a HP family day event and had invited three of us (Ting, Zheng Long and I) to tag along. We met at around 11am at the 3rd floor of Vivocity, just outside the monorail. Zheng Long arrived the earliest at around 10:45am, while I arrived second at around 11:20am. Ting and Celeste both arrived at around 11:30am… I shared a cup of Playmade with Zheng Long (original milk tea with pink cactus pearls). He commented that Playmade had “fallen off” to which I agreed. I do remember it being much better in the past for some strange reason.

We were a funny group. Among the four of us, Ting and Celeste were more... timid. They were not very willing to take some of the more extreme roller coasters. Zheng Long would get motion sickness, meaning there was a chance he would throw up after the roller coaster. That left only me... Essentially we were not the optimal group to be at USS.

After a singular stop on the monorail we alighted. Large, bold red words informing us of our destination sat atop a larger rock. This sight was familiar yet still retained a sense of novelty due to the period that had passed from my last visit. We walked only for a maximum of five minutes before reaching the entrance. We equipped our HP family day bands and entered!

I frankly don't remember Universal's Studios too well. When we entered I could faintly piece together a few attractions to my left and to my right, but I suspect large parts of the park had undergone renovation. Our first stop was to queue up for the mummy ride. However after we entered the queue, we realised the wait would be a ninety minute one. We then made a tactical decision to eat lunch first and then queue during lunch hour to increase our chances of encountering a short queue. We scouted out the pizza place but we decided it was too small, so we headed to the western place instead. It was $17 for the burger and some fries. Frankly, this was not as overpriced as I thought it would be. I mean it’s bad for sure, but it wasn't horrid. We each had a $10 meal voucher and a $5 meal voucher, totalling to $15. We later realised that only the $10 vouchers can be stacked. We paid $40 using the vouchers and the remainder with my cash.

The burgers were honestly not bad! They came almost instantly (within 30 seconds or so) which was slightly alarming but I chose not to think too much of it! We talked about a range of topics while enjoying our food. Later, we went back to the mummy ride. Our plan had worked! The queue was drastically shorter so we ended up only waiting for around 20 minutes before taking the ride.

The ride itself wasn’t too bad. I’m not sure why but my recollection of the backwards sections was slightly more intense. I suppose Singapore is too small to have anything too insane. It was a pretty solid ride! Afterwards, we headed to Enchanted Airways, which was almost instant. Take this with a grain of salt, but I honestly think the Enchanted Airways (yes the kiddy ride) was more intense than the mummy one… I’m not sure why. The rides were just lacking in intensity and duration in general! But perhaps I’m a psycho - I want to ride until I have a headache and my neck is sore…

We then took the Puss in Boots ride afterwards and some other dinosaur ride. For the approximate hour+ that we had to spend waiting for both rides, they were sourly disappointing. It wasn’t too big of an issue though, for we spent those hours talking away about all matters! Ting had to leave early so after the dinosaur ride she headed back.

We were down to Celeste, Zheng Long and I. I told them to send Ting off first and I would queue for Cylon in the meantime. I really, really wanted to sit on Cylon and I was worried it would start raining and I would lose my chance. Celeste complained that the previous ride was lacking in thrill, to which I capitalised on and once again pitched my “let's take Cylon together idea”. She said she’ll think about it. Anyway, I went into the Cylon queue and queued first. I waited a long time for Celeste. I eventually exited and looked around. I asked her if she was coming and she was like "Oh I thought I said ..." that I did not recall... it was a bit of shame because essentially I had waited in the queue for nothing and had wasted a single Cylon ride because I could have just gone myself. I went back into the queue alone while Zheng Long and Celeste waited outside.

The queue had lengthened by then. They didn’t allow us to bring our mobile phones in so it was literally just me and my thoughts. I observed others - lots of couples and rather young friend groups. I got so bored at some point I started counting the duration in between the movements of the queue. It was approximately 140 seconds. Assuming my counting was accurate (which it definitely wasn’t). Probably closer to 160 seconds then. When I had finally reached, I asked the people in front of me if they minded swapping. I desperately wanted to sit in front. However, they just gave me this confused look. I switched to Chinese and figured that would resolve the issue, but the confused look persisted. Eventually, I gave up on trying to steal their front seats and settled for the third row. Since I was sitting alone I was seated with a stranger. I made small conversation and realised he actually also wanted to sit at the front…

The ride was good!! I wished it was a bit longer and that we had spun a couple more times but I was somewhat satisfied. Upon exiting we headed over to Enchanted Airways and took it one last time before sending Celeste off. It was just Zheng Long and I now. We had to get to school by 7pm for Sports Camp stuff. I figured there was still time to take Cylon ONE MORE TIME. I distinctly remember Zheng Long asking me “Alex if I throw up will you take care of me?" to which I excitedly said “yes!!”. We quickly found a locker and headed up. The queue was only 20 minutes, so I figured we would make it. We waited two whole turns just to secure the front seats. It was worth it. Really. It WAS. My favourite part was honestly when we plunged into the mist and came out, then plunged in again!! The mist is cooling and adds to the ride's exhilarating factor.

Zheng Long told me he didn't feel like throwing up but said he was a bit dizzy. He kindly requested for me to retrieve our bags while he sat down to rest. It was all a flurry from there. We were on a time crunch so we rushed to school!! We ended up getting slightly lost and missed the monorail so we walked all the way back to Vivocity. My feet hurt from all the speed walking when we took the train.

Overall a super fun day! I’m really grateful to Celeste for providing the tickets and that I was invited. Someday maybe we’ll come back and do this again :)

[yihrae]

My Letter Boxed Journey

A brief introduction I've always loved playing the New York Times games. These games have risen significantly in popularity from pre to post pandemic. Wordle in particular spiked during the pandemic, essentially becoming a daily discussion for many. While these games have been on the slight decline due to the end of the pandemic (people realised they have better things to do than stay at home and play word games), my love was reinvigorated when I met a few of my friends in school who were still playing them. Ever since then, my daily routine consists of waiting till 12am to play NYT Strands, Connections and Wordle (yes in that order). It would only be after a weeks of this routine did I discover Letter Boxed. What is Letter Boxed? Letter Boxed is a game consisting of a 2- dimensional square with 3 letters on each side (12 letters in total). Players must form words by joining one letter from one side of the box to another.

(As seen above I formed W-R-E-C-K. Note we can't join letters on the same side to another letter. Hence L-A-T is not possible, since L and A are on the same side) (also words with repeat letters don't work, so no "ERROR" or "WELL")

After inputting a single word, players can input another that starts with the same letter the previous word ended with.

(After WRECK, I needed a word that started with K, so I chose KNUCKLE)

The objective is to use up all the letters at least once.

(This is a solved puzzle) Optimising Letter Boxed However, if you wanted to really impress people, the goal would be to solve it in two words. This is often extremely difficult. Give it a try!

A good trick is to find compound words that utilise many of the letters.

(WATERHOLE, RELUCTANT, and HAWTHORN are pretty good guesses!) After a good guess, sometimes the second word is immediately clear. Sometimes it isn't! I would often sit and ponder with friends for at least half an hour on end, wondering which two words could possible solve today's puzzle.

The Idea There were days when I simply could not solve the puzzle in two words. I would wrack my brains but to no avail! That's when I came up with the idea of a script. I wanted to design the code so that it didn't immediately solve it for me but rather provided some inspiration on what words I could input.

My idea was that I would have a list of all the words in the dictionary. I would then run through the words using certain conditions. For example, the words cannot contain letters not in the box.

(if a word had "X" in it the code would ignore that word since it cannot be inputted)

Another condition would be that words could not contain sequences of letters adjacent to each other on any side of the box. So "SLING" would not be allowed as "S" and "L" are next to one another.

The Journey The first part (and perhaps the most difficult), was finding a good word repository to reference. There are many online, but a large number either contain invalid words or are missing some words! To test if a word repository was good, I'd usually download the text file and look through some of the words. Some would have several words that weren't even in English... Afterwards, I'd search the word list for the word "Bifurcate". I'm not sure why, but it appears that the quality of a word list often came down to whether it contained this particular word! That is to say, if it contained "Bifurcate", it likely contained other useful words and was comprehensive enough. Eventually, I settled for the 2018 Scrabble word list that contained 220 thousand words.

After finding the word repository, it was time to write a code! The code I ended up writing was actually fairly simple, and could be understood by beginners even.

You start off by keying in the letters in the Letterboxed today (in the order they appear around the box, so that the code knows how to determine which letters are on the same side of the box). I added a function so that you could input the letters you want in your words. For example, if you wanted to find all the words with "Q", you could input Q into "desired". Below the first five lines are a bunch of functions that helps my code run. Some of them ended up unused! For example, I used to use the function double_letters to ignore words that had two letters in a row, such as "GILLS". But I realised that because of this, the code would take an immense amount of time to run each time. To resolve this, I simply ended up editing the original word list by removed all double-lettered words. Below is a separate piece of code I used to edit the text file.

("final.txt" here was the name of my 2018 Scrabble repository. This code simply reads through all the words line by line in the text file. If the word does not have double letters, they will be written back into the text file. If not, they will be skipped.)

This was the main code. "alphabet" was simply all the letters in the alphabet. "forbiddenletters" referred to the letters that could not be inputted into the Letterboxed game. The fourth last line was a very long IF statement utilising numerous conditions to determine if a word should or should not be shown in the final output. The line is too long to screenshot, so I shall just type it here. "if keyability(letterstoday,line.lower()) and not any(x in forbiddenletters for x in line.lower()) and desired.issubset(line.lower()) and len(line)>5"

This line checks if the word can be keyed into the Letterboxed, then checks no letters that are forbidden are in the words, then checks if the desired letters are inside and then checks to make sure the word is at least 5 characters long (to prevent an abundance of very short words from appearing).

An Actual Application Let's see this in action! Below is today's (02/06/2024) actual Letterboxed puzzle.

I start by keying in the letters into "letterstoday".

Since I'm not looking for any letters in particular I leave "desired" empty.

I run the code!

The results are as shown. A list of possible words is provided and now its up to me to sort through the list and find the words myself!

SHOWGIRL looked promising so I try that! Afterwards I see only the J, U, N and K are left. Leading me to realise I can use JUNKS. Note JUNKS did not show up in the code above because it is less than five letters! So sometimes you still have to use some brainpower. Left Over Reflections

I truly had a blast designing this code. It was a process that took around 4-5 days of building and optimising, as well as a lot of frustrated debugging. It was definitely very satisfying upon completion though. I do think in some ways, the code has ruined Letterboxed slightly for me. It used to be an incredibly difficult game that I would rack my brain over for the entire afternoon, but now that I have the code I feel as if I have something I can always fall back on. I do still feel proud when I solve it code-less though. Either way, it's been an exciting journey creating this and I'm very excited to continue innovating and exploring in the future!

[yihrae]

Celeste Birthday

I had a blast today! Today, Celeste celebrated her 20th birthday. We prepared $100 worth of grab vouchers as a gift. On the morning of the birthday itself, I bought flowers and arranged them to gift to her later. I had bought the wrapping paper for the flowers earlier. Strangely, the auntie gave me a different pricing when I bought two pieces of paper instead of one, but this detail is not relevant to the story. Anyway! So Chris, Zheng Long and I took a grab to her birthday from my house (it was a Tampines). Upon arriving, I greeted the usual suspects (Raine, Ting, Isa and Sheralyn) (not really usual suspects but wtv). We started socialising and then paused because Chris, Zheng Long and I needed to write on the card. I wrote a rather long message for Celeste. She deserves it anyway.

Soon after the party commenced, we cut the cake. Isa had to leave early for emix. Just as we took the photos and were about to cut the cake, Celeste informed us that she actually dislikes birthday songs as she finds them cringey. Thus, she asked for a birthday rap instead. I immediately begin to craft the rap. She asked for only six lines since six was her favourite number (or something). After which, she gave me permissions to send the completed verse that I had written in one minute to the group chat. I started to rap out loud... After one bar, a guy from SJI immediately violently screamed in protest saying there was no way he was rapping this. So, we collectively decided to turn it into a poem instead. The structure was similar regardless. What ended up happening was that I would write one line of the poem, and people would then recite it after me (like a pledge... or a cult). It was as follows:

Happy birthday to Celeste You’re better than the rest We know you're an amazing person Everyone here can attest So happy birthday to you Wishing you the best through and through

Pretty funny honestly. To give myself some credit, I came up with this in 60 seconds... so it may be limited in quality and creativity. But regardless, it sufficed!!

I also brought my cookies to the party. Celeste's boyfriend (Sid) said that they were INSANELY good, which frankly, touched my heart. I think I'm just a words of affirmation person. After the cake cutting, I noticed one of Celeste's friends had started to get quite drunk. They were drinks at the party and Enzo was supposed to the bartender -- however, I suppose one disadvantage is that as the bartender you end up near the drinks all the time, so perhaps that was why he constantly had his bottoms up. Anyway, he starts sharing (in a dramatic fashion) two stories. One story is about how he pushed some guy down the stairs in 2020 (during which Sid calls the guy on the phone to verify this (spoiler: it was true)), and he describes that the person had warranted being pushed down the stairs because he had grabbed Enzo's ass. Because of this harassment, Enzo had pushed him down the stairs. Enzo described his victim (or predator) as rather large, so he said he bounced down the stairs (with the sound effects boing boing boing). He said that the guy upon falling down 20 stairs, had gotten up and started chasing him. But just then, Enzo had utilised the stair railings to slide down and whizz past him. The way he described this whole sequence of events was absolutely comical. Later he says that the phone of the guy he pushed had broke since it was residing in his back pocket when he fell down stairs.

The next story deserves its own paragraph. This story is infamously known as The Embassy. He tells it like this: Enzo is at Cherries getting drunk and going wild. He requires the bathroom but as we know, the bathroom at Cherries is miniature so there is a snaking queue to it. Hence, Enzo decides to head to the neighbouring building to pee. He describes (with his hands covering the area between his legs) how he looked in the lift, shaking and in desperate need to pee. He then asks us "Normally you'd think that each building would have it's own toilet right?" to which we respond yes. Then, he explains this one didn't have a toilet. So, while searching for one, he encounters this dark staircase which he thought was completely deserted, since upon entering the staircase the light didn't automatically turn on (or something). He then pisses in the staircase... Afterwards, he exits the building, jubilant that he has relieved himself when he is suddenly stopped by the security auntie. He proceeds to do a shocking accurate impression of how a auntie who worked as a security guard would question whether you had pissed in the stairs (she had seen it through the CCTV). His brilliant mind decides to pretend to be Spanish. He starts saying "No Hablo Anglais". Eventually, the cops arrive, and they grab him by the waist and his two arms. He then decides to pretend he is dead. By flopping to the ground and appearing lifeless. The police then start spraying water on him and basically suffocating him (I'm not sure why, perhaps to rouse him??). After playing dead for 1.5 hours, his friends walk by and upon seeing him on the ground, go "Oh that's my friend." He then mimics the deadpan/disbeliving expression of why his friends would say such a thing when the police were surrounding him and he was playing dead (lying on the floor for the past 90 minutes). The police question them since they said Enzo is their friend, and they then explain "Oh yeah, Enzo is full Singaporean. Yeah, he speaks English". Enzo obviously couldn't believe he was getting ratted out. In order to sell the act, he then pretends to wake up half-consciously... EVENTUALLY, the truck for the Spanish Embassy arrives. And Enzo, in his drunken mind, formulates the brilliant plan. He thinks to himself: since embassies for foreign nations are often at Nassim, and since he associates Nassim with the forests (???) he thinks to himself, he's just gonna jump into the forest and make a run for it while the truck is moving. To his dismay, it turns out the Spanish embassy was on the same road he had collapsed on. So the drive was like 2 minutes... anyway, apparently Sid arrives, and convinces them to drop the charges, telling them that his mother had beat him as a child and that he had a broken family. Anyway, the way in which this whole story was told was so animated and was honestly so funny I don't think I can ever forget Spanish Embassy.

So, after all the stories, I get to talk to some of Celeste's friends a bit more. I realise that I actually click pretty well with all of them. They seem to be similar to me in a sense given they're not fully Singaporean and they sorta have a foreign-ish background. I suppose that might be why my parents were so deadset on sending me to an international school when I was younger (they are all from SJI International). Perhaps they knew the people at International schools would be more similar to me and would share similar experiences. Anyway, we talked about school, CIS, NTU, Singapore, passports and everything in between. It was honestly a great conversation and I was only saddened by the fact it hadn't all lasted longer.

Anyway, that more or less concludes the day. It was so so so fun and I'm so glad I got to go. To great days ahead :)

[yihrae]

TTPD ranking

All songs are rated out of 10.

I can do it with a broken heart (9.85)

Fortnight (9.8)

My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys (9.7)

loml (9.4)

Guilty as Sin (9.2)

So Long, London (9)

Down bad (8.9)

TTPD (8)

Clara Bow (7.9)

But Daddy I Love Him (7.8)

Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me (7.7)

The Alchemy (7.5)

Fresh Out The Slammer (7.4)

Florida!!! (7.1)

The smallest Man Who Ever Lived (7/10)

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) (6.2/10)

Unranked mentions from anthology

The Black Dog

imgonnagetyouback

So High School

Overall album sentiments:

Solid 8.5/10! I've listened to fortnight at least 140 times in the past couple hours. The part where Post Malone comes in and demolishes that ending is so amazing... I will note that the album has lots of themes of cheating and all of that - which I don't think I can really relate to so it wasn't as tear-shedding an experience as I thought it would be.

Celeste, Chris and I had a listening party. During which, we agreed one of our favourite songs from the album is I can Do It With A Broken Heart. The story-telling and the energy it brings to the otherwise bereft album is refreshing. I also believe this is one of her albums with better lyricism. The way she presents some of her feelings through creative themes (country girl, barbie doll, jail time etc.) was captivating. Some of the issues she touches on frankly do not add much to the listening of the album to me. I suspect this is because I am just not very invested in the drama surrounding Taylor Swift.

Admittedly some songs were a bit lacklustre, especially the middle section of the album. I wasn't a huge fan or Who's afraid of lil ol me or i can fix him or But daddy I can fix him. Not very interesting songs... But I know Taylor is a believer in the anchoring effect because she presents her strong songs first... At the very least, it picked up when it hit I can Do It With A Broken Heart.

Regarding the anthology, I more or less only liked the above three honourable mentions. The other songs seemed a bit folkloreish which (to me) is lacklustre, energy-wise at least. I will say that the three songs I do like are absolute gems!

Another song I'd like to discuss shortly is So Long, London. It feels as if there's a lot of build-up within the song but not much of a beat-drop in some sense. But the end part where the guitar comes on is heavenly to me!! It redeemed the song so much I ended up giving it a 9.

On an ending note, perhaps my liking for this album also stems from the fact that I listened to it in the huge B1 SOL seminar room with Chris and Celeste. I think that made the experience at least 10x better. The overall album has good flow - it feels as if she goes from someone who goes through the five stages of grief (but spends a lot of time in anger). She seems to (sort of) heal towards the end. While I'm not sure if this will beat out 1989, I did thoroughly enjoy my listen-through!

[yihrae]

You make everything seem like it’ll be okay

[yihrae]

I was getting chicken rice with Edie today. We walked to the parklane stall and I glanced up and saw the price was THREE FIFTY INSTEAD OF THE USUAL THREE DOLLARS…

I let out a loud gasp of SHOCK and then immediately the uncle behind asked “小弟有什么问题吗” he asked EARNESTLY as if expressing genuine concern for my peril that was the increased chicken rice price.

I told him “这个鸡��以前是三块现在变成三块半”

He explained to me that actually the price is still $3 before lunch but afterwards it becomes $3.50. The $3 is to attract and incentivise students.

Anyway I breathed a sigh of relief after this realisation and proceeded to purchase 3 portions of chicken rice at its good price

[yihrae]

I was with Chris and Yuxuan at the MRT station. I was having a tiny emoment (emo moment). Anyway, I started talking about Daniel.

"Maybe in another universe, if I was not here... Daniel would be here instead. Daniel would be the perfect person. He would never be emo, he would always this bag of joy and delight, he would be hardworking and studious and he would fit into CIS perfectly. Maybe Yuxuan, you would be in love with him! And you guys would be set to be married in a year. And maybe Chris, you would realise that Daniel is actually one of your long lost relatives or something. And you guys would meet once a year to go celebrate wedding together."

I mean this was obviously a joke given Yuxuan and Chris's bewildered and comedic reactions to what I was saying. It was pretty funny.

But then we boarded the train. And Chris told me "Alex even if there was a Daniel, I'd never trade you for Daniel, or you anyone." That was so sweet I had a mini tear burst.

I remember I was doing a psychology survey for my 10 SPS credits. During the survey, the question 'My state of life is close to ideal" was coupled with the options "Strong Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree". 2 months ago, I did this survey once, and I remember putting "Disagree" given that I felt I could be doing so much more (school-wise) and that I was lacking certain aspects within my life. But I think I've realised that there is so much more to life than just the titles you've achieved. So on that day, when I did survey again, I ended up putting "Strongly Agree".

[yihrae]

The following reflection is taken from my assignment for AI & Humanity. These reflections were on two public lectures. The first was about Botdistrikt, a UX focused chatbot platform that focuses on the easy development of chatbots. The second was on a lecture titled "Modelling Ethics In Digital Environments" which essentially discussed some of the ethical setbacks scientists faced when they try and model certain environments.

For the QnA with BotDistrikt, I found the most fascinating part was when the speaker discussed about how Botdistrikt came to be. They started out as a simple bus uncle chatbot. Which is crazy because I know of some friends that use this exact chatbot to find the timings of the buses - I suppose this is testament to how small Singapore is… They evolved from there when they realized there was actually a need for high quality chatbots and expanded into Botdistrikt. This kind of reminds me of when mathematicians originally invented imaginary numbers for a very niche purpose of finding the square root of negative one but later realised that it had profound applications within physics. Or perhaps a more relevant example was when deep learning software that was originally used to differentiate between different types of bread in a Japanese bakery turned out to have applications in cancer cell detection. I suppose that the take away here is: often the things you construct or the skills you develop may not always be employed in the exact manner you had envisioned them. But that's not always a bad thing! It's important to stay adaptable and to practice the different ways in which you can apply the skills you've learnt across multiple domains. For me personally, I hope that whatever I'm learning now; the technical side of developing chatbots as well as the sociological side of implementing them, can be useful in (hopefully!) pleasantly surprising ways in the future.

I had a talk with Dean Elvin Lim the other day, and he was talking about the different waves of technology. The first wave was Nvidia's focus on hardware development and now we are in the second wave of A.I. and deep learning and what not. He encouraged me to think about what exactly the third wave would be, and how can I equip myself with the skills to be sufficiently prepared for when such a wave might strike. Truly quite an intriguing question!

Also, I find it quite funny they work with both Mcdonald's and HPB.

For the public lecture, my greatest takeaways were actually during the QnA segment. This was the question about organizations staying independent from government intervention. Tom discussed how it is problematic that a lot of researchers work for money. A lot of the work that needs to be done might not necessarily pay well, so what happens is that it ends up getting offloaded to volunteer organizations. These are obviously non-profit and as such the volunteers or the organization's main interest may not actually lie within some of the work they are made to do. This struck me because it really did get me thinking about money. Particularly in the context of this lecture - you want to be ethical but you also want to make profit. In some cases it might not be so difficult. For example, if the area you're interested in modelling also happens to be an area that can be redeveloped for some type of financial gain, then there's an overlap in interests and you can have the best of both worlds. But in a lot of cases, sometimes where the money lies may not be the best for the environment or the most ethical in general. The part about volunteer organizations really struck a chord with me because I had recently quit my own volunteering. I used to volunteer at Youth Corps Singapore at a branch called "Community Peer Supporters", but I quit after becoming a leader there and realising how inefficient the system was at a higher level. Sometimes I wonder: if I was being paid, would I still have quit? Probably not! I am very broke after all my concerts and all that. So in a lot of ways it really makes me wonder about how exactly can we popularize work that needs to be done yet might not make a lot of money. I suppose in some ways lots of government intervention and a less-laissez-faire market might not be so bad after all!

[yihrae]

I know what you think of me

Below is an article I have straight up plagiarized from Tim Kreider of the New York Times! It is my favourite article of all time and I wish to post it here to immortalise it:

Recently I received an e-mail that wasn't meant for me, but was about me. I'd been cc'd by accident. This is one of the darker hazards of electronic communication, Reason No. 697 Why the Internet Is Bad — the dreadful consequence of hitting "reply all" instead of "reply" or "forward." The context is that I had rented a herd of goats for reasons that aren't relevant here and had sent out a mass e-mail with photographs of the goats attached to illustrate that a) I had goats, and b) it was good. Most of the responses I received expressed appropriate admiration and envy of my goats, but the message in question was intended not as a response to me but as an aside to some of the recipient's co-workers, sighing over the kinds of expenditures on which I was frittering away my uncomfortable income. The word "oof" was used.

I've often thought that the single most devastating cyberattack a diabolical and anarchic mind could design would not be on the military or financial sector but simply to simultaneously make every e-mail and text ever sent universally public. It would be like suddenly subtracting the strong nuclear force from the universe; the fabric of society would instantly evaporate, every marriage, friendship and business partnership dissolved. Civilization, which is held together by a fragile web of tactful phrasing, polite omissions and white lies, would collapse in an apocalypse of bitter recriminations and weeping, breakups and fistfights, divorces and bankruptcies, scandals and resignations, blood feuds, litigation, wholesale slaughter in the streets and lingering ill will.

This particular e-mail was, in itself, no big deal. Tone is notoriously easy to misinterpret over e-mail, and my friend's message could have easily been read as affectionate head shaking rather than a contemptuous eye roll. It's frankly hard to parse the word "oof" in this context. And let's be honest — I am terrible with money, but I've always liked to think of this as an endearing foible. What was surprisingly wounding wasn't that the e-mail was insulting but simply that it was unsympathetic. Hearing other people's uncensored opinions of you is an unpleasant reminder that you're just another person in the world, and everyone else does not always view you in the forgiving light that you hope they do, making all allowances, always on your side. There's something existentially alarming about finding out how little room we occupy, and how little allegiance we command, in other people's heads.

This experience is not a novelty of the information age; it's always been available to us by the accident of overhearing a conversation at the wrong moment. I've written essays about friends that I felt were generous and empathetic, which they experienced as devastating. I've also been written about, in ways I could find no fault with but that were nonetheless excruciating for me to read. It is simply not pleasant to be objectively observed — it's like seeing a candid photo of yourself online, not smiling or posing, but simply looking the way you apparently always do, oblivious and mush-faced with your mouth open. It's proof that we are visible to others, that we are seen, in all our naked silliness and stupidity.

Needless to say, this makes us embarrassed and angry and damn our betrayers as vicious two-faced hypocrites. Which, in fact, we all are. We all make fun of one another behind one another's backs, even the people we love. Of course we do — they're ridiculous. Anyone worth knowing is inevitably also going to be exasperating: making the same obvious mistakes over and over, dating imbeciles, endlessly relapsing into their dumb addictions and self-defeating habits, blind to their own hilarious flaws and blatant contradictions and fiercely devoted to whatever keeps them miserable. (And those few people about whom there is nothing ridiculous are by far the most preposterous of all.)

Although sometimes, let's just admit, we're simply being mean. A friend of mine described the time in high school when someone walked up behind her while she was saying something clever at that person's expense as the worst feeling she had ever had — and not just because of the hurt she'd inflicted on someone else but because of what it forced her to see about herself. That she made fun of people all the time, people who didn't deserve it, who were beneath her in the social hierarchy, just to ingratiate herself or make herself seem funny or cool.

Another friend once shared with me one of the aphorisms of 12-step recovery programs: "What other people think of you is none of your business." Like a lot of wisdom, this sounds at first suspiciously similar to idiotic nonsense; obviously what other people think of you is your business, it's your main job in life to try to control it, to do tireless P.R. and spin control for yourself. Every woman who ever went out with you must pine for you forever. Those who rejected you must regret it. You must be loved, respected — above all, taken seriously! They who mocked you will rue the day! The problem is that this is insane — the psychology of dictators who regard all dissent as treason, and periodically order purges to ensure unquestioning loyalty. It's no way to run a country.

THE operative fallacy here is that we believe that unconditional love means not seeing anything negative about someone, when it really means pretty much the opposite: loving someone despite their infuriating flaws and essential absurdity. "Do I want to be loved in spite of?" Donald Barthelme writes in his story "Rebecca" about a woman with green skin. "Do you? Does anyone? But aren't we all, to some degree?

We don't give other people credit for the same interior complexity we take for granted in ourselves, the same capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly alloyed affections, for bottomless generosity of heart and petty, capricious malice. We can't believe that anyone could be unkind to us and still be genuinely fond of us, although we do it all the time.

Years ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

[yihrae]

I just saw an Asian boy on the bus with dreadlocks except they weren’t really dreaded it was more of just locks but anyway he looked 12 and it leaves me wondering what this world has turned to

[yihrae]

I was walking to school today with my cookies exposed because they were still cooling down so I didn’t wanna close the lid so it wouldn’t condensate and I was walking and I swear I got so many looks from guys just staring at the cookies and one guy even licked his LIPS as he walked past (I do not exaggerate)

Anyway I think I have TRULY outdone myself this time, the idea of integrating Cadbury caramel chocolate bits into my cookies has transcended anyone who had ever dared to dabble with this craft

Excited to see what my friends think :)

[yihrae]

*someone rings the doorbell*

I see an uncle with a package delivery so I go out and collect it

*squints my eyes cause I just woke up but the sun is out*

“哇今天太阳很大眼睛睁不开啊”

I laughed and nodded

Wholesome interaction from today!

[yihrae]

"Yeah I'm supposed to be done with him there will always be 10% of me that is not! You get what I mean?" "Okay. Go take a dump right now" "ok and" "And poop out the 10% that's not"