In my last introductory post on CS3216, I mentioned that I might get my nipples twisted off. Unfortunately, my wife read the blog entry and dutifully twisted them off with a full 360 degrees turn when I arrived home.

Ouch.

Hokay, just kidding.

***

Anyway, it was a great evening at NUS. I haven’t felt so much energy in people around me for a long time. When I spoke about the energy I felt from the people around me, Prof. Ben assured me this wasn’t the regular NUS. I was with the best of the best.

Since I only had a short 2 minute time slot and my nipples were at stake, I couldn’t talk too much. I hope some of you are reading this blog because I’m going to write a little bit more.

I’ve always loved to share and (hopefully) teach, just that I never had the real opportunity to. My dislike for the way local education works meant I don’t have a qualification and thus nobody would hire me to teach. I’ve had some short teaching stints while in Polytechnic, but that wasn’t real teaching – I was actually getting leeched off most of the time by the desperate people who just wanted me to debug their code and pass their assignments.

So I was silly to get leeched off, but such is the fact of life – there’s going to be people leeching people everywhere. You can choose to either be the one leeching others, or letting others leech on you.

Making this decision is important, especially if you aren’t out working yet because once you get leeched off, you’ll get sucked into this deep, dark black hole that continues to leech you till the day you die. No, I’m serious! Look around you how many people are working into their 60s. This is the effect of globalization and inflation.

Not many people get away from this black hole, I assure you, because I’m probably one of them. For those who do escape, I congratulate them. Because once you start working, you start having commitments, your expenses will balloon – peer pressure will make you buy that latest Gucci/LV bag. You’ll start having fears that you’ve got something to lose (your job/family/girlfriend/mistress/whatever).

***

I was chatting with a friend and I came up with a theory – there’s 4 phases we go through being screwed. Each weighs 25%.

  • You’re 25% screwed if you gone out to work for a crappy company.
  • You’re 25% screwed once you get married.
  • You’re 25% screwed once you have kids.
  • You’re 25% screwed once you’re dead.

So if you’re dead and not worked, not married, and have no kids, you died 25% screwed.

If you’re working, married and with kids, but not dead, you’re 75% screwed. Technically, you’re worse than the dead man.

Most people in this world die being 100% screwed.

OK, I’m just kidding. Getting married is a good thing, and please try to get married early. You don’t want to be a father of a 2-year old at the age of 55. Very tiring.

End of commercial break. Moving on…

***

So I’ll reiterate my point that the best time to be foolish and hungry is really in school when you have nothing to lose but time and some grades. Hey, you don’t need to get an ‘A’ in everything really, ‘cos nobody really bothers unless you’re planning to be a civil servant.

CS3216 is a really a great opportunity to share some of my experiences with so many talented people and I hope to learn something new from everyone as well.

See you next Monday! KTHXBYE.