Finally Done

After the 7 episodes of my horrible Romeo and Juliet alternate version, I am finally done with that story. Frankly speaking, I think that was one of the worst story I've ever written. However, due to time constraint, motion to rewrite and refine the story will be overruled. Now thats done, I have something much greater ahead me - college app. All the essays are crazily haunting me. So I have to go and find some really good organizing program that sort my essays in a way I can easily retrieve them. Such progress took me an hour to do so. Finally, I am done. Now, let's get to work.

Benjamin and Evangeline pt.7

After spending 99 hours in the dungeon, Benjamin managed to break the lock and ran away. A couple of hours later, he appeared before Evangeline's dungeon and unbolt her door. The next morning, both families were shocked to see the open doors to their dungeons. By that time, Benjamin and Evangeline managed to elope with a lot of cash stolen from their parents. They spent a couple days in a lodging place in the suburb before they collect all the necessities they need to cross the border to Thilgium. When they are ready, they ran across the field happily, awaiting the good life they are going to spend together. Suddenly, Evangeline tripped over a rock, hit on her head, and died. Benjamin, who was taken surprise by this accident, cried loudly in agony. The farmer thought it was some beast tramping on his field again and shot the shadowy figure. When he walked near, he saw a dead couple embracing each other in the pool of blood with roses growing in it (why? I do not know. Love magic maybe?)

Benjamin and Evangeline pt.6

On the other side, Benjamin's torture is beyond comprehension. He was first branded with a huge A on his chest, standing for abandoning family. That hot iron that buried into his chest forced a huge scream of agony out of Benjamin (the voice recorded and then played to Evangeline in the previous chapter). Then, Benjamin was thrown into a room full of toothless snakes and nonpoisonous spiders, which are creatures Benjamin are allergic to and they crawl all over him during his stay. The slimy and tickling sensation made Benjamin fall in a state of turmoil with all his senses confusing him even more. In addition to the physical abuse he was suffering, he was also blindfolded, throwing him into pitch black bafflement. Finally, the fact that he cannot reach to Evangeline marked the last knife that struck right into his heart.

Benjamin and Evangeline pt.5

During the meeting, both heads of family was outraged when they heard this news, so for the first time, they decided to cooperate in teaching this young couple a lesson. Upon Benjamin and Evangeline's return, both families threw them into their uniquely designed dungeon. In the Wondas' dungeon, there is a 24 hour broadcast of constant scolding and Benjamin's screaming in agony. It seems plainly annoying to outsiders like us, but unable to talk to Benjamin and the realization that he is suffering drove Evangeline crazy. The constant noise rang in her head and she cannot even organize her thoughts, causing her to lie in a near mental breakdown stage. Everything inside the dungeon, the walls, the floor, even the air, is electrified and heated, giving them a stinging and burning sensation to Evangeline. Before she fainted, she was scared, scared of thinking what Benjamin would have to face on the other end.

Benjamin and Evangeline pt.4

The failure in striking a deal with other countries successfully, and in fact, sparked a couple of wars with them, Pandora was extremely upset. During their unhappy trip back to her regime, she was so mad that her veins popped out and eyes reddened. The long term of distress and annoyance got her sick, which made her even more mad. When they finally reached their Capital, she dashed to the throne and called for a private meeting between the Hotmans and the Wondas. She claimed that she read Benjamin and Evangeline's minds and discovered that their love seem to dominate over their conscious, stripping away their will to inherit the family. Of course,  nobody knew whether that is true as even I cannot read minds. At this time, Benjamin and Evangeline was still enjoying their candlelight dinner, unknowingly enjoying the last moments of their happiness.

Benjamin and Evangeline pt.3

A couple days later, the group started to move toward the neighboring country - Thilgium. Because they used a double seated carriage, Benjamin and Evangeline had a really long time to develop their relationship. By long, I mean 1 month. During the trip, Benjamin was bringing up all the nice things he saw during his job while Evangeline happily listens, admiring his charisma. When they finally arrived at Thilgium, they had two separate rooms booked, much to their dismay. Everyday after the meeting, they would walk together, tour together and shop together. At night, they secretly go and sleep in each other's room. Pandora saw all this through her crystal ball and yet she felt it was not much of a deal, not yet. Couple days later, their romance faced a crisis. Benjamin failed to interpret the treaty for Pandora accurately, causing her to lose quite some money. Evangeline was not acting lady-like no more, putting Pandora at an awkward position in the meeting. When Pandora lost face, she was determined to break those two lovers apart.

Benjamin and Evangeline pt.2

In Wondas family corporation, there is a Standard Lacing and Umbrella-swing Training Center, commonly abbreviated as SLUTCenter. Evangeline, as a master of lacing and swinging her umbrella in an extraordinary lady-like fashion, became the Master of SLUT, aka, central SLUT. The SLUTCentral was such a popular center for ladies that Evangeline gained fame all across the nation. When Pandora requested 10 aristocrats to attend a formal meeting in another nation, Evangeline was selected. When she arrived at the welcoming prom, she came into eye contact with Benjamin Hotman. Both of them immediately got attracted and fell in love with each other, having no idea of the great tragedy ahead of them.

Benjamin and Evangeline pt.1

Long time ago, if anyone can remember at all, was the darkest age of human kinds, the Pandora regime. Pandora was the queen of a kingdom known as Phantom Apparition State. Her immense magical power allowed her to watch over her entire population of subject easily through her crystal ball. The power of surveillance can even read target's mind if they are close enough. In this nation, there are many aristocrats, among them, there are the Hotmans and the Wondas. Hotmans all worked in royal courts and participated in many policy making. On the other hand, Wondas is a rather mysterious family, with immense wealth though no supreme leadership in any field. There, the unfortunate story of Benjamin Hotman and Evangeline Wondas began.

The mix up cards

Last Friday, we have all our room cards messed up. We mixed them up by accident when we were all in Pamela's room. That was impressive. I cannot believe how EVERYONE manage to get the wrong key and we cannot figure it out. That perplexity is just amazing. The event first started when Ben decided to return to his room. He found out there are multiple key cards on the table. He decided to try his luck. Ms. Pamela got really anxious. She desperately tried all the keys on the table on her door and she failed to do so. She cannot find her key in that deck of cards. She decide to find it tomorrow. I am so glad at that time that I still have my key in my pocket...oh wait, was that really mine?

When you ever get bored, don't be rash and do something stupid

When you ever get bored, don't be rash and do something stupid. During this Model United Nation Economic and Social Council, I was really bored this morning. In fact, I would have fallen asleep had Eileen not slap me awake. Just before lunch, there was a proposal to include a rather useless amendment. Usually, those amendments would pass without much hassle as people do not care about those minor details, the increase does not significantly hurt the actual meaning. However, since I was so bored, I took a stand against the amendment impromptu and well, I sucked at it. I stuttered so badly that I regret taking the podium right after I left it.

MS experience

So we have our first day of THIMUN Singapore today. As I slept in my previous THIMUN lobbying, I made sure I did not fall asleep this time.  Somehow, people who worked on my issue are newbies, with at most 2 conference attended. The very idea annoyed me. When we decide to write the resolution, I was thinking of becoming the main submitter. However, after our intensive revision, I see my clauses removed one by one. Without putting up too much of a fight, I lost the intention to become the MS. There were 3 candidates of MS in my team, and among us, me and a girl had experience of MS. Thus, I proposed to let the 3^rd person, the Korean boy to be the MS. Surprisingly, he decide to only be the 2^nd speaker. Thus, when the chance of MS returned back to me and the girl, I offered the chance as I felt I did much less than what she did. She, instead of taking it for granted, asked for a rock paper scissor decision. And…I won. I guess when you really want something , you won’t get it until you lose interest in it.

Forcing intentions on others is an evil act

Lets start with another quote from Code Geass : Lelouch of the Rebellion. “ Forcing your good intentions on others is no different from an evil act.” People have always being egocentric. They believe what they think is the sole truth. When their beliefs are challenged and defeated, they take on the newly convinced truth. Thus, when they care for someone deeply, they seek to force what they think is the best for them on those they care for. The best example is Asian parents forcing their ideal child model onto their kids. Just look at all those parents making their kids play piano and violin, send them to test preps, etc. Although the actions are made on the basis of a good intention, the very act of forcing own wills on others is a detestable, even evil act. 

Panic

Panic, a source of crazy stuff, can boost people's ability over their limit like an adrenaline rush. AHHHHH!! Thats the most common expression. Anyway, I am currently undergoing some serious panicking. Apart from the homework panicking, which is greater than usual due to the piled up workload for Singapore, I have MUN panicking, Reso panicking, and packing panicking. MUN panicking comes from the sheer pressure of expectation, going up on the stage, make an awesome speech, be a main submitter, all kinds of stuff. That is pretty crazy. Reso panicking, like homework panicking is the pressure of procrastination. Finally, packing panicking, its just a fear of forgetting to pack something and humiliation later.

Strategy cannot be defeated by real time tactics

"Strategy cannot be defeated by real time tactics". This is a quote I retrieved from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. People, especially adults, love to stress how important comprehensive planning is. In fact, our entire political system is designed to plan everything for the future and hope things roll out the way we want it to. However, does it always happen that way? Heck no. Earthquakes, tsunamis, epidemics, all happen without clues beforehand. We can prepare for it but we can never anticipate for it. Our preparation can barely any chance to put into actual action in effectively combating the situation. In other words, what we have done, all those set ups, have a high chance to go in vain. Moreover, those plans we think of, actually obstruct the correct way to solve the situation. Even when conditions are not met, humans tend to believe what they want to believe, and in this case, the conditions are met. They put forth their plan and wasted time and resources in it before realizing it was not worthwhile. Thus, real time tactics, or commonly referred to as improvisation, is the key to solve issues. Do not get me wrong, I do not denounce strategies and plans, but I do not agree with the current over reliance on plans.

Is lying/not telling the truth really a bad thing?

Yes it is. No matter how benign your reason may be, lying is a bad thing. Sometimes people claim that lies are sometimes required to sustain friendly relationships. Complete honesty may sometimes harm a relationship. However, the truth is, if another person cannot forgive your mistake, he/she might not be worth to remain as your friend. Sincere relations between friends have to be of candid honesty. It might be that your friend could have taken the truth, and yet, he cannot accept the fact that you lie to him. Attempting to accomodate the feeling of the other can sometimes backfire. I had a failure experience that testifies to this extremely well. Once, I had a sort of gathering with my friends. Yet, my best friend scheduled to leave Taiwan at that period of time. Thus, I decide to not tell my best friend about it, afraid that he would think I planned to isolate him from the start. I felt that since he could not come anyway, there is no point in inviting him or telling him. However, somehow, he found out. He was not happy that I did not tell him. He know he could not show up, but he cannot accept that fact that I decide not to tell him about it and pretend nothing happen. That is when I realize, there is no such thing as good lies. Good relationship should only rely on pure honesty.

Number 1

Many Asian parents urge their kids to achieve No. 1. They seek to take the first place whenever possible. Many see anyone apart from the 1st place to be the same. That is to treat 2nd place and last place alike. However, to my point of view, its rather a meaningless thing to accomplish. Being number one means that everyone else is behind you. You feel the chill in your spine and the only thing you can do is move on. Not only that, when you seek to defeat everyone else, it means that you are declaring war against the rest of the world. How tiring it is to be going against the rest of the world? You have to run endlessly, fearing that one day someone else is going to pass you while you rest. You lose your time to enjoy life. Not only that, when you are going against the entire world, you are on your own. It is said that those on the peak experience solitude. Nothing can be more truthful than this. At the peak of mountain, there is only one standing spot. There can only be one 1st place. True, looking down, the view is magnificent. However, one have to bear that solitude that humans aren't born to take. In order to take the 1st place, there is too much to lost, too much great things to miss. Simply, it is not worth it to simply attaining that title.

You don't make 500 million friends without making a few enemies

Well, in truth, nobody ever have 500 million friends. It would already be very impressive to know 500 million people. However, that is a trivial matter of this saying. The essence of this claim is that if you want to have friends, you are bound to have enemies. It is simply unavoidable. As stated in my last blog entry, the only attempt to evade contemptuous encouragement of enemies is to stay neutral on events, in which case, you will lose your friends. Thus, you have to take a stand. However, there must be someone out there who does not share your ideas and if his idea conflicts with yours, you two are bound to be enemies. If you think about the saying again, it makes perfect sense. When everyone is friend to each other, there will certainly be wold peace. But why haven't we achieve that? The answer lies in the flaw of mankind. Fear. Jealousy. Corruption. Decay. War. It is a bellicose and vicious cycle of hatred to begin with. Once it is started, unless someone is willing to step up and carry all the hatred, the cycle will not end. However, it is simply not humanly possible. It is impossible to get rid of all the hatred. Thus, the human flaw will still persist. In the end, people have to make enemies because they want friends. It is that emotional exchange that makes us human.

Neutrality

On many occasions neutrality in conflicts is the most reasonable and safest stand. The best example is Canada, who she has virtually no enemies at all. However, when such thing takes place between friends, it became a quite complicated matter. To solve this issue, we have to split the conflict into several categories. First, if the conflict takes place between your friend and a stranger, there is no doubt on which side you should stand. Of course, that is to say the stands are controversial or reasonable on both sides. Then there is conflict between two equally close friends. In this case, neutrality prevents great damage to both friendships, but do note that it does have a little negative impact on both. Now there is the tricky one, when there are two friends arguing, and one is closer than the other. Of course, it seems simple as to treat this case as case 2. However, that will severely damage the friendship and trust of the closer friend. It can be that friendship still remain, but here is the psychology of the closer friend. If you stay neutral to both of us, you see us as equals. However, if I treat you this well and equal treatment with the other, why should i bother? I can do less! That is the mental process of the closer friend. So, I believe a person should either pretend NOT to know about the conflict or stand on the closer friend's side. Either neutrality or supporting the less closer friend is a detestable idea.

The Two Sides of Truth: Love and Hate

There are always two sides to everything. Heads and tails of a coin, bright and dark side of the moon, and two sides to the truth. Of course, there is always one truth, but people look at it differently. Many times, when two people argue, they come to the conclusion that what they believe are both right, except the point of views do not reconcile in any way. That, is exactly what brings conflicts. The absolute truth seems to be incomprehensible by the mankind. No matter how hard we try, we can only accept a side of truth. I was recently perplexed at how stubborn and cynical we can be. However, the further I dive into the question, the more surprises I encounter. I could not believe how people cannot see things the way I do. It makes perfect sense to me, so I thought everyone else should. However, somehow they can provide a contrary idea that also makes perfect sense. Some time during my investigation, I even start to doubt that there is only one truth. The ideas just do not reconcile each other. But on a deeper level of contemplation, I realize the ideas stem from the same root of thinking. Not only that, every root has its root. Now, I begin to wonder. Where exactly is that ultimate truth that supports every idea in the world, the basis, the assumption we made.