exeunt omnes

As the RI people would have certainly known, hence ends my little ditty in Secondary School. How quickly time seemed to pass when viewed in retrospect. Truly, it is because we only live in the Present, that the view we have of the past becomes compressed into an infinitesimal speck to reminisce over.

Too quickly, too quickly! In retrospect, I have done too little; met people far too few. But ah well, what is there to regret or to lament? It was, if I can be any judge, a fruitful four years. I have been given much and taught much, shown many new things, many which I now have come to love.

Kk, this shall not be some sentimentalistic moan about this and that. (For really, nobody likes reading that. They very much prefer reading about juicy stuff. Like Cyril Wong's poetry, which I shall not describe here, being a minor.) School life is like nom-ing an apple. Only dimwits cry when they've eaten all the meaty bits and are left with the core. Only pretentious dimwits eat the core as well and cry all the more. (Gosh, what the heck is that supposed to mean?)

Buhbye 2L'07 & 4C'09. It was a short four years, but seeing that I only have 15 to speak of, who am I to complain eh?

Herald Sad and Trumpet Be

This weblog needs a revival. And a revamp. I realy ought to commit to a more casual writing style, and actually use fragments in writing, the type I see in everybody else's blogs. Like this.

Hello everybody, dear me, hadn't I had a long little nap of five months. How thoroughly careless of me. In actuality, this weblog would definitely have far fewer posts from hereon. But that is not a matter for a proper post, so let us move on to the body proper.
~~~

It is very irksome to read translations of Chinese poetry. These poems are 1300 years old, so you would think the gits who use the much younger Modern English would respect such a semiotic senior.

But the very best translations I see so far are untrue to semantic equivalence and nuances, with ridiculously bouncy chocolate-hyper rhythms and forced rhymes, and that is hardly satisfactory for the like of my tastes. I have recently obtained a copy of Wong Phui Nam's translations (who, by the way, someone really ought to write a Wikipedia page for) of T'ang poems, and although they deserve merit for being so fluently phrased, without the usual contrived syntax of Chinese-English translations, they are not semantically equivalent, neither do they replicate equivalent nuances in the English.

True enough, Wong himself had admitted they were poems new writ in English, with only some basis and roots in the Chinese original. But that means that (annoyingly) I cannot use them as translationsof the Chinese, and hence unusable for my sending to non-Sinophones.

So I am currently attempting translations, and Imust say I am very very terrible at it. Perhaps the linguistical differences between the two media, having been derived from completely different historical roots, is too far apart for mutual cohabitation in verse. But that is a pity, really.

On Friendship and the Nature of our Peers and Ourselves

I was asked to reflect on what gain 'fun' pursuits give me, in the likes of co-curricular activities &c., and my answer was straightforwardly "Nothing which I cannot learn otherwise by quicker means, and certainly nothing more than I can learn from other things on which the same time could be spent." Certainly a seemingly unorthodox answer, but one given after countless bus-rides and corridor-walks worth of examination. The retort I received for my answer was: "What about your friends?"

Good friends, do not be offended by what I state in this note, rather consider it as merely another exercise of reason with no bearing on your own circumstance unless you have will enough to accept it.

What are these friends we speak of? I call them good companions, people whose company I enjoy very much in the same way I enjoy a good book, or a pretty flower found by chance on the street, but offering more lasting and unique enjoyment in that unlike a book or flower, people keep reinventing themselves, and so the pleasure of their companionship is more tenacious than other pleasures. To what extent can I call them 'friends'?

Certainly we exchange graces and conduct towards each other kindness, respect and the gratitude of being granted the former two. What of that? Rather, should we not already conduct to all humanity, companion or stranger, these same quantities of kindness, respect and gratitude? Or are such basic qualities reserved only for these people whom we call friends. Truly, we are loyal to each other, in a sense that we trust each other more than we trust those other, the strangers whom we've yet to meet. But this is a relic of our paranoia and cynicism. Would a newborn know, in his innocence, treat a stranger with any less humanity than with his playmate? Perhaps that is the wrong question to ask, but what we do know is that such good things of spirit that we offer our friends as privileges are in fact due to all of the whole world. How then are friends different except our knowledge that they are likely to be a 'decent' human being, as compared to a stranger sampled off the road?

What is this entity of friendship that is thought so noble a thing? I could certainly consult the Nicomachean Ethics, but Aristotle gives no convincing answer. In good faith, I think it to be a sort of love , and one is truly friend with another if you can say to him, "Friend, I love you as a brother." and receives the reply "And so are you to me." Have we then any good epitome of love that we may refer to? We are told that "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends", which is more than a sufficient example of how true friendship can be, of how true love can become.

Then, to what extent dare we say "he is my friend, whom I dearly love"? Or "I have many friends"? Or worse yet "I have a thousand friends: they are all Facebook"? Good friend who reads this little piece, to what extent are you a friend of mine, or I a friend to you, and to what extent are your friends with anyone else and vice versa? If you were called to lay your life down, to spend as it were an eternity with that person you suppose your friend (take not the word "eternity" lightly) to what would you commit? I do not doubt your capacity for friendship; the questions that abound in this short note are more for my own person than for any person else.

The commodification and devaluation of the word "friend" has reached the extent that it has been used as a retort against me. Here is my reply to "What about your friends?" as asked above:

Few friends have I, and friends to few am I. How many would I have made in this brief span of life, much less in the trivial circumstances which you suppose I had made friends in?

Whee!

Hello all! First a confession: I'm a noob! *applause*

Now since that's done and over with, let's all thank the great Zhan Xiong in his great efforts to teach this little noob (who is me) C++!

Here's my first little bit:

#include
using namespace std;

bool bearchops(int a)
{
int b;
for (b=2; b <= a/2; b++)
{
if (!(a%b))
return false;
}
return true;
}

int main()
{
int x;
for (x = 2; x == x; x++)
{
if(bearchops(x))
cout << "Bryan failz: " << x << endl;
}
system("pause");
return 0;
}

Yay!

MilvianBridge

Dear Reader,

This Weblog is currently on extended hiatus. The writer sincerely apologises.

Consider the following link in retrospect.

Milvian Bridge

Thank you.