How much are you afraid of losing? Of failing...? Failing and losing are my greatest fear. The interesting thing about a university education is the timing. It coincides with the time of our lives when we gotta ask ourselves several basic but most difficult questions.

What do we want in life? Where do we want to go after this? What matters to us in life?

If you've found your inspiration congrats, if not, work harder. Well it doesn't matter. You're bound to fail at some point.Too many smart people around who show how stupid we are by contrast. Can't seem to get good grades no matter how much we study. People won't give you opportunities. Companies rejecting our internship requests even before the deadline for application closes. Start company after we graduate and go bankrupt... no company wants to employ us...
We fall... we fall with our face flat on the ground... mud in our mouth. So what goes on after that?

Are you going to finish strong?



He says... But I tell you, there is some time in life, when you fall down, and you feel like you don't have the strength to get back up. Do you think you have hope? Because I tell you, I'm down here, face down, and I have no arms no leg. It should be impossible for me to get back up. But it's not.

You see, I will try 100 times to get up and if I fail 100 times... if i fail, and I give up do you think I am ever going to get up? NO. But if I fail and I try again and again and again... All I want you to know that it's not the end. It matters how you're going to finish. Are you going to finish strong? And you would find that strength to get back up. Like this.

Finally a new post after eons of dormancy - design project is making me stressed out and shedding my valuable hair.

Quite a lot of action lately but the free expression board still remains barren. Respond to my theme PEOPLE!!! haha (If there is one professor i would like to thank, he would be.....)

I was speaking to my friend from LA on Saturday and he was telling about me about this unofficial party Brown University (Rhodes Island) *totally unofficial nothing to do with the admin i must stress* has. Pardon me for the language but it's titled - Star F*ck. Held twice a year, it's (to the crudest term) a mass orgy.

(ok look guys in this post i am going to use strong language and i don't usually write like being the conservative me *grins*)

Then there is this "Underwear Run", where students wear their undies and go for a sexy run. All kinds of sizes and shapes... Totally unofficial too.

Well I was least surprised to hear all that. In my opinion, when you look at a university, you pretty much know how its society is like, and vice versa perhaps (in certain aspects at least). Yup, I know this is a gross generalisation but rest assured it's a neutral statement.

I am neutral towards the hot (perhaps cold cos not enough clothes) run and the parties. They are at the liberty to do what they like.

Here in NUS, we need to dig into our social fabric and really come to a consensus of what we want to be.
Somehow I feel that we are very "jebalang" now. Of course, it's overly childish of me to believe someone should steer the cultural development and mould us into a certain culture. Or that culture is something which can be moulded artificially.

But still! I believe something can be done. We need interaction. We need students to know what is happening in the university. Some form of sharing... some form of opinions... some form of dissent... some form of agreement... we need to say something against/for issues which concern us.

Be heard.

Many thanx to those who came down to listen my ramblings last Friday... my gf's bro counted... 84 people were there when I ended... good stuff!

a tiny bit of update from my welfare director, Wendy...
We've just submitted the facilities check report to the Office of Estates and Development so that they can look into the repairs. Repair works on broken benches and faulty power points should be completed by the end of this sem according to them.

See the decorations at LT6? Proudly done by Wendy's welfare committee. haha yea but nothing beats the drink stall uncle and auntie's dressing up for the occasion.

Nothing much from me these days... keep the stuff on the free expressions board coming... more voices please!

happy new yEAR dudes!

Haha

I am touched. But why EWW??? hahaha well, I was too touched by acts for generosity and appreciation, to the extent of me feeling goosebumps all over.

First, a final year student named Parthi praised us for doing a good job in this term of office following my mail to the faculty. :D Beams with pride!

Second, I received a call from a lecture mate from ME 2 called Miaoxin volunteering to print notes for ME 2. I told him we're usually don't do the notes printing but it's SME who does it but nonethelesss I was touched that someone would go the extra mile/take the initiative to print for everyone! :)

OOh what a touching day i had.

One of my worst fears is to speak to air; to a lecture theatre that is empty. Nonetheless, even if there was only 1 guy. I would speak.

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen”. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past ten years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas - oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it - overspending... the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma - the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of anything else.

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.

Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler’s ears.

It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn’t acknowledge defeat.

Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, “I wish just one of them could have won,” he said. “They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.” Mike loved kids - all kids - and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That’s when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition - one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on.

The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.

As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn’t end there.

You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more.

Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing to take down the envelope.

Mike’s spirit, like the Christmas spirit will always be with us.

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in the December 14, 1982 issue of Woman's Day magazine. It was the first place winner out of thousands of entries in the magazine's "My Most Moving Holiday Tradition" contest in which readers were asked to share their favorite holiday tradition and the story behind it. Learn how you can honor a loved one by giving something different this year by visiting www.WhiteEnvelopeProject.org