photo: "simple joys"

"simple joys" | barcelona

Can we ever return to that with which
We started with?
That innocence, that guts to
Act in faith, to let fly,
Not not care about consequences and thus
Live life a little more full?

Are has cynicism encrusted into our skin,
The only one we now know?
Is there no more room for whimsicals, for
Puppy loves?
What has this world done to us?

I want to fiercely defend the child in me,
The child the Father made in His image,
And not be so obsessed being the
Adult that the world has forced me to be.

You may join me.
But if you intend to wear your trenchcoat of
Purposeless cynicism, then my house
May not be for you.
Yet, the doors are always open, the welcome mat out.

Uncle T

Reminiscing over a cuppa

Another post I wrote after starting work. It is incomplete, yet still worthy for what it is. Perhaps I will complete it someday, perhaps in a way totally different from the way it was intended. But that is the way sometimes things are; ever-changing, never still. Always, therefore, I've got to always prepare for change, even in the things that I thought were meant to last forever.

Funny how a mere morning cuppa can trigger so many memories.

This morning, it is Starbucks at Fusionopolis, Singapore. Yet, just standing here adding raw brown sugar to my espresso sends shots of memories flying back to me. Waking in Brooklyn, morning lectures in Warwick, makan in Corsica, breakfast at Ang Moh Kio...Morning kopi is a trigger, a portal, my hope.

Perhaps it is the caffeine. No. It is just the kopi experience. The clarity of mind that comes with this experience is so sharp it is amazing each time. As clear as the Corscian moon in Easter.

Bus

This was a post written nearly 4 months back, when I first came home from the UK. Then, I was adjusting back to life in Singapore. Now, I am still adjusting. Now I am even wondering if its naive to think people I left behing 3 years back are still the same.

I am on the bus home. Same number, but new bus. The seats are now some untearable synthetic red thing. The bus passes through a familiar route, one literally that captures much of my teenhood. The bus pulls into the stop where the ex-girlfiriend lives.

One observation, other than the one that you now have to wear seatbelts at the back of the bus. I do wonder how young couples make out at the back of buses these days. The observation: nearly everyone on the bus is engaged with an electronic device, including me, in trying to type this. The boy next to me is figuring out some love triangle over the phone.

The lights on the bus are so bright I feel naked. Just a few years back, dim buslights were conducive for falling asleep, creating alluring orange hues that guarantee you miss your stop.

I wonder where this ride will take me. Hopefully to a place where there is good company, love, jazz, coffee, a pen and a paper...

Matthew 6:25

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to to his life?

Uncle T

Statistics on Social Media

photo courtesy of http://theamazingworldofpsychiatry.wordpress.com

Social Media

These statistics are from the blog socialnomics.net, inspired by the book of the same title. Do hope that whenever you can catch some time, grab a glimpse of these numbers that show the massive impact social media has on our lives, and only looking to be greater down the road.

Statistics

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network

2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web

3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media

4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.

5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia (note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)

6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)

7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network

8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction

9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum

10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%

11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females

12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the population of Ireland, Norway, or Panama. Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.

13. 80% of Twitter usage is outside of Twitter…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?

14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…

16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube

17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English

18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs

19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily

20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth

21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour

22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0

23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content

24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands

25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them

26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations

27. Only 14% trust advertisements

28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI

29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do

30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009

31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone

32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available

33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.

34. In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media

35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second

37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

Uncle T

photos: forgotten beauties around us

All these photographs were taken at a quiet little garden in Jurong West, Singapore. I don't suppose anyone would think something so small could hide somethings so beautiful.

There is so much around us to see, if only we look around and be open to finding something beautiful out there.

Uncle T

shots of a london i miss

capiscums@borough market | london

death by confectionary | borough market, london

upon london bridge | london

kitchen @ wright's brothers oyster bar | london

dinner@ wright's brothers | london

Uncle T

Gone for the weekend

Not too many weekends ago, I left the regularity of an urban weekend and went for a retreat, tucked away in a secluded corner of Hougang.

Not too many weekends later, I am yet again off to a retreat, this time in ulu-ated Jurong West. And given I am standing in a crowded train typing this, the getaway from the urban rush is terribly inviting.

This retreat is called the 'Choice Weekend'. It is supposedly about making choices in our lives especially with regards to the relationships in our lives. As always, these retreats always seem daunting at the start. They often pose tough questions that require taking out old crumpled clothing from the closet that require some ironing. They often end off begging a call to action in our lives. All in all, the advent of such retreats scares the shit out of me. Yet, I still am ever eager.

I guess its much like taking rollar coasters; always getting cold feet just before yet thirsting for the exhilaration and thrill, and end up not regretting going after coming out at the end.

As much as one may argue that self-reflection can be done anyway anytime, my humanness much prefers a dedicated and conducive environment to do just that. Therefore, such retreats are loooking to be regular features in my working life ahead.

Why not come along for the next retreat? You are always more than welcome.

The journey from the head to the heart is one of the longest journeys in life. But remember you,re not alone ya.

Vocab time: Cornucopia

–noun

1.	Classical Mythology. a horn containing food, drink, etc., in endless supply, said to have been a horn of the goat Amalthaea.

2.	a representation of this horn, used as a symbol of abundance.

3.	an abundant, overflowing supply.

4.	a horn-shaped or conical receptacle or ornament.

Origin:
1585–95;(see cornu ) + cōpiae of plenty (gen. s. of cōpia); see copious

Uncle T

All he can do is kneel and pray...

With just a dismissive few words, Susan ended their lives. He just cannot believe it, how cold she was in the delivery; Susan did not flinch one bit. He didn't know to be angry or just plain shattered; Susan just didn't care anymore. Not to mention them, Susan didn't care about him anymore. All he was was an existence that hung on the wall; if it were straight or crooked, horizontal or vertical, Susan seemed oblivious to the state of his existence. She just knew he was there, nothing more. From being Susan's pride, he now just became an existence; he became merely a number to call only for help.

He wants to scream, but the 4-walls of morality and decency discourages him and the ignorance of the rest of the world drowns out his cries. All he can do is kneel and pray, hoping that someone way up there would hear his sobs.

He fights back the tears, fights back the loneliness, fights back the cynicism laced with anger. He wants to fight for the future; a future of love and hope.

Amen.

Uncle T

Just one day

'If you had one day, just one, to know a stranger, what will you do?

Have a darn good conversation over darn-good coffee and jazz. And pray we'll meet again.'

A cold tropical night

The tiny little angel in her arms, the young mother strolls in the night singing to the little one. A comforting sight on this cool evening. Somehow, its abit too cold for a tropical night; too cold.


Uncle T

Saturdays & words

For the second time this week, I am having a Haagen-Dazs affogato alone. Today, with a slightly heavier heart on a Saturday, but that's nothing too surprising with Uncle T.

I love Saturdays, especially the afternoons. Its that sweet spot of the week that I wish lasts forever. You know the excitement of the weekend that occurs around Thursday afternoons? Saturday mornings is the realisation of this excitement. It is the beginning of the endless possibilities the weekend can offer. All this on Saturdays.

Saturday's sunlight seems less harsh, seems gentler; present, but gentle. Saturday's jazz more about hopeful infatuations that resigned unrequitted love; Saturday's breeze more understanding than the cruel winds that wreck havoc in the region; Saturday's words more dreamy than pensively contemplative; Saturday's steeets filled with loosened collars than sullen faces. Saturday is that sweet spot of the week I wished lasted forever.

I sit here typing on a tiny screen all my big ponderings and what-ifs. The day I decided to entertain that English what-if has added to the philosophical bubbles in my head. I sit here listening to the piped in oldies I used to sing when I was young. Week in week out, I sang oldies on karaoke. I was so contented singing. Not caring about anything else but the cheesy music videos and lit words on the screen. The lyrics, till today, speak of the script of my daydreams. But today, I simply get teased about that kind of music, that kind of lyrics. Sometimes not just teased, judged. I wish I were in a Parisian cafe people-watching. That way, I don't get judged but rather be the judge.

I don't expect anyone to understand these ramblings; there is no need to understand a person like he/she was meant to be understood like a maths formulae. Or so I think.

The oldies keep playing as the rush of Apec volunteers whizz by. Soon, it will be once again my turn to be called into action. This whole week of Apec have been easier to bear only because of words. This week, words have been my panacea, my heterotopia.

I just wish to share Saturdays and words with someone that feels right with, you know? I guess I'll wait. Won't you wait with me?

Invest in love

"They say the bigger your investment, the bigger your return. But you have to be willing to take a chance. You have to understand... you might lose it all. But if you take that chance, if you invest wisely, the payoff might just surprise you"

- Grey's Anatomy

Uncle T

You say it best, when you say nothing...really?

Ok I cannot take it. I need to share this to someone, even if it is to an anonymous-one.

I BOUGHT A NEW CAMERA LENS!!!!!!!

Okay, so much for my attempt to always be suave, collected, charming young man. These days I'm closer to sloppy, hair-pulling old ah pek.

Think I might go for a night shoot along Orchard with the new lens :) India here I come!