laremy.sg

I spend more time deleting what it is I don’t want to say, as opposed to writing what it is I actually want to say.

Perhaps it’s symptomatic of age. More likely it is because I am too afraid to name the beast.

This is a painting entitled “The Nightmare” (1781) by Henry Fuseli and it depicts the condition of sleep paralysis/night terrors.

I used to suffer from this condition. I probably still have it but its occurrences have diminished somewhat since I started:

• Having (somewhat) regular sleep patterns,
• Getting (somewhat) more rest, and
• Moderating my caffeine intake.

Anyway, I just found out that someone close to me suffers from this condition, so I decided to read up about it again. This condition supposedly affects Asians and teens* more than it does other people, so I thought I’d post up some info here so that you can find out how to deal with this condition if you suffer from it too**:

• All in the Mind?: An article by Paul Chambers.
• Sleep paralysis: Facts and data.

  and of course, how could I not leave you without

• The Horla, a short story by Guy de Maupassant***.

Have a good rest tonight.

• Of ignorance: I thought it was ‘spirits’, and the people around me weren’t inclined to discourage me from adopting that point of view, and
• It never occurred to me to do research on the conditions I was afflicted with until I was slightly older. Then again, Googling for information has become a norm, so it could also be techno-cultural evolution, I guess.

*** Oh! I think Charlotte Bronte and Roald Dahl may have made references to sleep paralysis in their stories (Wuthering Heights and a short story about a snake in a bed, respectively) too, although it seemed they might not have known about this condition at those times. I’ll need to dig up the stories again to be sure.

Had to go for a Digital Storytelling Workshop organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore over the last few days. This is the product of the workshop.

The YouTube link here in case you can’t see the embedded video.

The script we had to write:

Pooters the Happy Scooter
By Laremy Lee

The first thing I do before first-time pillion riders get on my bike is to introduce my scooter to them. “My scooter’s name is Pooters,” I will say. “Pooters?” they will ask. “But why?” My response: “Because it poots.”

Pooters is a Vespa ET8 that I’ve owned since receiving my motorcycle license back in 2004. When I bought Pooters, it was black in colour. After Pooters and I met with our first accident in 2005, however, my father nagged me into painting Pooters white. Since then, Pooters and I have been in two more accidents, so maybe it’s not really about its colour.

Pooters has a knack of endearing itself to everyone it meets. While Pooters’s fan base is innumerable, let me settle this matter once and for all: I am Pooters’s biggest fan. After me, comes my girlfriend, and after her, the cats in my neighbourhood. I just wish they’d stop leaving their paw prints on Pooters’s seat.

I like to think that the reason why Pooters is so popular is because Pooters is A Happy Scooter that smiles at everyone and everything it sees. I know it sounds like mere whimsy on my part, but rest assured that you’re not gonna get a chance to ride on Pooters if you don’t agree with us.

Though it isn’t always rainbows and unicorns with Pooters, you know. One of my biggest bugbears is Pooters’s temperament: it often breaks down at the most inconvenient of times. Compound that with Singapore’s penchant for rain, and it’s a surefire recipe for an unpleasant commute.

Does this mean I’ll be trading Pooters in for another vehicle anytime soon? Well, for all its quirks, Pooters occupies a special place in my heart. Until the day comes for us to ride under the giant ERP gantry in the sky, you’ll still find us pooting merrily down the roads of Singapore together, Pooters and I.

1. Update HR database with the courses that I’ve gone for ASAP.
   Spent an unpleasant weekend last year updating the database because I let everything accumulate.
2. Create a list called ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ in Google Docs so I can update it with… all these things that I’ve done (at work).
   For the purposes of work review and the like.

I wonder if anyone else sees the irony in this.

• My letter to the Censorship Review Committee 2009

“Precisely because we have been mollycoddled for so long, the catching up has to be faster-paced. In short: be bold.” – Yawning Bread rocks.

• Singaporeans, Foreigners, Babies and the Property Market

‘Many Singaporeans will be caught out. They can’t afford to buy, they can’t afford to rent. They will park themselves with their parents or in-laws, and defer marriage and/or childbirth.

A few years later, PM Lee will stare at his charts and numbers, and lament once again about how come Singaporeans are getting married later and later, and why are the birth rates falling lower and lower again.

Then in his great wisdom, he will conclude, “Oh we need to import more foreigners.”‘

• 3 Cuties, 1 Beer Uncle, 1 Pedo and a Dead Guy

“Then I imagined. I imagined if Sunshine’s boyfriend or ex-boyfriend was at the drowning. To all of a sudden notice the absence of your loved one and then suspect he is drowning, to frantically look around but not finding, to know that he is drowning yet you cannot find him, to be helpless and not know what to do, to wish that you could be his substitute, suffer in his place but you cannot–that must be one of the greatest pain of all. And then to be someone’s lover and yet not to be acknowledged a proper status in his family.”

• "She deserved it!" (Girl Molested Pt 1)

Singaporean men are such dicks!

• Tongue twisters

“Most fascinating is a feature that would make any journalist tremble. Tuyuca requires verb-endings on statements to show how the speaker knows something…. English can provide such information, but for Tuyuca that is an obligatory ending on the verb. Evidential languages force speakers to think hard about how they learned what they say they know.” – I guess The Temasek Review would come crashing down like a house of cards if they were forced to write in Tuyuca.