So anyways, the new website is yeehung.com. This blog will self-destruct in 7 days.

See you on the new site!

I’ve heard it twice, the first time months ago and the second yesterday. I can’t stop thinking about it. A speech worthy of the writer behind the record-breaking book series, and a demonstration of the power of words.

The things people do to other people…the exclusive human power to imagine and empathise…colluding through apathy…wilful blindness…

Watch it.

I was standing at the train station, looking at my watch, then the clock protruding from the brick wall of Platform 1, then my watch again. Both times read 12:50pm, however hard I will the hands to point somewhere else. My interview was at 1.15pm, in London, 3 hours away.

How could I have forgotten that taking the train to the company HQ takes time?

That was £34 worth of reserved train tickets down the drain. Along with them went my chances of getting the job. I lower my head, my hands grabbing my hair, and raise it up again with a sigh of frustration…

…that breaks the silence of the early morning, and slowly dissolves into the quiet darkness of my bedroom. I check my watch again. This time it says 4.55am.

Angular velocity of Singapore Flyer, θ = 360/(30×60) = 0.2deg/s.

Yep, that’s the only thing I gained from my 30-minute “flight”. The only memorable thing happened before it began:

(while waiting to enter the cabin as it slowly moves into the loading area)

JY: Where does this go to?

“…a lot of economics research aims to answer narrow questions very well–especially the kind of research that gets you a good job or tenure. Some of this work is mathematical masturbation. Some is a rehashing of puzzles that economists care about only because they are puzzles (and it’s a chance to be clever). But a lot of the research is very good and very important.”

Dammit! I thought I was the only one who used the term ‘mathematical masturbation’. It came to me during one of the Math lectures when it was obvious only the prof was enjoying himself.

Should have trademarked it when I had the chance

Before JW and I could enter the ward to see him, we had to register as visitors at the counter, and receive a red round sticker to stick on our shirts. Only two visitors were allowed per patient, and the hospital ensured this by giving out only two stickers for each patient. His girlfriend and another visitor were already there when we came so the girlfriend snuck out to the ground floor and passed us their stickers. Those two red stickers to see Charb turned out to be probably the most-used stickers in the history of SGH.

It was quite a touching sight watching his girlfriend take care of him, helping him to the toilet, adjusting his bed and all that. Like those 80-year-old couples. Maybe this was a dress rehearsal for 2060. Or a HK drama. And that drama soon unfolded further, as his family and friends came trickling in, using just those two stickers. Charb wisely adjourned to the waiting room outside the ward, where all the couches were, because moments later it was filled with his visitors. All of this happened outside of visiting hours.

I left the hospital hours later, edified. This is how you know you’ve made it in life; not by the number of zeroes in your bank account or the stuff you have, but by the company you get in your darkest moments.