I was fortunate enough to have experienced three months of Preliminary Admissions Exercise, a probationary form of enrolment into pre-university institutions, when I was 16. January of 2007 started as anyone would, at the beginning of a new phase of life - hardworking and trying to impress. Then came the inevitable slump along with February, when laziness and truancy crept in, leading to daily badminton sessions with others smart enough to have done the same, but not smart enough to have picked the choice of going somewhere else instead. March stormed in, and this was the month of great expectations and even greater disappointments. Finalised postings were released during this ill-fated period and along with it, the disbandment of the merry gang I belonged to. That particular month left only a few traces of happiness - tennis had been picked up by the few of us and our badminton sessions had continued, even though we were caught by a teacher. We had no chance to bid our final farewells due to unfortunate circumstances and each of us continued our lives without any contact.

Education, or the institutionalised form of it, is a virus of the mind. It drains you of your true soul and character and eventually there is nothing left but a hardened, stoic kernel of a person, the flesh having been stripped. Everything is painted in the same few drab shades of failure and melancholy that it makes me wonder who in the world would willingly throw themselves into this rotten quagmire of a system. And then I realise my own presence, and then I laugh. "Fools, all of us have been,", I think to myself, but then I know that there is no other form of viable escape open to weak-willed minds.

Of course, the negative effects of such an education can be negated by distancing yourself from the system. However few people ever realise that, and the majority of those who actually did that had done so not for saving their minds. Most were simply rebels, punks and gangsters. I knew a senior who actually did manage to do so, with the right idea, but unfortunately he graduated before I managed the impossible task of teaming up with him. I like being alone, but not being lonely.

Depression struck numerous times during the course of my education in that desolate campus. The triggers were always petty, minor, trivial matters, such as a failing grade or the loneliness I had imposed upon myself. The excuses I would use to keep myself from slitting my wrists were varied: It's a cycle of emotions, without depression I would never understand joy and the most stupid, yet true, of them all - it would be a painful, meaningless, death. These excuses kept me running, but I wonder when they will run out.

I always wrote to chronicle these periods of time, as the sudden waves of creativity brought about by the introspection which always came with depression. Those painful times served as periods of healing, as I became isolated from the world. Hidden in my cocoon of thoughts, I calmed and refreshed myself. Even though they hurt, I had developed a liking to the bouts of depression - somehow my intuition about them were correct.

My boring, dull, unintelligent classmates left me wanting. They were all the usual kinds of people, the kinds who had usual interests and usual goals. I had never been an extrovert, but I struggled to keep up with a façade of being a pleasant enough person to deflect any queries into my personal life onto a classmate, who, was obviously acting as a misunderstood, introverted and interesting person. I did not want to deal with any of my classmates, possibly as a quirk, leftover from my teenage days, and I both gave and received Hell for it.

In my second year I lost what little will I had left to stay sane. I got absorbed into the mundane, everyday routine of attending lectures, working on assignments and starting on the massive task of getting into a university. There were two reasons why I had let go, and both seemed prudent at the time. One was the assumption that two years spent serving National Service as a conscript would heal my wounds after the ravages of junior college life. The other was simply because I had grown weary of the dreary task of staying sane. I am not sure what to think of them, however, for the former I must admit I was half-correct.

It was only due to luck that I managed to get transferred from infantry to a technician vocation, going to Hell and back. The special circumstances which provided me with ample free time to reflect got me out of the sanatorium that is mainstream Singapore. It is a terrible fate for introverts to live in such a densely-populated shithole, but in this particular anal city I managed to find peace, quite... and boredom, thanks to the system designed to mould citizens into machines.

Needless to say, I stayed insane throughout my second year in junior college, and got a respectable 'A' Level result. Good Bs and As marked the end of my two years in suffering, but I did not feel relived or joyed. Even though I had claimed National Service healed my insanity, it is also probably the cause for my continued lack of emotion...

(To be continued)

Labels: book, EPIC FAIL, jc, ℳℴℯ❤

Boredom fosters creativity; creativity stifles it.

Extreme boredom, however, only sucks your soul dry in a very, very, torturous fashion.

As contact is gradually lost with the past, I think to myself - this isn't what I had in mind.

The utopia has become a dystopia; childhood's end is near.

Just like in the book, I fear my mind is being absorbed into the singularity that is Singularpore.

Another recommendation by the Internet, the Aego-M caught my attention quickly enough with rave reviews and an attractive price point.

The Aego-M is a 2.1 speaker system from Acoustic Energy, a company I had not seen until I went looking for speakers on the Internet. My Creative 5.1 T5100 was in the process of dying a horrible death after 7 years of faithful service. It would have been working fine, actually, if the wires had not been bitten off by a dammed pet. Presently the system is hooked up to my television and is holding up well, surprisingly. Makes me almost regret buying my Aego-M, in fact.

In my quest for a new speaker system, the Aego-M was a speaker system my local tech forums raved about. I had wanted a 5.1 speaker system, but the Logitech and Creatives were way out of my budget. I had to compromise and get a 2.1 speaker system, jury-rigged to 5.1 with the addition of two huge, old Aiwa speakers for my rear speakers and my monitor as my centre speaker. The closest competitor at the time of purchase to the Aego-M was the Creative T3, which sounded absolutely terrible when I auditioned it. The T3 sounded like a bass machine straight out of Terminator instead of an 'audiophile' speaker system it was advertised as.

I got my Aego-M for $250 (Singapore dollars, of course) from a little shop in Sim Lim Square. It had sounded fantastic, with resounding clarity and volume. The speakers had impressed me with its loud, clear sound and well-blended bass. Interestingly, a significant portion of the bass is produced from the two satellites. The massive subwoofer handles deep thumps while the satellites handled the higher-pitched snare-drum bass. I like it.

The design of the speakers are passable. The speakers have a metal casing which gives them heft, and makes them very sturdy. I could kill a man with these speakers - the build quality is impeccable. They came in both black and white, and I bought the white speakers to suit my colour scheme.

I brought home the heavier-than-expected box home (on public transport, no less) and installed it immediately, with no fuss (How complicated can a 2.1 speaker system be?). The speakers were connected to a Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 sound card, the card I bought for the now repurposed T5100. I started up foobar2000 and ran a variety of songs ranging from rock, to pop, to classical, to vocal, to rap, to jazz and to you get the idea.

It sounded different from when I auditioned it in the store, and I believe this can be attributed to the high-end Denon the speakers were connected to in the store. However, the speakers still performed admirably, and I was smitten.

The highs, such as the crash of cymbals, sounded clear, yet harsh at the same time in my first impressions. They sound perfectly fine to me right now, however.

The mids sound pronounced, not blended into the bass like my older set of speakers. They were fulfilling and distinct from the whole sound.

The bass was a topic of discontent in the reviews I had read. To me, there were ample amounts of it, but it was distributed subtly. It might not be earth-shattering, but it can be felt, and it blends into the music masterfully.

For gaming, I switch on my rear speakers for surround sound. Like with music, I could now hear extra details in the sound, like the metallic chink of empty magazines, or the clank of metal against flesh with the speakers. The speakers perform good enough for gaming for me, contrary to reports on the Internet suggesting otherwise.

It it a different story when it comes to movies, however. Films lacked the extra 'oomph' - explosions were as subtle as the bass itself. At Bass 3, the maximum setting, the speakers did adequately, not impressively. The floor vibrated whenever stuff exploded, but the vibrations were not destructive enough.

Other small things about this system:
1. There is an aux port on the front of the speakers, which will be convenient if you have most of your music on your MP3 player.

2. The absence of a wired remote to control the bass and volume will be felt by those who intend to place the subwoofer far away from where he will be sitting.

3. Hearing fatigue with this system is nearly non-existent, unlike my older system. I must re-emphasise that music sounds fabulous on these speakers.

The speakers bear the hallmarks of a much-more expensive system, and it will not be regretted by most who purchase it.

Labels: fail, purchase, review, speakers