Last Lecture

Today marks the last lecture and last presentation for me as an undergrad. Our presentation involves some sort of an art performance by which we juxtaposed the national day song 'One people, one nation, one singapore' with images of an empty speakers' corner. I honestly felt that we have succeeded in making the song a thoroughly sad and hopeless one with the strange juxtaposition. Well, maybe that sums up my 3 years of political science education in a way; I've basically learnt to see whiteness in terms of blackness and blackness in terms of whiteness, and you hear sound in terms of silence, and silence in terms of voices. Everything is quite fluid and you learn to doubt everything and not take anything for granted, and this is not so good for the devout and the religious?

It feels kind of good but sad at the same time to attend the last lecture. Friends who share the same perspectives as you inevitably have to move on - to further their studies, to work, to seek some meaning in life. I'll see some of them at least in school in the next 2 years. Mus in south asian studies, zat in soci etc...I'm the only moron who is still staying in ps... for tactical reasons perhaps (?). Mus and zat were in the same group as me during our very fun civil society module, where we had to intern in TWC2, an NGO located near SJSM actually. Although we don't meet up regularly, I enjoy talking to them cos we kind of shared a commonality of feeling slightly marginalized because of various reasons, and yet able to joke about it in a candid manner.

So I went home feeling not so good about myself; it is the kind of drama mama "Oh God where shall I go forth from here?" manifestation. Was talking to Jacky that I'm hoping to learn a third language while I can get it done for free in nus. Was telling him that maybe i should do french if i'm into postmodernism, and german if i'm into modernism, or maybe thai for the sake of ethnocentric emancipation. Yeah, we found it quite strange that many post modernists are french, while the enlightenment period was basically dominated by the germans. Maybe my third language will become clearer after I talked to nardin, who isn't much of a postmodernist. Part of my self-disillusioned life long plan is to acquire the critical vocabulary of postmodernism though, because I think a lot of 'pre-modern' religions (for lack of better words, and I guess you can accuse me of essentializing it) can be quite post-modern in its orientation - hinduism, buddhism etc. I guess the Church has never really quite like the idea of post-modernism, or post-modern culture, but maybe it is good to see things from their point of view?

I think I've ended my undergraduate days with more questions than answers eh? Wondering if that is a cause for joy or sorrow...