I know I haven’t been updating this blog because I’m too lazy. Years 2 and 3 have been an exciting flurry of business (both work and busy-ness). I constantly spew bite-sized thoughts that stream into my mind on Instagram Stories anyway, and I am remarkably easily bored and excitable, so longer, more considered pieces on Blogger aren’t sustainable. I digress. Many exciting life updates! I’m now officially done with my undergraduate PPE programme at King’s College London. I loved every bit of it: the depth, rigour and intellectual intensity of the course, the international student community, the bustling city of London and all the travel opportunities around Europe. Words can’t do justice to the profundity of the experience. In typical Quincean fashion, I milked everything I could out of the three years: went to Cumberland Lodge (for free) as a photographer with the Philosophy Department in Years 1 and 3, clinched the Principal’s Global Leadership Award (PGLA) in my second year (spending
Back from Pulau Ubin! The 19-day Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) course was an enjoyable experience. I love the great outdoors, having voluntarily facilitated the Secondary One Annual Camp twice and hiked 50 kilometres in Hong Kong’s eastern hills in Spring 2017. So merry it was, sitting on damp leaf litter, journaling my thoughts on Botak Hill, 30 metres above mean sea level, calmly nestled in the island’s northwest. Upon my return on 13 March, I was overwhelmed by shocking new developments regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. I have since cleared my backlog of reading, kept myself updated with the evolving health situation and settled myself back into life in camp. Last month, I set out to “gain a better sense of the tensions between Deneen and the Romantics — and analogously, Confucius and Zhuangzi” through my experience in the wilderness. This was in relation to my attempt to review Patrick J. Deneen’s book, Why Liberalism Failed . After all, Victor Hugo defined Romanticism as “l