Family, slightly incomplete without my 2nd sis and brother-in-law.
So we took her out for lunch and we walked around Iluma and Bugis Junction… she was happy and we were happy.
Long queue.
I heard that my niece was curious about Koi so I went to queue up to let them try the taste of the bubble tea (my personal favourite is Oolong)… Muaahahahaha I am evil! Anyway, it’s good to let them know that the tea is good stuff, that’s why it’s more expensive than the usual bubble tea 
So I have been attending the election rallies of the opposition parties, and thus (pardon the formal register – need to stay in academic discourse character, or whatever you may want to call it) neglecting to allocate more time into completing my assignment ahead of deadline.
Funny coincidence – the assignment is one of Public Relations. The General Elections and its related activities are considered to be one big PR exercise to influence and garner support for ideologies and policies that may better the life of us regular folks.
I am now still trying to peel myself away from the onslaught of election-related articles, blog posts, Facebook photo galleries and even serious discussions on Plurk. And then I found myself here – blogging and doing something unrelated to my studies.
Latte watching birds outside the window.
Ok, I promise to get right back to work after this.
Finally, collected my thoughts on the upcoming elections on 7 May… and I shall summarise them as simply as possible. I don’t think you guys want to read yet another TL;DR post, right?
1. PAP had done a really great job leading the country out of the haze in 1965 and beyond, I do appreciate growing up in such a safe and organised country where things worked well to a certain degree.
2. However, their strategy to herd us as meek sheep or as trained, conditioned dogs has been making me feel very uncomfortable about their policies and tactics. Please understand that we are not drones. We are living, breathing, thinking people and eventually we’d want to break out of the suppressive environment – perhaps for better or for worse.
3. This is not The Matrix. We are not living solely for the reason that we can “power” the nation. We deserve liberty, equality and perhaps the most lacking in the current regime – compassion. We deserve to be heard as people with valid opinions and concerns.
4. Save for the very few lucrative, well-paying industries, most of our jobs are lower-paying than in the other developed nations. When faced with inflation rates that grew faster than our stagnating salaries – we are practically quite powerless.
5. Your policies have benefited the economy perhaps, but not for the people. I wish for a more compassionate government who really sees the root of our concerns and one that would try to work on these issues.
6. If you really want higher birth rates, you ought to help young couples get affordable housing quickly. Not many feel comfortable enough to make babies while their parents are sitting outside watching Ai. You can continue to throw money at us, but do implement paternal leave for the fathers to share the burden of supporting a newborn. Do you know that mothers-to-be are being discriminated against by employers? Make childcare centres and baby-sitting services more affordable. Make milk powder and diapers more affordable.
Part of the reason why we are not having kids is the loss of freedom and financial comfort – just FYI.
7. I love Singapore and its quirks, but it irks me to know my country is paying the ministers such high salaries. This has been debated to death, but the short story is: I’d rather the money be channeled into more progressive causes.
8. Life in Singapore is a pressure cooker. One day the pressure will build up (it already is) and it’ll explode in your face. It won’t be nice. I feel this election is something different from the past. The sentiment on the ground is strong and it may seem like we are about to make a difference this time.
9. Stop your gutter politics and stick to the real issues please. We are not stupid. We can see through your tactics from 100km away.
10. I am not against the PAP nor am I an opposition sympathiser. I know there are good MPs in the incumbent but I’d like to give the other side an opportunity as well. However, I will keep my eyes peeled and keep my options open until I get to the voting station. For those of you who are contesting in the Hong Kah North SMC – bring it on. I want to see what you can give. I am voting for a good MP, regardless of his/her political affiliations.
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I have more thoughts… but I guess 10 points is pretty lengthy already.
Do let me know if you share any of my thoughts.
I used to tell people that I can’t cycle to save my life. Yeah, in a zombie apocalypse where there are no cars left for me to drive (I can still manage the stick shift)… I would be dead because I can’t ride a bicycle without some form of training wheels.
I’ve attempted those rental mountain bikes at East Coast Park and Pasir Ris Park and failed rather spectacularly. All I have are memories of a young me crashing into a tree, a trash bin and of myself (just a few years back) jumping off a bike that was about to crash into a tree…
So I can’t cycle.
But not any longer.
I can now cycle! I can cycle straight, somehow! And I have my own bike now!
This is BarfCycle!
All thanks to the Grow and Share package, we went out and got ourselves a pair of foldie bikes. Mine is a Dahon Curve D3 (11.5kg… same as mrbrown’s!) in Cloud (white lah) and his is a Dahon Eco C7 (12.5kg) in Baltic (dark blue lah). We went to My Bike Shop nestled somewhere along West Coast as recommended by a friend of his.
BarfCycle folded.
We got a small discount for the Curve and… we were 2 happy customers who carted off our folded bikes and chucked them (carefully) into the cramped little boot of my BarfMobile!
I am currently ordering a pair of kawaii cycling helmets from a US brand – Nutcase Helmets as the selection in the local bike shops are sorely limited to the douchey speed cycling type – which I hated.
Douchey bicycle helmets. Sorry if you have one of these, but yeah. It’s douchey.
So… yeah. Plus the nice rounded and kawaii ones cost upwards of S$150 or so. For this order I’d expect them to cost less than S$100 each. Photos and reviews later!
So yeah, I am frustrated as hell trying to get my cycling technique right! Say no to gripping too hard and wobbly cycling! Say no to panicking whenever a jogger is headed towards me! Say no to broken pavements and narrow little lanes!
3 days down and I think I am getting a little better. Just a little.
So we’ll see how it goes.
We learn many life lessons along the way.
Some were simply advice which we’d most probably shrugged aside.
Some were tips from more experienced folks which we were skeptical of.
Some we had to fall and experience it for ourselves, or we watch others fall and try not to repeat the same mistake.
One of the life lessons that I picked up which stuck with me all these years, was from my 2nd sister. She was already working at age… 19-20? I was still in primary school, and “blur” as hell.
Earrings.
So I’ve always had butter fingers, and I picked up a pair of her earrings to look and dropped one of them. The “pearly” bit fell out of the metallic casing and I panicked. When my sister found out, she told me to pay her back by saving bits of my allowance. She asked for $5 – a big amount back then in the 80s, for a primary school kid who has an allowance of $1-2 a day?
I saved up slowly to pay her back… and when I managed to hit that amount of $5, I handed it to her. She told me to keep it and it would form the basis of my future savings. She told me that the act of saving is important and we should not spend every cent we get.
I remembered this incident clearly after all these years, I guess that’s why I’ve always made it a point to try and hoard money whenever I can get. It’s a habit that would always stay with me.
Perhaps the other qualities that were instilled in me through this incident, was to have integrity (to fess up on mistakes) and to take responsibility to fix iffy situations.
My sister is due to become a mother for the first time, and I am sure she will make a great mother. =)
Meows.
Just the other day, I had a very minor existential crisis… I questioned my job, my choice of career and most importantly, why didn’t I make the choice to work in a more lucrative line? Where hard work is repaid handsomely with each successful deal, instead of taking a “fixed” salary to serve a company?
I don’t know.
I get the green-eyed monster sometimes, and I wonder why I was more artistic than a numbers whiz. Mathematics and all those fancy equations and all those qualities good for shuffling money around – I didn’t have those. Heck, I even have problems balancing my paycheck every month.
I drew pictures better than any kid at age 6. I loved music. I loved TV. I love the arts. I’ve never loved numbers, nor am I good with manipulating them. My family has been very supportive of my choice in life – to study design and work in the media line. They didn’t tell me, “No, you’ve got to be an accountant. Art won’t get you fed.”
If I were better at numbers, I would be leading a much more cushy life, ain’t it? Buying stuff without installment plans, no student loans at age 30, no car loan (I’d already paid in full), no saving up for trips because I could just pack and go anytime. Choice of airline is no issue… who gives a crap about budget airlines, right? I could stay at 5-star hotels, just because I could.
But nope. It’s not my life. Nor it is my life to win a million bucks from Toto (I do not gamble, not at all). Nor it is my life to sell property and earn fatty commission with each unit sold. Nor it is my life to marry a billionaire (or be one myself) who has too much money and no where to spend but to buy a piece of land on the moon.
I want love. I want financial freedom. I want cats. I want to save up and anticipate for the next trip out. I want something to work towards in life. I want a man who is there for me. I want my friends. I want my family. And my car.
I love my ride.
So this is my life and I will be happy about it. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t keep trying to achieve better.
Yeah, so I had another of those stupid dreams again.
Woke up in tears. Only this time the dream was much more vivid than the previous ones.
I know it’s the insecurity welling up from somewhere deep inside, whilst I was asleep.
I was hurt deeply before and it took me a while before I could trust a man again. It’s been 9 bloody years since The Big Breakup, I have been happily married for nearly 6 years, so why am I still feeling so frightened?
Perhaps… it’s not the betrayal that got me tearing… it’s the loss of a beautiful relationship.
Oh, what would I give to keep this…
I don’t want to lose this. Never.
I dreamt of roaming in the streets of some foreign country with Jeffwee last night. Again.
Had been prowling travel sites with a ferocity not seen 3 months ago. Back then, I still had a little of potion left from the Tokyo trip in May 2010.
You know, trips make me really happy. The anticipation of an upcoming trip gives me that extra energy to do my job well, so that I could “reward myself” when the time comes. And the afterglow of a really enjoyable trip lasts me for a really long time, for the rest of the months before I would head off to another land.
The more stress I go through, the faster that potion runs out.
I am heading to Bali end May, but that date seems awfully far away. And I think I need another one in July, perhaps. I don’t know.
ARGH!
I am on a self-imposed ban on shopping for fashion items for… as long as I could stand it. Since December or January, after the last piece of CNY clothing has been purchased, I told myself – no more new clothes or new shoes.
Saving money for Europe is the order of the day!
And I thank my friends who were giving out clothes from their extensive wardrobe… You girls saved my pathetic wardrobe filled with clothes that I got sick of.
Then I feel the cracks… well, cracking. I WANT TO SHOP SO BADDDDDDDD. I’ve scoured shoe sites, clothing sites and all that nonsense online… and I didn’t check out anything, so far.
I WANT A NEW SWIM SUIT. I WANT A NEW PAIR OF BOOTIES. I WANT MORE DRESSES. JEANS ARE TOO HOT IN THIS HUMIDITY. I WANT DRESSES. I WANT TANK TOPS THAT ARE NOT TOO LOOSE. I WANT A NUDE CAMISOLE AND A BLACK TUBE TOP.
So yeah. I want to shop, but I will keep my wallet closed and my wardrobe boring. So yeah.
I’d really wanted to go to her concert… but her songs are best absorbed in a quiet, introspective setting, not in a rowdy, noisy concert hall.
Her songs never fail to bring me into that emotional mood that goes waaaaaay deep. Some of the younger artistes do sad songs, but they are superficial and not… real. Tanya’s songs are mature, lonely and the emptiness do strike hard into one’s being.
Like this one. The story behind this was written after she was involved in an online relationship… which didn’t work out.
蔡健雅 – 空白格
Literally translated, 空白格 would mean Empty White Box, which refers to the empty white cursor space that separates 2 individuals. It could also refer to break up SMSes on the mobile phone, an empty email with nothing to say, or the blank chat box on the MSN Messenger…
This is something very 21st century – when couples come together on the digital world, and eventually end it on the digital world.
Have you broken up with someone via the digital medium? I have. It’s impersonal and sucks so bad. It’s harder to get closure when you don’t say goodbye face-to-face for the final time, perhaps in tears and in complete anguish.