I’m pissed off with blinding highlights. I hate those BLOODY inconsiderate drivers who deliberately use blinding headlights. It’s so glaring I have to cover my eyes to avoid them, if I cannot switch lanes. And most of the time, the vehicles are huge SUVs, vans or sports cars. I hate them. They’re already so big and mighty, do they further need to show their might on the roads? Do they really need the extra ego boost and a good laugh when they successfully chase people out of their lanes? It’s sooooo evil! Next time I’ll bring my brother along and ask him to take a photo quickly for me and put it up on this website. I’m also going to take photos of all those bloody morons who cannot park for nuts in my apartment and school. Idiots. And I swear that most of the culprits in question are MALE drivers. Fools.

Anyway, today I went with my family to celebrate my mom’s birthday. It’s my mom’s favourite chinese restaurant  but it was the first time we’ve been to it after its relocation to the main building. My mom’s kind of obsessed with Chinese and Japanese cooking. Vegetables and soup are always done Chinese style and fish is usually Japanese (teriyaki). Apart from that, and the fact that both of my parents adopt a nazi-style attitude towards any kind of junk food, Ks and Hp do not envision ever eating at my house. Typical Indians. They’ve been to my house a million times and never eat at my place cos’ it’s "not unhealthy/spicy" enough. The way they stuff themselves with Macdonalds’ food is just disgusting. I’ve tried my best to change them, but to no avail. They often joked that I would turn up at both their funerals one day and just scold them, saying "I told them so". lol. Well after the fyp is over, I haven’t seen Hp at all, since she’s in none of my classes. She got married officially today. Ks thinks it’s weird to get married so early. I have once class with Ks so I see her at least once a week. I don’t think I’ll see Hp ever again after we graduate, we were never close. I’ll probably keep in touch with Ks though.

Well well since all of us got pretty generous progress packages from the government, Tby, Dy and I have decided that we’re really serious about our Laos/Cambodia/Thailand backpacking trip. Most probably booking our tickets next week after finalising our travel plans. Only one downer - the monsoon season, so phuket/krabi is out of the question. Damn. I was really looking forward to seeing both sides of the beaches in Thailand. I don’t know if it’s such a good idea actually for me to spend much time in Bangkok. My orientation trip with the firm is in Bangkok as well (unless they cancel it due to the threat of Bird Flu) so I might end up going to the same place in a span of less than a month. Doesn’t sound very appealing. Bleargh. Oh well, at least it’s cheap.

In other news, I found this poll on my school website. Well, I guess the guy who complained about the standard of English of the teaching staff at the school, got people to sit up and take notice after all. Interesting, to say the least. I still maintain that the fellow should stick to improving his own English first. It’s like the pot calling the kettle black man!

ANYWAY, I’m looking forward to our date on Tuesday, Ida! Good to know you’re done with all your presentations as of today! Welcome to the club. lol.

Well, Hamas has formally taken over the government in the Palestinian state. Timely, considering Israel’s National Election was a day ago. I don’t want to judge, simply because I fully appreciate the meaning behind "one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter". Yet, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason why one would pass judgment (usually an unbalanced and non-objective one) is probably because of asymmetrical information. The only way an outsider could give an objective opinion (although opinion by itself seems to hold a self-contradictory connotation) is by having a fair mix of views from both camps, equal exposure to both and accurate and reliable data. Very often, it is hard for the common man to come into contact with both groups. Holding the other variables together with this task seems almost impossible. All of these mean one thing - whatever opinion an outsider gives is bound to be largely one-sided, especially with a sensitive topic like religious conflict. I mean, personally, I don’t know any Palestinians but I do know Ad, who went back to Israel for reservist duty. I haven’t seen him since he left but whatever he told me gives rise to me giving an unfairly biased opinion, if I do pass judgment. I don’t think we can count on the mainstream media to give us objective information. Even reporters are outsiders, and I tend to think that they too would give only one-half of the story. Furthermore, it’s very common for people to choose to view media that is more or less aligned with their own views. For example, I only choose progressive media. That effectively means that no matter how much information we have, we are only capable of passing unfairly biased judgments. So why judge? It just becomes a recycling of information.

Most people wouldn’t know it, but it’s the Indian new year (as per hindu calendar) today - Yugadi. I don’t think it’s prominently celebrated in Singapore cos’ none of my Indian (Sing) friends breathed a word about it. The Indian (Ind) friends are clueless unless they call back home. It’s probably excusable since it’s celebrated with gusto only in a few states. As far as I’m concerned, we have a special food to consume on this day called bevu-bella, which has equal amount of sweetness and bitterness. It’s to teach a lesson about life and remind us yearly, that life is never always sweet or always bitter. We should expect life to be a combination of both, and once again, that there is always cosmic balance. And you though bitter-sweet was an oxymoron didn’t you? 

Apart from that, I’m glad to note that I’ll be getting $600 for the progress package. This was contrary to my earlier lousy calculations that I’ll get $200. I’m happy for the bonus, though I must wait till May to get it credited to my account. I got bored of having not so many things to do. So I went shopping and bought more shoes. Everyone says I’ve got too many shoes. Well my answer is that you can never have too many shoes. I went to visit the newest library. I initially thought it’s very disappointing but when I went home my brother informed me that there were two more levels I failed to see. I must be blind. Nevertheless, I’m quite impressed with the national library board. I just recommended a book to them a couple of weeks back (although I was a little piffed and shocked that none of the libraries in the whole country didn’t have the book) and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they’ve already bought the book and are on their way to cataloguing it. I’m impressed!

Don’t people get tired of being bitter? I met someone on Saturday who made me think about myself. That person appeared to be a very bitter person, and she did confess to that as well. She was angry about a lot of things and disliked a lot of things that were happening in this world. She said she often felt guilty about eating and I asked her if she starved herself. Indeed she did and she said she starved herself because she thought kids else where did not have food and that she shouldn’t be eating. I was shocked, not because I thought she was noble but because of her apparent stupidity (IMHO) and her underlying hypocrisy that she was probably oblivious to. Just because you starve yourself doesn’t mean a hungry kid in Africa will have food. Infact, you’re just making the people who sell you food poorer. If everyone thought like you, oh well, that would drive the GDP of your country down and you would be responsible for making your country very poor. Then it’ll be your children who will go hungry. Ok, I’m exagerating, but the point is that you’re not helping anyone by being bitter and starving yourself. I found it quite strange that this girl wasn’t skinny, had dyed hair, a gadzillion piercings and had just bought herself a very huge sandwich. I just thought to myself, What a hypocrite! I mean, come on, if you are THAT guilty and bitter about so much (and supposedly oh-so-noble), why are you spending money which could be better used in feeding hungry kids? Shouldn’t you eat your own words?

I don’t know. Don’t people get tired of being so bitter? I think the stage people have missed/bypassed before getting to bitterness is the "being grateful" part. Don’t you see? The reason why our parents asked us not to waste food when we were young was because they wanted to teach us to be grateful for what we have. To cherish what we have that others may be deprived of.

I think people ought to learn how to be grateful so that they needn’t become bitter. I was reading some blogs just now about how the indian and malay bloggers were lamenting about discrimination in Singapore and how they wished things were different blah blah blah [same OLD story]. Look, I would say I understand if I was younger (and you were younger) but hey, if you’re like 25 and you’re still angry with the world, I think you should take a hike. You ought to be grateful for the fact that you’re in a country where the government takes such good care of you and tries its best to promote racial harmony. You’re already better off than half the world population! I mean, just compare it to the times your parents asked you not to waste food. You knew there was "better" food such as ice-cream rather than brocolli but you silently ate the brocolli rather than ask for ice-cream right?

I do understand where the people in question are coming from. After all, I too used to be a very bitter person. I used to wield my mace and had an urge to fight every battle of "injustice". Then I got tired of being bitter, because I realised my biggest mistake was in forgetting to be grateful in the first place. I must learn to give thanks more often.

On another note altogether, I was feeling down so I went to shop and yes, retail therapy does work wonders on me. Sadly, I realised my Forever 21 card was expired only when I got to the counter. Darn. I must grow my money soon.

I had a good weekend. On Saturday, Dy, Tby and I had planned to go for the travel fair. Well I was volunteering there in the morning spreading awareness on a message so I also had a good look around the whole fair. The sad thing about the message delivery was that I got more dirty looks than curious ones. Some men appeared to be even offended by the phamplets, sadly enough. Anyway, I did get a good look around for travel deals and such and got a handful of brochures. So when I met Dy and Tby, we found that we actually had to pay entrance fees to go for the fair and so we ended up not going in after all. We went to the german expo instead, which was free to enter but sadly quite disappointing cos’ there were no recruitment efforts whatsover (which was what me and Tby were hoping to find).

We got my brochures together and sat through planning our travel plans for the summer. We had to scrap America cos it’s really too expensive. BUT we’re going to backpack across Indochina instead, which could possibly more interesting! Once finalised I’ll put up the map. *excited* I can’t wait to see Angkor Wat.

Sunday was lazing-in day again. But for once I was not putting off any work-to-do. My tennis skills have really gotten rusty cos’ one or two balls fell out into the expressway. Yikes! Going to practise regularly from now on and resume a regular exercise routine now that I have some free ime on my hands. Perhaps I should get tennis lessons too. Geez, that reminds me of this creepy guy (Pdp, if some of my readers may remember) I had a fling with once (a mistake, in retrospect). I remember he used to teach tennis and I thought it was just odd.

Anyway, a new week to go. I’m free, I’m free - ask me out! Ida, free for another date or not?

I feel like a free bird. ALL my presentations for my final semester of my student life are finally over. More importantly, my final year project is over too. It’s like a heavy load off my mind. Now I have the time and energy to do a lot of things I’ve been putting off for quite some time. I have a sudden burst of energy too. It feels good. I’m happy. I feel happy and light. Like a free bird.

Anyway, I was walking home from school today and I saw this on the overhead bridge. Yeap, apparently hiding behind bushes to catch speeding vehicles is not a favoured choice among the traffic police anymore. They’ve resorted to hiding on top of overhead bridges behind those lovely flowery bushes to catch those errant drivers. How clever! When I drive I never think of looking sooo high up. I will be more cautious from now on.

As the old lady looks bemusedly on, the traffic police are looking out for drivers on this road below. Actually, it’s the other side (I didn’t want to appear like I was stalking them) but it’s the same amount of traffic - barely none. EVEN smarter. Because you’re more tempted to speed when there’s noone else on the road with you, the thrill of seeing how fast you can go. Even better place to catch you! Ya, if you were wondering, this is the road leading to Tuas second link and hence Malaysia. No prizes for guessing where I study.

I received an email from some guy in my college. I read later in the papers that he had sent the mass email to 8000 students calling for action against lecturers who can’t speak english. Usually I applaud students who have initiative and have the resolution to be change agents. His resilence and drive resonates through his words and I do feel like he has no hidden agenda (like overthrowing a student union whose sole prominence seems to be in handing out goodie bags or puffing up his resume by adding rallying of support to one of his many accomplishments). YET something struck me as odd. I didn’t reply to his email because

1. My lecturers’/tutors’ command of the English language is decent/good/exemplary. So I cannot relate to his experience. The papers did mention that the problem appears to be common only among the engineering faculty.
2. His email lacks a flow of clear logical thoughts that one would expect from an engineering student. It sounds like an angry blog rant by an angry kid. Instead of channelling his creative energy, he chose to lambast everything from goodie bags to tuition fee hikes to oh well, just about everything a typical college rant could be about to a huge student population. Try heading to blogsome.com or blogger.com for a change ya?
3. I found it absolutely ridiculous that a person, whose English quite clearly stinks, and is a scholar (from the ASEAN region), has the cheek to criticise his PhD lecturers (also on scholarships) from India and China and judge them on their English. I mean, how much more ironic can you get? Effectively you’re asking WHY the university even admits people like yourself in the first place. Come on, those PhD lecturers ( and I hear we even have a nobel prize winners amongst our distinguished faculty) are obviously smarter than you are. That’s why they’re teaching you in the first place. You ought to be more grateful for the education man.
4. I wanted to spend some time correcting his horrendous grammar. I hope he’s taking some English courses in University because his English, is quite simply, appalling. I shall leave you with his email for you to judge:

This is an updated edition of my email. I would like to highlight few points to you before you read this.

1^st protest is always the last solution. I am not suggesting that we at the first place jump into protest. We want to achieve a win-win situation as well.

2^nd We would also like to address other issue than just purely about the language our instructor speak. Other issues might be the 

Tuition fees hike and hostel fees hike.
A union that is not only knows how to give us ice cream and goodies bag.
Student asking for 7-11 and such 24 hours convenient stall.
We hope that there are more places during special semester.

Dear student,

Do you have some issue that never been solve no matter how many time you bring it up to the union or our administrative officers?

The purpose of this email is to looking for committee members and other interested party to form an informal committee to deal with the school regarding all issues that students think is important to solve. Please delete this email if you are here just to study. I am looking for people who want to improve the university system. I am looking for those with courage and willing to spent time to do something extremely meaningful. I need real man and ladies who have great leadership. There is no certificate given to committee members and also no pay for you. This is an event after the exam. (Hence it wouldn’t affect your study.)

We might be organizing large scale protest (will then look into the law part to make sure it is not illegal) to gain awareness. Delete it if you only care your own business.

Disclaimer: This in not an email initiates an agenda to overthrow the student union or any other illegal action.

Dear students,

Now we shall proceed with the email.

Yes we have been passive for many years; we are brought up in this kind of environment. Yes, our school is doing quite well in the world. We are rank 48. I hope you are very happy with it.

Yet, there is some question to think about.

First, it is about the fee hike.

Quoted:

Look at the d*** building the school is building for SADM… looks like a mini esplanade.. that’s where all our fee hike is going.. to serve that tiny miniscule population of SADM students in their too-pretty-to-study-in building.

Well, I do not pay the tuition fee. But, I gave my sympathy to all students who have to pay more years after years. I am committed to request for a lock in scheme if there is no way to reverse the fee hike. I will need your support to make sure this is done before the next fee revision. We would request that the union be involved in revising the fee and hopefully university budget.

We have been asking for course instructor that can speak English that we can understand!

Engineering students have been going to lab week after week to guess what those PhD student and master student try to say. My question is if they cannot speak something we can understand, why let them teach? Let them do their research. So as those professors that cannot speak something we can understand (non proper is ok) but at least we want him/her to speak something that we can understand.

Are we asking too much from the school? Hey we are the customer of the university. I am a scholar (I am not trying to show u how good I am as a scholar), I don’t pay the tuition fees, But think about those who pay their tuition fees, when tuition fees is raising, yet year after year, the lecturer (who cant speak proper English) that we keep complaining is still teaching, how you feel? what is the reason behind it?

What if my lecturer is a noble prize winner who something that I cannot understand, do I learn from him?

I am committed to have the university to give their statement that there will be no more PhD and Master student who cannot speak to teach in Lab or tutorial. I would work toward their agreement so that they  will not to taking in new teaching staff that have communication difficulties.

We want more places in special semester.

Students have raised their concern regarding getting subject in special semester is like buying 4D. We want to make sure that most students can have some subject if not all. We would request for a add drop period.

What if I can get goodies bags, free ice creams, free T-shirt, free this free that, yet the union have no power over important issues.

I am committed to speak to union representative and ask them to do more things then their welfare fest. What if I got more free ice cream, or McDonalds, or roti boy? We want the union fight to improve the university system, not increase the number of goodies bag we have.

And more and more issue are to be discuss…

I am proposing to have a group of student with great leadership to come together to form a informal committee to deal with the school.

Time and money are expected to be spent. Nothing can be claim back. We do not have grant here. It might be the 1^st time in history of [COLLEGE NAME] that student can deal with school in a serious and legal way. This is not a student body. I have no intention of register any student body. I just would want top raise awareness of university student about what they can do.

We are dealing with your problem. Think about it, are you satisfied with the university system? There should be a man(it could be a woman as well, I am not discriminating female) to stand out to lead the students to claim a stake in the university. We want to be consult for important university decision.

Student, what are you waiting? Stand up and fight for your consumer rights or you will be given low quality education for your years here. Be confused in the lecture by not understanding the English your lecturer use or stand up and speak up, the choice is yours.

For more information, reply to this email or contact me at ________.

I know I do not use good English, please don’t call me or reply to me and tell me this. That is why I need you here!

Regards,

_________________

2nd Year Student
(Design Specialisation)
[College name]
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

I was watching the daily show the other day, the one with clive owen as the guest star. There was this amusing part about global warming. Scientists have come to a consenus on one thing, and hey, they appear to concur with (gasp!) Nelly. [as quoted on the show]

It’s gettin hot in here (so hot)
So take off all your clothes

Jokes aside, the issue with global warming and the technicalities of the Kyoto Protocol piss me off. They piss me off cos’ the treaty took so long to be signed by so many parties and longer to get ratified. They piss me off cos’ even after all that, the largest pollutor in the world, the United States, is not a signatory party to this treaty. They piss me off cos’ even after the Kyoto came into force and Russia ratified the treaty, it still leaves India, China and US out of the picture. The biggest irony is that they pollute more than anyone else on earth. Ok fine, so the US is not going to budge. They have enough muscle anyway. But it seems almost senseless that two rising economic powers who cough out toxic gases and pollute the earth so much are willingly left out. Ok, granted India and China are left out of Kyoto’s initial phase because most of their people are still dirt poor and it’s not fair to ask them to clean the air rather than eat food. But what’s the use then?

So the rest of the world works hard (or at least it attempts to do so) at cleaning up their acts but the guilty parties, namely US, China and India continue to cloak our atmosphere with noxious shit. I mean, come on, one just has to go to any major Indian city to witness the shocking amount of pollution. You can hardly breathe in there! The only point of getting to Bangalore is to escape to the rural clean areas. So in reality, it’s not the poor people who’re poisioning this world. It’s the bloody rich and middle class in the cities who do it. The poor people live in enough abject poverty to distance themselves from the poisionous doings of their richer counterparts. YET, they breathe in the same air. So they suffer. WHY then is the reason to exclude India and China, because of their poor brethen, when it’s the rich and the middle class who ought to be punished and put in their right place?

Ok, I admit it’s hard to identify the blameworthy parties of pollution and arguably even harder to persecute them, given the redundant bureacracies that may or may not exist, each bringing nothing but hindrance to the game. BUT the cities are a start. Companies are a start. Esp. Foreign companies. Even worse if they’re american companies, polluting not only in America (killing their own people) and polluting in Asia too (proceeding to kill rest of the world citizens). Is that a pattern? Kill people, even if war can’t do it.