Thoughts on the Elections

I used to be better at writing, I think. Two years' of National Army has eroded what skills I possessed before. To be honest, I have difficulty organizing my thoughts into a coherent essay, so I'll write a list of thoughts I have instead. They're not arranged in any particular order. Just take them as they are.

1. About policies.

People are quick to point out that the opposition are able to point out problems, and flaws, but do little in the way of offering solutions. They have proposals which are deemed as "improbable", "unrealistic", and are "pandering". On the PAP's side, we have schemes, figures, statistics, and things like that which make they're arguments seem more convincing. Unlike the opposition's "ideas", what they bring to the table are "pragmatic solutions".

The thing about the PAP is that they probably has whole ministries working on their side to come up with policies. They have a host of workers researching into this and that area of interests.

The opposition is not privy to this resource. It wouldn't be fair to expect something completely fool-proof from them. What we should expect from them is ideas which they will then bring forward to the parliament.

2. About numbers.

Numbers are really easy to play with. When the PAP manifesto stated that the Grow & Share Package more than offset the higher costs of living for most, they probably calculated the LOWEST possible increase in cost of living. When Mah Bow Tan (I'm pretty sure I'm spelling his name wrongly) stated that couples can get flats for as little as $36 per month, he did not mention the fact that the couple will be using up ALL of their CPF contributions for 30 years. What does that leave them for retirement?

Numbers are one thing. Reality is another.

3. About the opposition's attacks on the PAP

I think some of them are wholly unjustified. To say that they are uncaring, that they are motivated only by themselves is unfair. I believe that they do want to serve the nation. Sure, some of them might have a degree of self-interest, but at the end of the day, everybody wants Singapore to succeed.

I hope that in the coming days, the different parties can just put mud-slinging aside. I'd rather not see this Elections as an emotional contest. What we need is a rational one. It's not a matter of who loves Singapore more. It's about who can serve us better.

4. About the PAP Manifesto

Some of the things in there are pure wayang. Schools don't need fancy "indoor sports halls" and "performance arts and dance studios". Our neighbourhoods don't need fancy playgrounds, and parks. I think what we have is enough. There are bigger issues that need to be solved. Superficial change is not what we need at the moment.

Why upgrade the estates when the bigger problem lies in the fact that people can't get a home? Why bother putting in more facilities in schools when the bigger problem lies in the education system?

5. About campaigning

It seems like PAP has a lot more money to spend on campaigning. While other parties have to beg for donations, and sell merchandise, the PAP freely distributes brochures/newsletters and ferries people from GRCs to their rallies. I just hope that that's not our money that's being spent and that they have their own funds.

6. About the Future

I must admit that the PAP has done a good job in the past. It's no easy feat to bring about such sweeping economic progress to a nothing-much island state. No, I do not want all of the opposition parties to win. What I want is for enough of them to win such that they will represent a strong enough voice in the parliament to offer an alternative to the PAP.

You know what they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

A strong opposition in the parliament will ensure that the PAP does not abuse their authority, and is held accountable for their mistakes. We have some very capable people in the PAP at the moment. It would be a great loss if we were to lose them.

Ahh, I'll leave it here. I'm tired, and I'm gonna sleep.

#raymondsadventureatthephilippinesembassy

This post is sort of connected to yesterday's post. You know how I mentioned that Filipinos seem to be facing some sort of delay when applying for their citizenship? If I didn't get my Singapore citizenship soon, I might have to make do with my Filipino passport. Which happens to be expiring soon. So without further delay, I informed my boss that I would be coming in slightly late because I'd be dropping by the Philippines Embassy to renew said passport.

So at 830, I found myself at the British Council, right across from Gleneagles Hospital and the Botanic Gardens. According to gothere.sg, the easiest way to get to the Philippines Embassy would be to walk from the British Council. It's quite a hard place to find. I dropped off the bus not knowing where to go. I went to gothere.sg, and asked how to go from the British Council to the Philippines Embassy.

It said: Don't be lazy, it's just a short walk!

I cursed at the site, and then proceeded onto Google maps, which was more helpful. It still took me about 20 minutes to get to the Embassy though, by which I was already sweating a crazy amount.

The Philippines Embassy is located at Naseem Road. It's hard to find, and it's not even a proper building. It's more of a shitty old bungalow which they converted into an office. There's not even a sign or anything like that. The only identifying feature? Look for the building with a gajillion Filipinos.

Oh, and it's beside the Japanese Embassy. It's quite embarassing how the two buildings are juxtaposed. The Japanese Embassy looks so much more grand, and isn't as chaotic as the Philippines Embassy.

The Embassy is a chaos when I get there, which is 845am. I see a queue, and join it. A man asks whether anyone was renewing their passport, and I thought to myself, "That's me!", and I went to him, and he gave me a queue number and told me to wait for my number to be flashed. The queue number was 5107.

Like I said, the Embassy is basically one shitty old bungalow. Over there, they offer plenty of services such as renewal of passports, applying for work permits, exit passes, and all that. All this processes are done OUTDOORS, in a mini void-deck.

There were at least 200 people there, I swear.

There was only one queue handling passport renewals. The queue when I got there was at 5005. I'm assuming the queue started at 5000. That means that there are 106 people who got there before me. The Embassy opens only at 9. They probably got there at...7? Who knows. But that's one screwed up system.

I took a seat, strategically underneath a fan. I was in Philippines. Everybody around me was speaking in Tagalog. Even when they spoke English, it was heavily accented.

The queue was moving at a phase of about 13 numbers per 15 minutes. I know because I timed it. I had my book to read, and my phone to tweet on, and my notebook to scribble on, but after awhile I grew really really really bored.

Ahh, I'm getting tired. Long story short, I came at 845, I left at 330, almost 7 hours later. Now, what did I actually have to do? Nothing much really! There were three stations I had to go through. First was to get my forms checked, and signed. Next was to get my photo taken, my fingerprint scanned, and my data keyed into the computer. Last was the payment station.

Those three process put together probably lasts...ten minutes.

I waited 7 hours for those ten minutes. What a fucking waste of time. I actually sacrificed one day's worth of pay just to get this done. I thought I'd be done by lunch, so that I could at least go for half-a-day, but no, the inefficiency had me waste my whole day.

The problem lies mostly with the staff at the Philippines Embassy, I think. They're just not very efficient. They take breaks, chit-chat with each other, and basically behave quite unsatisfactorily. Take for example at the photo-taking session. There was a baby getting his picture taken. All the staff at the photo-taking booth stopped what they were doing and cooed over the baby. What the hell. Just do your job ladies.

And the filipinos are partly at fault too. I think some of them just can't follow instructions well. Some don't bring this, or that, and that causes a huge delay.

At the photo station, there's also a jam because people aren't satisfied with their photo, and keep asking for re-dos. For goodness sake, nobody will judge you if your passport is ugly! Damn it. I took mine, and the lady asked me if I wanted to retake it. My hair was a mess, and I didn't look my best. I've been waiting all day after all. But a photo is a photo.

"Just use it miss, it's just a passport."

The Philippines Embassy will also do well in putting up a list of estimated waiting times. For example, if there are X number of people ahead of you, you'd have to wait an X number of minutes.

Sigh. On a whole, it was an exercise of inefficiency. I'm so glad I only have to do this once every 5 years.

Where's my citizenship.

I applied for Singaporean citizenship at the month of November last year. Typically, the time taken to process this would be just over 6 months. My friends from Malaysia, China, Taiwan and Indonesia all got it within that time frame. If we follow this trend, I'd be on track to get my citizenship around May to June.

If I got it around that period, I'd be totally fine.

However, I did some poking around and found that one of my Filipino friends still hadn't gotten his citizenship even though he applied in June of 2009. That is close to 2 years ago. 2 years is the time he spent in national service. Potentially, the time he spent waiting for his citizenship will exceed that time period.

His case is not an isolated one. At least two other filipino friends' of mine, whom I met through National Service, are undergoing the same plight.

I really have no idea what's going on, and why there's this apparent discrimination against Filipinos. Honestly speaking, we Filipinos are a GARANG breed. We might go into NS hesitantly, but when we're there, we make the best out of the experience. You'll never hear us complain about the tough training. Philippines is a tough neighborhood. We've experienced worse, and we're happy to be here.

In my Basic Medic Course, there were 5 of us who were Filipinos. We were fierce. Three of them wanted to get out of medic course to get posted to GUARDS. They personally appealed to our Officer Commanding to get OOC-ed, and subsequently sent to Guards. When they were denied of this, they dropped out of medic course and moved on to more garang units. One of them eventually signed on as an ADF regular.

What of the other two? One was me, and I don't want to blow my own horn, but I was a darn good soldier. The other one went back to his unit to become a platoon medic, and I'm pretty sure he did a good job.

So what am I trying to say here? We went through the same kind of shit that everybody else did. We might have done it better, we might have done it worse...but at the end of the day, 2 years is 2 years. We sacrificed 2 years of our lives for this country, and yes, we want what's rightfully ours.

I don't know what's causing the delays. Some say it's the elections, and personally, I think it is. They just want to artificially deflate the numbers. But it's unfair. I don't want to be an unwitting pawn to these charade they're putting up. My university is starting very soon, in August. Just let my citizenship come by then, for goodness fucking sake.

The Kite

"Hey, hold up! You're walking too quickly. I'm a girl, remember?"

I slowed down my stride. Examining Hannah from top to bottom, from her jet black shoulder-length hair, down to her bare shoulders, to her hips, and finally to her sneakers with pink laces, I had to agree.

This was an activity I used to do with Grayson, my best friend. We would trek down to the nearby park and wait for the wind to blow, with our kites in our hands. This was something the two of us shared, something we started in our childhood and carried all the way up to our late teens.

Me, him, the kite, and the wind.

Without the wind, the kite can't fly. But without the kite, for what purpose does the wind blow? Somehow, that described our relationship. I'm not sure who is who. I'd prefer to be the kite, the thing that gets blown.

We're not gay, by the way. Just close friends. It's good to get things like this clear early on.

Hannah was the Grayson's girlfriend. She's my friend too. Actually, the three of us grew up together. We lived in different blocks, but we were within minutes from each other, and we shared the same playground.

Now that Grayson's gone, it's just me and Hannah.

"Okay, so when I say GO, toss the kite up high, and I'll run as fast as I can. Simple?"

"Got it!" Hannah shouted from a distance. The park was virtually deserted except for an elderly man sitting at a bench reading the newspapers. The string was in my hands. I waited for a moment when the wind would be strong.

"NOW!"

Hannah tossed the kite up into the blue sky. Not high, but high enough. I burst into a sprint. The kite followed me like a skybound shadow, like a guardian angel. I thought of the kite as Grayson. He's up in heaven right now, but like this kite, he's attached to me somehow, watching over.

The wind remained resilient and the string remained taut. Hannah sauntered up to me. She gave me a look as if to say "So, what now?"

"So, what now?"

"Pass me the scissors."

She took out the pair from her purse. About a month back, Grayson was stabbed in the backstreets of Manchester. He had gone there to fulfil his dreams of becoming some sort of philosopher person. I wonder what he'd think of all this now? While walking back to his dorm one particular night, a drunk approached him for money. Being the tough guy he is, he refused, and there was a struggle.

A hole was made in his body, and out of it, his spirit leaked out. I can imagine his body lying on the cold dark street. Blood oozes out from the stab wound. Like a balloon deflating in slow-motion.

"Grayson's the kite. And we're gonna cut him loose from our lives starting now." Grayson was a big fan of metaphors, and he would have loved what we were doing now.

"I really loved him, you know." Hannah said. Her tears were welling up now. I liked her for awhile, but it never worked out. Grayson edged me out.

"So did I." The wind was relentless then. The kite flew strong and proud. Hannah opened the teeth of the scissors and positioned it over the string. I put my hands over hers, giving her that extra push to snip the string.

-SNIP-

The kite flew away. It was kidnapped by the wind, at least that's how it looked. The string fell to the ground. Lifeless. Strings can't fly.

What Future.

She sounds like she's sitting for her oral exams!

Time 100

Has anyone else seen the full list of 2011 Time 100? It's ridiculous! Who compiles this list? What are the standards needed to get into said list? None? To me, being part of the Time 100 means being someone who has changed the way a significant amount of people live. No, you do not need to be famous to be in it. Not every hero gets fame and fortune. What I do demand though is that you have DONE something to deserve the spot on the list.

When I go on google, and put your name in, I want to be stunned. Let's take Takeshi Kanno for example. I've never heard of him until I saw him on the list. He's a doctor at a public hospital which was affected by the tsunami in Japan about a month back. When he heard that the tsunami was coming, he moved as many patients as he could to the higher floors, saving them for an otherwise untimely demise. He tended to his patients and stayed with them until choppers came down and evacuated them. A true hero, indeed.

But how about Blake Lively? What the hell is she doing on that list? She is an actress for ONE popular television show (Gossip Girl), which is entertaining, but hardly ground-breaking, nor culturally significant. She's also acted in several movies, the most famous one being Ben Affleck's The Town. Anything else? Nope, that's about it. Her write up on the Time website simply says that she "channels the vitality of youth". I CHANNEL THE VITALITY OF YOUTH.

I'm not trying to take away anything from Blake Lively. She's a beautiful person, and I'm sure she's got a heart of gold. But why is she on the Time 100?

Another one who made it in the list was Chris Colfer. I was going to say he didn't really deserve it, but after reading his Wikipedia page, I guess he's pretty cool. He plays Kurt in Glee, who's gay. In real life, Chris is gay, too, and he serves as an inspiration to gay kids who are bullied. I'm all for being true to yourself, and to that extent, Chris Colfer is quite inspiring.

Lady Gaga's conspicuously absent from the list. I don't know what's going on in this world anymore. She's just released two singles in the past months, has a full album coming out, and continues to entertain the world just by being her.

Fort Canning (10/04/11)

What now babies.

It's Friday but I'm not quite through the week just yet. There's still work tomorrow. The load is heavy, but my shoulders are strong. I'll get through it somehow.

There's so many things to do all the time. And I'm taking it upon myself to make sure everything goes right. It feels right. Like, I'm the most senior one in the team, so I feel like it's my responsibility to push things through. It's also part of my personality; the need to get everything right every single time.

Expect more from others, expect most from yourself, that's what I say.

But working is....it doesn't really feel very important, you know what I mean? I feel like a cog in the machinery. It's not a bad thing to be a cog; to be needed to keep the big picture moving. But I'm just one of MANY cogs.

I want to be the BIGGEST cog. I want to be more important in this world. It's some sort of superhero complex. There are two paths I can go down on: To play the game and be a major player, or to totally separate myself from the game, and be a non-participant.

Which is better? I don't know. But sooner or later, I'm gonna encounter that crossroad. It's going to take me by surprise.

Think of a lovely sunny day at a park. Your walking down this path upon which leaves are strewn around. And then you encounter a fork. You can't see it's end. So what do you do? Some friends go this way, and others go that. Where do you go?

Rabbits Left For Dead

God knows how it all started. Somehow, these humans got the impression that our feet were lucky. They hunt us down, and then they chop off our legs and keep it as charms of sorts. In the past, they would kill us, chop off our legs and then proceed to devour the rest of our flesh. But lately, the practice has taken a strange turn for the worse, for us.

The humans got the impression that a rabbit foot taken from a live rabbit is luckier. Again, god knows how this started. It's a cruel practice. One of them would hold us down, and the other would take a blade and hack our feet right off. They don't stop at one of course. They cut all four limbs.

Their knives, like their minds, are dull. The process is excruciating for both parties, but we get the harder end of the bargain. We would squeal our tiny lungs out, and struggle. No use. No use.

Limbless, we just lies there; a puddle of blood and fur.

So the human returns home, victorious, happy. Is he lucky? I do not know. It's beyond me, beyond my concerns. Sooner or later, a predator, probably a wolf, would come along and just eat us. A limbless creature doesn't struggle much.

I can't help but think to myself, as I stare death in the eye, what drives these strange humans. What's so lucky about my foot when clearly, I am the unluckiest creature on this Earth? I have no limbs, I cannot move.

I wait for death to come to me.

Last Goodbye

No, this isn't the Last Goodbye. I'll come back. Last Goodbye is the title of my favourite song at the moment. I'm always singing it in the showers, while playing LAN, whenever. It's about love and loss, in very few words. The melodies are powerful, and the voice is haunting, and it's everything sad and beautiful about loving another person.

I haven't been updating here, I know. Actually, I haven't had much time for anything, ever since my the beginning of this week. Been more busy with my job you see. I'm working 6 days a week now, from 9 to 8 every single day. Yeah, it's tiring.

I don't have much time for anything else. I don't mind the job, but I have to wonder. I mean, there's got to be more to life than working.

Don't stop.

Until your leaning on every traffic lights for support.

Until your throat is a desert.

Until your body's at it's limit.

Until you can't run straight, let alone think straight.

Until you lose yourself.

Until you can taste your sweat.

Until your legs hate you.

Until you finish.