Saturday, December 30, 2006

CountDown To The New Year

I Saw Foreigners Kissing Santa Claus On Xmas Day
What I saw around me was a sea of foreigners. Tourists, maybe even the work and student pass holders *(well if you ask me, at least the student pass holders are paying some of their dues but certainly not the work pass holders - look I know a privately-funded international school actually offers to pay $1500 a month for their housing needs here). Or the long-haul residents (a Chinese PR tenant I had was making a whopping $48000 a year for the health food pyramid-selling he indulges in)

Like that Czech woman who works the reception counter at the SSC gym. Or the countless Filipina and Filipinos working the fashion and sports retail outlets here (they don't seem to know very much about the products they sell). And the Malaysian Chinese at the high-end hotel F&B outlets and the low-end kopi-tiams (the really loud and crude louts are found here usually with rude service to boot).

Even the telecomunication retail shops are dominated by them (no service or knowledge if you ask me).

Not all offer good service. In fact, most would give us a bad name in terms of the kinda product knowledge and the level of service they provide.

Are we sure we shouldn't be training the locals (like we are doing now at the ITEs and polys) to do a better job at projecting Singapore service at its best?

You Developed It, So Clean It Up, Bozo (ORDEAL NO 1)
On 11th December 2006, the e-kiosk at the Bishan community library kicked up a big fuss, telling me how it could not read my contactless cashcard.

By then it had already swallowed up $30 worth of cash from my bank account without remitting any part of it to either my cashcard or to my multi-media account. That $30 just DISAPPEARED INTO THIN AIR!

If you remember, this same card had given me much grief at the xeroxing machines at the same place as well as at the train fare-gates. Simply because it clashes with the EZlink technology and all the STATE-OF-THE-ART machines can't read it.

Read : BIG TIME COUNTRY BUMPKIN ALIEN SENT HERE ON EARTH TO TROUBLE US POOR EARTHLINGS courtesy of our NETS people.

Now I could have topped up my multi-media account via my ATM card of course but as I said, I was "conditioned" to transfer funds from my bank to the cashcard and then to my multi-media account simply because IT HAD BEEN THAT WAY WELL BEFORE THEY INVENTED THE E-KIOSKS.

Much like what the PAP IS TELLING ALL OF US ALL THIS TIME! THAT, THAT WAS THE WAY IT WAS, IT WON'T CHANGE AND IT WILL BE STATUS QUO. Even if China and India are on the ascent. And the Middle East is not far behind.

And Volcano Land should not have spouted any lava in the first place on SENTOSA ISLAND. We should have had Disney, Universal or Fox Studios to do the trick.

The worst part of the whole ordeal was, GET THIS PEOPLE, the community library was AUDACIOUS enough (fuck you, read my lips) to insist I deal with NETS MYSELF, even though the two institutions have been in cahoots co-developing the software, the machine and the whole works.

The library staff even has my record of my CASHCARD transactions and they could have simply faxed the details over to the NETS people.

But NO SIREE, I had to run up to the Orchard community library one Thursday afternoon (because I was down at Orchard Road sniffing out some shopping bargains - GUESS had some really hefty discounts but of course I couldn't really find anything I want and the woman sales staff disallowed trying on the outfit - SO HOW DO WE KNOW IF THE SIZE FITS AND IF WE LOOK GOOD IN IT? BIG TIME BIMBO!) and instruct the staff to print out my bank statement and fax it over.

And it was a good three weeks wait.

In the period in between, I had repeated calls from the library staff but no action on the part of the NETS people. They were shoving the LITTLE BASTARD back and forth, back and forth and back and forth again and again!

I hope the library catches fire and the NETS people die in a mudslide.

Caveat Emptor! Product Defect! Product Recall! Dont Buy This! (ORDEAL NO 2)
It was too good to be true. Two luggages for the price of one. $29.90 to be exact. A smaller suitcase Russian dolled inside a bigger one.

I had no problems with the bigger luggage but once I tried to change the combi-lockset numbers (because it was sited so close to the handlebar which I think is a manufacturing defect) on the smaller one, it could not open.

Frantic calls to CARREFOUR were routed to the sales promoter from another company who was unhelpful and unfriendly (so I fucked her up in a SMS text, she threatened to lodge a police report and I wanted to counter-report when her male friend called up and THREATENED ME ).

In fact when I thought about it, there were no sales promoter on hand on the day I purchased the set.

Threats to complain and SUE THE COMPANY FOR NEGLIGENCE finally had them deliver a new suitcase, only to have the same problem repeat itself. THIS HAD GOTTA BE A MANUFACTURING DEFECT which the company is hiding and dumping its products at a CHEAP SALE, I thought.

The luggage looks suspiciously like another brand with its COMPANY NAME striped across the suitcase in the middle except this is now called MEGA-POLO and not SWISS POLO (which if you remember, its lightweight flimsy handles broke the last time).

I had to lug the BASTARD thing around and trudge off to a local BAG company here to have it fixed.

An Ounce Worth But A Pound In Exchange
I chatted with UNCLE CABBY and related to him about my recent bad buys. We agreed that many of the stuff now, because they are manufactured in some Third World, come with cheaper material and labour. But they are priced exorbitantly especially the branded ones.

We can imagine the huge profit margins the manufacturers are raking in.

Dry And Wet : Like The Way You Fuck Someone
Whoever it was who suggested levying a tax on plastic bags has got to be OUT OF HIS FUCKING MIND, not once but twice over. He has obviously overlooked the issue of dry and wet groceries. The latter, usually being perishables, need plastic bags to keep them in and to be thrashed after consumption in that same plastic bag.

Dry groceries (usually durables) could be bagged in recyclable bags for sure. But please, look at the distinction before you suggest anything stupid.

To his credit , however, he wrote an excellent article about TAIWAN and how it is really going the pro-democracy way. Just like the other writer who wrote something on meritocracy and just today something on the changing facets of a traditional "family nucleus".

She is still deadset against "welfarism" just as I am deadset against the "subsidy" (no, it is not even that, it is a donation) she gets from the fellowship she gets awarded to study at some overseas educational institution.

A Second Interview By An "INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL"
I met up with the Academic Director (if you are the Academic Director, then I am Prince Charming from FUCK-YOUR-ARSE School for the Morons And Bimbos).

First he had a form for me to fill in, listing all the subjects I can teach in three modes : C1 Expert C2 Able to teach after some preparation C3 Unable to teach.

Now what was particularly stupid was I should be only filling in THOSE SUBJECTS I CAN TEACH and leaving those I can't teach blank, right? That is what HE EXPLICITLY WANTED ME TO DO!

So why is there a need for C3 unless he wants me to fill up all the blanks corresponding to all the teaching subjects listed.

From his accent I can't really gauge where he hails from. Singapore? China? Taiwan? Malaysia? Like I couldn't the Mynamese girl serving at the Burger King counter. I thought she was HongKee.

But I kept emphasizing to him how I thought communication skills was important. I hope he caught my drift. If he didn't, he is as DAFT as George Bush. Better still, the PAP!

Wussy No 1
I place my stack of newspapers on the table. She was sitting at the next table.

When I came back from ordering my food at the fast-food joint, she was reading my copy of URBAN (look she was reading URBAN - about fashion and so on and not even the WORLD NEWS OR LOCAL NEWS).

She apologized and said she didn't know it belonged to someone??????????????

I was MAGNAMINOUS that day so I told her to carry on reading and to return me the copy after she is done.

Wussy No 2
She showed me a few jewellery pieces, brandishing a calculator and toting up the prices and the "discounts" she was giving out.

She showed me a ring I already bought at another jeweller for $3. She wanted $45, after a "discount".

I flashed my finger and told her I got that for $3!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, December 28, 2006

A Pre-New Year Blog

Are You Outta Your Mind?
To further refine my argument, how can someone be legally able to wed at age 21 (deemed matured) while a gay person is only matured at age 35?

Now the housing authority has not even allowed me an escape route. As a sole single owner of a public housing project, I could will my "asset" but this is subject to the authority's eligibility conditions.

And one of these conditions is the relationship of the owner willed to take over from me. He must be one of those related persons (family and relatives) and not an unrelated person, like my beau, who because we don't sanction gay marriages and gay partnerships, can't inherit my house.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Boxing Day Luminations

Free Smooches
Yes, I spotted that Korean gall featured in the "Free Hugs" photo in the STRAITS TIMES. She was walking over to the loo and the placard was upside down as she held it in her hands. Even though it was not the right side up, I could read it said "FREE HUGS".

I didn't know then that she was part of that trio giving out free hugs. I was thinking she was really brave and mad to walk around alone like that with that sign.

Anyone could just pounce on her and be not accused of any wrongdoing because she had it coming.

Little Bug, little bug, Whence Did Thou Cometh From?
For certain, one bed bug DID follow me from Psycho's place. I caught it busking on my bed at BULLDOG's in Punggol. I had no choice but to unfurl a tissue paper, wrap it round it, squeeze as hard as I could till it bled blood, and hey it is not even its blood, it was MINE.

That is when you can be a 100% sure it is dead. I can't ascertain if these two bed bugs were from Psycho's or they were just there at AUNTIE's/Tim's, lurking somewhere or passed on from her/his previous tenants.

After all who knows what kinda tenants they have had.

Please Review This And See If You Think It Is Reasonable
The Joint Singles Scheme insists on two singles jointly intending to own a resale flat to be BOTH at least 35 years old. This is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It is also an ageist policy. It is like insisting that a pregnant mother give birth not only to octuplets but all 8 have to be boys.

If it had been a case of one of at least 21 years of age while the other at least 35, it would have been more equitable.

We all know how couplings usually have one older than the other, never usually both on par with each other. So you can't expect both to be at least 35, can you?

In fact to further insist that at age 35, singles are then deemed to be more matured, has detrimentally overlooked the fact how other "family nulcei" at age 21 have witnessed poor parenting skills, poor parent-child relationships, dysfunctional familial relationships , some can even ill-afford to start a family in the first place, let alone sham and shotgun marriages of conveniences.

How different can a 21 year old marriagable person be when compared to a 35 year old single? Who is seriously more matured? Are grown-ups really grown-ups? Don't we go to war?Don't we play those same games we play when were were children? The game of envy, the game of tit-for-tat, the game of telling on others and so on.

The wussies at the call centres never even got this right. For new ECs, joint singles are eligible while for resale ECs, the same eligibility conditions apply as in all normal resale conditions.

I Got My Hair-Cut At A Really Top-End Salon And Blew A Hole In My Pockets
Well ok. Let us just say that I got sick of all those cheap and bad haircuts I have been getting so far. The 10-minute haircuts, the Malay barbers and even the Auntie who tended to my hair after that. I mean I have had haircuts at mid-range priced salons before which didn't exactly meet up to their extortionate claims but never this BIG !

This salon was almost the David Gan equivalent. I know I shouldn't have had my hair "straightened" when I urged a change of hair style or even wanted Kenn, the director, to do my hair when a leading stylist would do. Kenn doesn't come cheap. But hey Kenn was really persuasive and he was featured in all those swanky glossy magazines and he does shows all around the world and I just had to throw some money down his way.

Plus there was this really cute NTU dude sitting next to me, waiting to cut and dye his hair. Too bad I didn't get his contact number.

At the end of about two or more hours of waiting, "straightening" and so on, I finally had my "NEW" hairstyle.

Tell me what you think of it if you happen to see me.

Who Is This Bishan North Mall Cleaner Anyway?
Yeah, who exactly is she? Well, for starters, she cleans up after all the hungry hordes had walloped their food at the kopi-tiam (not the KOPI TIAM we all know and love but the kopi-tiam - the traditional coffee-shop of old usually tucked away at the neighborhood centres), leaving the tables ONE BIG MESSY pig swill.

As I said before, I can't really be sure if all these swines are locals or even local locals.

You go find out.

I think those of us who have had the "benefit" of our education system would have learnt from all those benign but usually out-of-touch sages in our schools how we should do good, be civic-conscious, be polite, be respectful and be deferent EVEN when PLUTO is no longer in our solar system and planets revolve around one another and DUDES now can have sex with each other EVEN in public places like the loos, the swimming pools and someone's backyard.

Anyway, this cleaner is hunched and humped and she speaks some good English, from the few words she uttered when I presented her with the X'mas gift.

GOD KNOWS what she said! All I did was tap her on her hump, smile, pointed to the gift and walked away merrily, feeling like I was Santa Claus though I know the roly-poly gift-bearer doesn't exist, America invented St Nicholas and before you know it, X'mas has become another commercial enterprise.

Just like Valentine's Day. Why don't we invent yet another festivity? Like St Gay's Day?

I have been observing how diligently she has been going from table to table to clean up and washing the rag in a pail of water she lugs around.

I have even seen her at a bus-stop on one occasion with an old man. Who he is, I do not know. It ain't my business and it aint yours either. If you wanna know, go ask her ok. You risk a slap though. He could be his brother for all you know.

All I know is she deserves a Xmas gift and GOD has been kind enough to present an opportunity for me to do this to her. I mean a good deed of course. I hope she doesn't decide she ain't fit to carry such AN EXPENSIVE purse and decide to give it away to some RICH TAIS TAIS.

THANKS BE TO GOD! YOU ARE THE BEST AND KINDEST, if you even exist at all, that is.

If Jesus Glided Over The Waters, So Can I Cross The Train Tracks
I mean of course the thought crossed my mind. I was at the Bukit Panjang LRT some time back and it had two platforms, each separated from each other by the tracks and each having a different route. I wanted to know what the other route at the other platform was.

I actually wanted to step down onto the tracks though there was a sign warning of danger and being electrocuted by the immensely high voltage, if you even manage to cross over before the train hit you, that is.

I though I could be JESUS when he gracefully and miraculously glided over water like he was some DAVID COPPERFIELD magician performing a saw-up on his human subjects.

If I had no guts to fling myself off a building, surely I can fling myself onto the tracks (ha ha - sorry I said I "jumped off" the tracks the last time - that shows that I could clamber out of the tracks just as I had climbed in).

Then again I am not sure I wanna kill myself. Maybe after I had lived the good life, had enormous wealth,
oversee a revolution that overthrows the PAP and live to see all the "teachers" quit the education service.

Ah well, guess I will stick around for some time yet.

A Three-Piece Sweaty Sweat
Wait. What if a gym machine had three parts - a back-rest, an arm-rest and a butt-rest. And you sweat in all those three places. Where do you place your towel? Have you thought about that?

Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas Cheer And Jeer

Here's A Little Festive Cheer For Depressives Like Myself Who Has Little To Cheer About
It was one of those afternoons. I had absolutely NOTHING to do. Not that I had anything to do in the first place. Because the MOTHERFUCKERS at MOE wouldn't want moi to earn a few bucks off their rich asses even though their MOTHER FUCKING schools have enough funds to program other activities.

I had been deliberating over a couple of days and visited the shops a few times. I even bumped into a dude who had the same idea as moi. He was a dude whom I knew from the community library and exactly the kind of personality type I was.

We were staring and admiring and deliberating. calculations and miscalculations going on in our heads.

One half of our brain keeps egging us on, reassuring us TO GO AHEAD, IT ISN"T SOME DIAMOND-STUDDED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS PRICED wedding gowns. It isn't even some gold-plated bathtubs or faucets. Not even gold-dusted dildoes or latex.

The other half admonished us for extravagance (no less extravagant than the NKF I suppose) and how our mothers used to make us feel as guilty as TT Durai if we should even think of SPENDING MONEY, ANY KIND OF MONEY, even if it was on all those nice books the schools had so EVILLY AND CUNNINGLY instructed some book vendors to display BLATANTLY at the tuckshop tables to catch our attention.

Someone Tell Me How Silverfishes' Existences Come About And I Will Richly Reward You With Free Hugs And Kisses (Like Those Dudes On Orchard Road Are Doing)
After all we were expected to be seen but not heard. We were supposed to stay home the whole time and DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Stare at the four walls and hopefully a lizard will drop from the sky.

Which it did. Not a lizard. But two bed bugs and a colony of ants and a silverfish.

Now I am not sure if these had pursued me from Psycho's place or they were just hibernating somewhere at Tim's (Sidney or Sydney) and Auntie's place, just waiting for a poor, unsuspecting and skin-sensitive dude like myself to lay his head on the HORRIFICALLY stained pillow and bed-sheet before they surprise and pounce on me, leaving me bleeding to my untimely death from scratching my itchy skin to THY HELL THAT COMETH.

Which explains why I am ridding myself of some old baggages, literally, figuratively and physically.

After all that silverfish did drop on me bed as soon as I fished out my book in a carrier from my old suitcase. I had to squash it to death on the bedding, blood-stained as it were, just as I squashed the two bed bugs on the same bedding.

What Kinda Christmas Presents I Got Myself
I could tell that THE ITE DUDE and me were deprived, indigent dudes from underprivileged and disadvantaged families. To buy OR not to buy, that was our dilemma. In the end I did.

I couldn't take it anymore. It was also a kind of festive cheer for me. A little something for myself to get me out of a terribly depressing and gloomy spell I had been having lately. You can tell from my face I could jump off the MRT tracks anytime and kill myself.

I hopped from shop to shop, picking up that nice ADIDAS leatherette sneakers and that nice NIKE AirMax runners and shorts.

My last shopping stop was that even nicer Guess Collection chronograph. Something I had gleaned from Men's Folio. One of four SE-1 exclusive collection. A rose-gold plated, PVD coated and black carbon fibre dialled timepiece.

Hey! I Wanna Spruce Up My Face Too
Then of course there are the shop's staff. They looked nice. Really, really, really nice. Cosmetically altered nice. I mean I could tell the dude had a nose-job and those doey-almond eyes weren't exactly genetic. There could even be a chin implant swivelling somewhere underneath that swell and noble-looking jawline.

When I pocketed my coveted and expensive watch home that very night, I was trembling all over with excitement. It was like GOD had just ordained me sainthood and I was about to enter the hallowed gallery of holy matyrs. When I die that is.

That night, I took it out over and over again to gawk at it. I couldn't get over my purchase. I pestered the staff for a free gift. They gave me a GUESS mink-fur purse with its logo emblazoned in white over its sky-blue fabric skin.

Spread A Little Christmas Cheer
A few days later, I put it into a little Tangs shopping carrier and presented it to a regular cleaner whom I vaguely knew but instantly recognised and thought to be needy at Bishan North Shopping Mall.

My gloomy spirit has temporarily lifted.

I Can't Figure Out What The Hell Am I Doing Here On Earth - Can You? And It Ain't Nothing To Do With Religion
But what lingers is still that emptiness inside. An emptiness of desperation, of isolation and of hopelessness. A desperation no less driven by the people I am holing up with not by choice but by circumstances the past year. The grouches, the meanies and the equally unhappys.

A feeling that not I alone feel but the countless other lonely, unhappy and empty souls I spot flitting all around me during this time of a supposedly rich, glamorous, commercialised but meaningless festive celebration.

How is it that we are a nation so rich but yet so poor?

Unbelievable Prices
A double-rotating silver ring going at 15 times lower than its usual price. A bright orange two-tone tee half its usual price. What shopping bargains!

Thou Ark No Better Than Thee
First my short work-out towel got smudged with grime. Then two distinct rust-spots appeared at its edges. To aggravate matters, I cannot decide where to put my towel when a work-out machine has both a back-rest and arm rest. I sweat in all those areas.

In fact it proves to be a hindrance when I do stand-up exercises and there is nowhere to hang it. It slips away from me back when I do the seated dip or pull-down pec-flys.

Are we enforcing the work-out towel rule correctly and a little too earnestly?

Quit While You Should
Hey "educationists and educators" of Singapore! I hate to say this. But if you think you had fulfilled your teaching pledges just by breeding elite academicians schooled in elite schools and institutions along with their equally elite and sterling academic results and elite sportspeople or elite businesspeople or professionals or whatever, you might as well call it quits from the education service. I know I would.

If these "elites" didn't have a single compatible brain cell to come up with better policies or thinking or rationale or have a heart or compassion or anything for anyone and don't even know or have lived life or have no first-hand experience of anything or is so out of touch with reality, IT MEANS NOTHING.

Quit while you should.

Friday, December 15, 2006

The Guys Are Sizzling Hot Here At The Gyms

A S-L-O-W Coach
Have you ever ridden on a bus that snails along? A bus that took eternity? A bus that if you had fallen asleep on that cute hunky tanned Commando's laps, mouthed his protruding tanned brown thick long sausage and urinated on the Gall behind you, you would still not have arrived at your destination?

Sounds deja-vu? Well that was what happened to me last Wednesday when I was supposed to turn up for a room viewing. It wasn't just any room. It was a flat occupied by a hot NS dude and his widowed/divorced/single/wateva mother. Certainly much more entertaining than Tim (or Sidney or Sydney) and his mother (Auntie).

I could imagine the hours of HOT SIZZLING ORGIES we could have indulged in. The master bedroom. The common toilet. The doggy's pen. The air-conditioner ledge. The kitchen sink. Almost anywhere you can let your wild and fetishy mind roam.

I even hailed a cab to make up for the loss in time, salivating at the thought of arriving at the front steps of his flat to find him buck naked. What will I do? Scoop up his two hairy rambutans and lick it. Then all along his penal shaft. When that is done, it will be back to work from his head down to his pubis all over again. Isn't that deja-vu?

But what did I get when I arrived? Nothing. The room was already taken and guess what? All I was left with were JUST the agent and her protege.

Control Freaks

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

I Wanna Break Free

Freddy Mercury's Song: I Wanna Break Free
This is one of his songs. Queen's Freddy Mercury who died of Aids.

Richie Rich
Tim (Sidney or Sydney) must be a spoilt brat since Auntie mentioned she divorced when Tim was aged 21 and they were fabulously rich then. He sure talks like one spoilt sissified brat.

Another Richie Rich
I met up with one of the owners of a popular youth magazine here at a local hotel. He was trying to source business funding. Now that I have read some celebrity's blog, I realise many of her "friends" were from that magazine, either as writers or something.

This dude's behavior is so atrocious. Toward the last bit of our conversation, he walked out, expecting me to foot the bill he had eaten.

This magazine has all the sleazy stories on people's sex lives. GOD! What trashy reads!

Who Knows What You Want Better Other Than Your Ownself
I know what kinda job I wanna do. The aptitude I have and so on. It is not for others to decide, judge and then try to put you into a square mould when you are a round peg. Isn't this right?

Who knows yourself better than you yourself? Your own temperament, your true feelings and your true views. So you can't shove words into my mouth and make me seem like I am the one saying those things you think I thought. Or from the few behavioural actions and you decide that it is!

I can't be doing a job for life when I know it won't sustain me through and through. Not when I am not even remotely interested or keen? Why would I wanna flit in and out of jobs when I am flitting in and out of a home and permanently nomadic and uncertain where my next home will be?

Are The Foreigners Controlling The Upper Reaches Of Our Society
Whether in government or businesses . And I don't mean just foreigners but also the naturalised citizens. Or the permanently resident ones. They aren't really one of us now, are they?

Which must explain some of the really atrocious thinking behind many of the policies and human resource management in organisations.

Maybe they were just paying back some of the bad karma they had undergone themselves from us here. Maybe they don't mean us very well and they just wanna beat down all the locals as much as they can?

Singapore Is Not America, Singapore Is Singapore
I met two uncle cabbies the past few days and we chatted on a wide range of political issues. I told Uncle Cabby No 2 that Singapore can NEVER adopt the American model in freely allowing work passes foreigners here to work on our shores.

Many would leave after making their bundle. We are training and equipping them with the skills to start their own businesses back home or to build their home economies. If Malaysia wants to build a biotechnology industry, it just needs to head-hunt those who have worked here or abroad.

Singapore is not America with its 300 million people and its bumper crop of inventors and innovators like Microsoft. We can ill afford foreigners taking away with them the technology that has helped built our industries and then competing with us back in their homelands.

Uncle Cabby has misread the information when he thought that singles could purchase new flats under resale conditions and market prices when the tender for private agents to market the units is finalised. While this is true, these are unsold 5-room or larger flats which singles can ill-afford.

Foreign Land
While nosing around for information about a potential home in Jurong East/Jurong West (God, the East is a slum. Some parts of the West too. And you know how remote this place is), I randomly chanced upon two China national women who have made their homes here with their Singaporean husbands.

Both on different floors of the same block. What coincidence and luck to randomly run into them like this!

If I can bump into them so randomly, imagine how much more random the whole town must be with their numbers swelling our ranks in the far-flung and cheap slums of Singapore.

Uncle Cabby No 2 Told Me This While Some Time Ago Another Told Me This
NTUC Fairprice has closed its China branches, this is what I was told. Some time ago, another Uncle Cabby told me that Delgro Comfort has similarly closed its operations there.

They EARN, We PAY - Your Logic Is SO GOOD!!!!
Our work passes visitors come here and EARN money. After they amass a fortune, they usually leave. For the rest of us, meaning CITIZENS, from cradle to grave, we PAY AND PAY (gee - does this sound familiar to you? No prizes for a correct guess). And they are further accorded special privileges and subsidised fees?

Now there is talk of compulsory medical insurance. Gee whiz. When I worked for He-Ape, a whole year passed with me without being medically insured. And I am a citizen? What about housing? Aren't they hogging and competing with us there too?

Disused Community Clubs/Centres
The Bukit Panjang Community Club is in such an appalling state. Save for the lone Down Syndrome boy sitting outside its office reading the papers, the whole place is deserted.

Can't it be put up for use as a private school for operators like me?

Screw My Face!
As my mood swing hit me again these couple of days, no less aided by all the pathetic readings of illogic in policies, the people around me and the stress brought on by the looming prospect of moving again, I can hurl invectives against anyone.

You can't blame me if my every waking hour is filled with problems, unreasonable people and all kinds of idiocy happening in your life!

So just keep out of my way!

A Life Imprisonment
I have a funny feeling I am under 24-hour surveillance. Tim goes to work in the morning and comes back in the night. Auntie keeps watch in the daytime. Auntie goes to work in the night and comes home in the morning. Tim keeps watch in the night.

Perhaps like Auntie mentions, she fears robbery. I dont see so many things at home worthy to steal. What about the 2 China National work permit holders? Shouldn't she be in greater fear of that?

Like Hiro, I am confined to my room. At least he has a TV set. Auntie watches TV the whole time she is at home during the day. There are times, I just wanna stay in, relax, snooze a little, read or watch TV. Regular stuff people do at home. And have visitors.

And yes I am moving house partly because Tim (so is he Sydney and a security guard like Auntie says he is or is he Tim the hair-dresser like he said he is?) was smirking and formally introducing me to the two China tenants when they moved in. He didn't do that with Hiro and me. So what meanest this? What are his evil intentions?

Tim talks like a sissy little kid. Really, I cannot but help feel how naive and silly he is. Little GALL!

Interview Snub
They have shortlisted me. The same gang, one woman executive and a director, who refused me a space in their international hotel building (which is tied to MOE in some ways) to start a classroom on grounds of "conflict of interest" (how many other "conflict of interest" haven't we encountered already everywhere) and so on.

I didn't turn up for the scheduled interview. If they had said yes back then, I would have been in a better position. Now they want me to work for them? FUCK YOU!

Like the MOE HQ, there are so many rooms left empty and unused in this building. Just like the community centres and clubs.

I Am Not Training Any Teachers!
When my last interviewers mentioned training teachers for some of their programs, I baulked at the suggestion. I rather teach young fresh faces like the kids than some of the bitch and wimp arses in schools.

Greater M0rtal Fear
I am not as fearful of catching some STDs at the men's clubs as I am of catching some skin diseases. Some clubs are really in bad shape in terms of cleanliness and hygiene. Eczema maybe? Genital herpes and warts?

Anyway, the dudes flitting in and out of the dark rooms are just like the zombies. Mindless lonely souls. But can I blame them? Arent we who have made this place what it is?

Can we change it?

Unsettling Unsettlement
How can I take up a job when I am not settled on the homefront. Or even start an enterprise? I can't be living in the West and then holding down a job in the East, can I? Isn't that why foreigners live where they work? Like the hordes I see in the West? Even here in Bishan. Lots of Indians and Chinese China nationals.

What when my new place is ready? Wouldn't that disrupt my work? I don't even know where I can live as affordability is an issue and that depends on how much I will be getting.

Breaking Free Of A Mindset
I mean I know I am moulded of a mindset too and I can be dense at times. I realised I could have topped up my multi-media account at the library directly via one deduction from my ATM card rather than two via the ATM card and cashcard.

But this was because it can only be paid via the cashcard once upon a time before they offered multi-modal payment. Thus I was moulded.

Unto Thy World
All of us live in our own cocooned small world. Auntie. The PAP. The old. The young and especially Tim. I can imagine the local gossips he engages with his clients, mostly the heartlander aunties. Unfounded gossip and wrong information in most cases.

He thinks he knows everything and he is so smart.

You don't expect the hairdresser or the security guard to know what the world of the politican or surgeon is right?

Put-downs And Denying Me My Livelihood And You Dont Expect Me To Bite Back?
Every time I go round marketing my programs in schools, there were plenty of putdowns and idiotic questions coming from sanctimonious "educators". If they were any better, hey, I would clam up and shut up sooner. But they weren't.

Like the clone in the curriculum planning department. She asked for my "credentials". Well, I don't know hers but I do know her other clone's. It ain't exactly sterling!

Monday, December 11, 2006

What Is This?

Get Your Info Right
Who do the housing authority put behind all those call centres answering the public's enquiries on housing matters? Bimbos , half-baked and half-informed operators?

I called in several times about the single and joint-singles scheme for both the walk-in selection and for the EC flats and each time, I get a different answer. And they could adamantly maintained their replies without even knowing that they were dead wrong.

High-Jinx Card
The contactless card has proved to be high-jinxed again. Now the library's e-kiosk cannot read the card and my sucessive cash deductions didn't go through for my cashcard even though my bank account has been emptied.

High And Dry
First a Malay family renegaded on the room deal but I was lucky to get back my deposit. Now I can't shift out mid-month and am still hunting for a room.

Amidst all these, the property agent could stupidly insist on a 1+1+1/2 month rental and commission payment on the spot. Imagine how I would have lost out on this!

He didnt even help me get my deposit back and I had to confront the owner directly at his house myself. When there is money to be made, he is around but not otherwise. Inept as he is.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Monday Blues And I Am Really Blue

Reason Like This, People! Public And Private Space!
Look, look, look. Back at my old home, my master toilet isn't exactly clean. In fact, it is one of the smelliest and dirtiest toilet I have come across. But hey, I am using it solely for myself, so I can live with it.

It doesn't help that the bathtub, for some cheap reasons of its own, is leeking its paint so my sanitarywares get stained and dirtied in the process. And the flush is not a full long flush like Tim's place so all sewage do not get flushed away wholly.

Even despite my good scrubbing and chemical efforts, the bowl's stinkhole is still clogged with turd.

Ironically the other toilet is spanking clean. And it has been exclusively for the use of any tenant. So he would be expected to keep it clean.

If you have some hose nearby and after I pee and I splay, well I can flush the puddle away. If you don't, well you just didn't have the proper implements for me to help you keep the toilet clean. This isn't available at public toilets. Neither was it available at Bulldog's. I had to buy the toilet bowl scrub, remember?

If someone lives with me and he can live with the mess, hey WE ARE ONE! But if he can't, we will both put in the effort to keep it clean.

If you are leasing out the place and you and the tenants can't keep the place clean, it is best some parties leave. Or don't lease the place out. Don't collect the lucrative rent you have been collecting. Live on your own like I did. That is just simple logic.

If you want me to hang out the undies to dry, don't expect moi to be on stand-by 24 hrs to take it in should it rain. Because you are superstitious or for some hygiene purposes, you do not like to walk into and under any undies, that is your problem. I am kinda indifferent if it is just me and my partner alone. Even at this place, I don't really care and ain't particularly particular unless it is some sanitary pads soiled with blood.

Like I am indifferent to the loud padlock opening. I would be worst hit since my door is just next to the main gate right? You don't see me complaining. Even when Hiro soils the toilet bowl, I didn't complain. I can live with it. And it ain't my home. If I can't, I just do my "business" at much cleaner and more classy toilets at the library or some other spanking new malls.

If you brush your teeth, the toothpaste do splay and splash onto the mirror right in front of you. It isn't the way Auntie puts it : Hiro was spitting and spewing out everything into the mirror on purpose.

We didn't choose to live together in the first place but because you wanna make some money and I need a space, we came together.

But if you can live and let live in those areas like the padlock, etc etc, well, things will turn out fine.

And we can co-operate together.

I can understand this is a private space but when you lease it out, it no longer is. A home is for family members and life partners to share and love and co-operate. If Hiro were my bf, I would overlook all his unclean faults and clean up after him. But I am not. Neither is Auntie and she is not even his mother.

Extend this reasoning to schools. School is a public space of sort, much like a shopping mall. So? How can every single student be expected to keep in line. That is why we have contract cleaners in schools didn't we?

Go To Hell, People!
I have lived with Psycho and Bulldog and now Tim. We are several years apart and I can't even click with them. Mainly because they are of that generation which lives in a world of their own.

Everyone does. Auntie. The PAP. The younger set. And so on. It is just a matter of which world I can click with.

For auntie, I am overlooking many of her "peculiar traits and logic" only because she is so old. I shall just give way to her. And she isn't so unreasonable and she doesn't like nickpick so much, at least on me.

So I am supposed to choose someone for a partner on the basis of age? Gimme another fucking break MAN!

Gimme A Fucking Break
I can't be doing so many things at one time. Especially if they are major (read: major and not minor stuff which I can easily multi-task) projects. I am not settled on the homefront and with my investments, how can I start on a business or enterprise.

One major thing at a time, that is what I will say to myself.

I will be juggling too many balls and killing myself.

Are We Missing Some Things Here?
Anita Roddick must have struck at the heart of the problem when she staunchly proclaimed that MBA classes do not necessarily produce entrepreneurs. In fact the MBA classes may actually stifle enterprise, trying to fit all in one exact mould.

It is precisely my same argument that in the pre-war generation, we have more entrepreneurs than we have now. Why?

First, the British masters did not muscle in on every single aspect of the economy like the PAP has now. There were still many, many, many opportunities for private enterprises to flourish.

Even if the PAP has filled the economy with its own people, they have not necessarily managed the businesses well. That is because being civil servants or ex-civil servants, they came from one cut of the mould. Sometimes deadwoods and deadweights even.

Partly because these are state-enterprises (therefore not their own personal assets) and they are paid a regular pay-check , they can sit on their behinds for as long as needed, while waiting for the sky to fall.

Schools back then were not like schools today where everyone is schooled in almost the same national system. There were more variety I guess.

Third, women and wimps (given their overall characterial composition) now make up the majority of the "educationists" in our midst. Their "pedagogy and methodology" must surely account in some part for the lack of enterprise.

Never Liked Girls And Never Will
Not that I like all the guys either. Look if you don't like me, doesn't mean that I like you either. It is 2 way. But let us just base it on who has the better reasoning that is all. Not on looks or whatever. And you think we all have to smile all the time? FUCK YOU!

I Just Got Another Piece Of Infuriating News
It is bad and wicked enough that singles can only own a piece of the secondary market (read : old, unwanted and run-down types) public houses at age 35. Public houses which are affordable that are located in the slums especially for the smaller flats.

Now even if they collaborate to own one, they both have to be 35. But other kinds of "conventional" family nuclei for brand new projects can own one at age 21. Even the PRs are competing with singles in the resale market and at the age of 21.

What is this?

Therefore, going by the logic of our "highly schooled and esteemed policymakers", if Muiz and I got together again, I will have to wait to be 60 years old before I can invite him to c0-share the flat. By then, I wouldn't even be sure what kinda state I will be in.

In that intervening period, should anything untoward happen to me, my flat would most likely go to my kin - my siblings and their children (whom I do not wish to bequeath anything to and that includes my CPF).

Therefore I have to choose someone not based on like-minded personality or behavioral traits but on age. I have to go round asking someone's age at any first date to pre-empt any miscalculation on account of a HDB asset-owning rule.

Reason: At age 35, singles are deemed matured enough. Anything earlier isn't but for others, 21 is?

FUCK YOUR MOTHER CHOW CHEE BYE!

That Settles It - On The Move Again -Gee I Am Beginning To Think I Am A Bedouin
If you wondered who Auntie Siew Wah is, she is that weekend domestic help and she has a life-story all her own to tell - as told by Auntie. In fact, Auntie tells me Auntie Siew Wah's life story while Auntie Siew Wah tells me Auntie's. Kinda strange isn't it?

But Auntie can't impose a ruling on no visitors. She can't make his tenants live out a home life in isolation like she is doing to herself and to Tim. I will not wanna end up like her and her kinda home living.

The GST Hike Revisited
If you really wanna help the poor, then divide the goods into basics and luxuries. Even better, taxanomise what is a basic and what is a luxury. Subdivide that into categories.

A television set isn't just a television set anymore. A cathode-ray tube set would be a basic entry level set for almost anyone, largely the poor. But an LCD set would be for the middle class and a plasma set certainly a luxury.

The hike will be then more focussed and targetted at netting the receipts rightly from the rich to re-distribute to the poor.

Dear M/s Parliamentarian
She hoped that there will not be the politics of envy, she said. The politics of envying the overseas scholars and the rich.

My reply to that is if the merits on which they gotten what they got were fair and just, who denies them that? Often it isn't. Just refer to my list of merits of our meri-talk-cock-cy in an earlier blog.

What of the kinda policies that had come out in the past? What kinda GREAT MIND would think up such heinously insane ideas? Explain that.

He-Ape is running a "school" that has no educational grounds nor merits to even justify its existence. He has done this for 19 years and he is getting away with it, becoming fabulously rich in the process. That is fair?

You Can't Cope? Gee, Explain These
If schools are so administratively burdened and saddled with off-academic duties (Eg: CCA, CIP and learning journeys) like they claim, explain why they are dabbling in so many more things outside its copable realms.

Like enterprise (taking sales orders and delivering), organising elaborate prom night balls at ritzy 6-star hotels and school trips to about everywhere in the world.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

I Would Love To Live In The East And West For A Brief TryOut

A Sorry State
In Auntie Siew Wah's words, Auntie is a "ni qiang ren" (career-minded and dominant woman). If that aptly describes her in her younger days as it does now (Auntie drives to work), I can't see very many traces of it.

For all I know or care, she can be working at a bar in the night as a mamasan. In fact all I see is a woman reduced to a pitiable state since her acrimonious divorce, watching Korean teeny bopper love soap dramas on TV at home all the time.

A four-room flat that has 4 bedrooms, one extra carved out of a store-room for generating income to lease out.

Imagine 5 years and such sour relationship.

A woman who so hates Hiro (at least behind his back) and whinges about how loud he unlocks the padlock on the gate, his soiling the kitchen with food scraps (which is just as soiled when she cooks and eats) and his other intolerable ways.

This is like someone telling moi that I am rough and don't know my strength at the gym. That female senior instructoress fat-ass bitch. I am not sure what qualifies her as a senior. All I know is that she is some deadwood goofing around while collecting a regular payout.

After a workout we all do feel hulked and bulked up. Sorry if we didn't exactly pretend we are fragile sunflowers. You can perhaps improve on communication skills but let us not "control" someone's strength as well like we control urination and sexuality.

Contextuality - Private And Public Spaces
If you thought that if I had lost my cool with the PRC prick at the LAN shop, I would in a classroom too, you didn't get your thinking right. They are two different scenarios altogether.

First I am at work at the PC and though the shop is a public place, there are headphones he could use so that he doesn't intrude into others' privacy.

In the classroom, I am fully dedicating my attention to my charges. I am ready for all episodes of incidence streaming from them and not distracted by other administrative duties. I am not doing quiet work on the PC, documenting, thinking and writing.

At home I want the lifestyle I wanna live. It is important I do for reasons of preservation of personal well-being that I live in with like-minded people who more or less share my same aspirations.

It is especially important on the homefront. This is the last bastion one can be oneself. Never mind we all have to play along at school, at work or even in a country.

That explains break-ups, divorces, fights, unhappiness and so on in homes. Because the people do not share the same vision or sentiments of living together. They move away or run away in most instances to live the life they want to.

Extend that to schools, workplaces and countries and you can begin to see the logic. Look I played truant in school too. I didn't like the college-life. Neither did I like the university life. So?

For one I didn't wanna parrot all the things people would say to please the authorities. The "model answers" that will earn me my grades. And all that rationale and reasoning behind their RULES AND REGULATIONS.

I am a free-spirited sorta person who would do very well creatively, etc etc. But it just so happen there was only one route in life back then - the straight and narrow academic one.

Geddit?

Wah! Serious Ah?
I read this news article today with some consternation. Some 18 year old smoked, was placed in a home but ran away. Now he has committed theft.

Smoking and running away....hmmmmm.....Are they such serious offences that intrude on anyone?

Friday, December 01, 2006

I Gotta Move

The GALLS Have It So Good!
Observing this family dynamics at a coffee-shop table next to me, I noticed how sissy the father was. He was practically doting on his daughters while distancing and admonishing his poor son all the time for trivias like being rude sitting on his lap? (what kinda logic is tat?)

And he is naggy with all the "women" traits. One of the daughters was so ill-tempered she threatened to spit at his brother.

I observed the same when a foreign maid dished out "appropriate" punishment to the son who wanted to take the seat of his sister. He was pinched so hard I could feel his pain if he didn't. OUCH!

And this foursome had an AH LIAN screaming so loud and the BENG boys mouthing vulgarities so much, I wanted to be cured of my Tourette Syndrome myself. But looking at him, I know how easy it is to "handle" him if I should need to.

The Wimps In Schools And Anywhere
You would have read of all those wimpy male authorities in schools who are usually physical education or disciplinary masters that resort to toughness and machoism to impose themselves on their charges.

That is the way they operate. To gain control and submission. Can the charges meekly comply and not resent the unfair and lobsided tilt of authority? Of course not. Don't you think they will trust you better and be persuaded through love and sincere concern?

Of course that wimp who makes all those ANTI-GAY and anti-AIDS speeches in the capacity of his executive appointment fares not much better. He talks so sissy MAN!

I Will Think About Teaching Gay Kids
The ones I met are not easy to deal with. I know what it is they are going through but I don't think I can handle them as well as I can the straight ones.

Hey You Think I Am Here To Talk "Qing" Instead Of "Qian"
I told Auntie that I don't think any Third World or whatever foreigner coming into Singapore isn't exactly looking to strike it BIG AND RICH here. And for that sole reason alone. Yes they seek to make it home here too but MONEY rules. If we understand that and that Singapore is nothing more than a destination for COMMERCIAL HUBBING and profiteering (because we have made it so), we can then begin to understand the kinda mentality and culture that pervades here.

Wait, wasn't I faithfully and dutifully a subscriber of a major newspaper here, or an asset-owning citizen once or a commercial bank debtor paying an extortionate 24% interest. Did they not turn out to be no better than the loan-sharks employing strong-arm tactical harassment on a little late and behind customers?

OOPS! I Think I Made Another Miscalculation
It costs me $2.40 and not $2 for that cone of curly fries I gave away. That was because this "My Love" (literally translated from Mandarin) burger stand outside Hougang Mall, baking in the hot afternoon sun, levied $0.40 for a cup of icy cold water.

The pictorial advert for its menu was deceiving. It showed the top half of the cone of curly fries but it turned out to be a long and huge cone.

All My Woes Are State, Wimp And Women-Induced
I can't help thinking how all my problems are brought on by the above Unholy Trinity.

Recently DBS introduced the IB security device for internet banking. As I surf at public places, I have to lug around this fat key chain thingy , not to mention losing or misplacing it. I am sure it can happen at home too and what of people who are on laptops or notebooks? Isn't that an insecure security in itself?

The CPF board has given notice that all circulars will be sent to residential addresses by Christmas Day. GOD! This is my 6th time moving, so how can I have a permanent address? All the while I have been faithfully collecting my letters via my correspondence address. So what is the BIG PROBLEM?

You have read about how STARHUB did the same thing with a revamp of their e-services via the HUB and ACCOUNT MANAGER management centres. And the introduction of the contactless CASHCARD which clashes with the EZlink card.

Discriminatory policies like not allowing single Singapore citizens to buy brand new and affordable public housing projects. They are thus relegated to the slum areas which do not come cheap, slugging it out with foreigners of every hue, color and manners.

The list goes on.

I can only think of how much free time some people have to think of inconveniences like this to make our lives miserable. And you want us to work for Singapore? You want us to be pro-state when all your policies are anti-citizen or anti-group of citizens?

That is the same too isn't it when religions preach messages of hate against certain groups of people, victimising and driving them apart from other people. What kind of God is that?

Auntie's Rich History
If Auntie's story is to be believed, she was a Malaysian girl who made good here in Singapore tailoring for the rich and famous.

Unfortunately her business partner, her husband that is, fell for one of their staff. They divorced, split up their matrimonial asset (which would have been worthed a fortune today) and the family (two sons with Auntie and daughter with the other half), her hubby turned to cabbing and she went on a whirlwind world tour before settling down to a job at the Pasir Panjang wholesale market where her brother supplies goods, owning some farm in Johore (in between she looked after foreign students, renting out her rooms, etc, etc)

I can imagine that there is some neglect here. And of course the third party is another GALL. Lessons for us to learn all round.

I Am Moving Out Again
Two China nationals are moving into what was Hiro's room. I met them this morning. They work in the food industry and I am moving out.

As it is and at Psycho and even at Bulldog and SLA dude's places, the washers, both new and old, have left all these funny unexplained mud-stained micro-flaks on me clothes. The netting in the washer doesn't seem to trap them.

I can imagine how much worse my laundry and the whole place will turn out when 5 people inhabit it.

I Take Back Me Words
While I was stranded at the Jurong West Community Library yesterday because of the sudden downpour, there seemed to be a stream of foreigners visiting the library. By the way this library is also running on the new "upgraded" system as the Bishan Community Library and exhibit the same precise set of problems.

At the bus interchange and on the bus, I could see many of them during the peak hour at 7.30-8.00pm. Even around the housing estate where I contemplated buying a flat.

I was initially attracted by the Jurong Lake Park, Jurong Point and a selection of two SSC pools and gymnasiums and NLB libraries within easy reach of each other.

I have second thoughts now.

Minority Rights
The Pope has asserted a legitimate claim to reciprocal minority rights for Christians in Muslim countries in the same way Muslims are accorded in secular or Christian countries . If we extrapolate the scenario a little, the same can be said of gay minority rights too, right?

Further extrapolating from a business world model where minority shareholders' interests are looked after, shouldn't the same be extended to the minority in any country? Gays, ethnic, religious groups or whoever.

Get Out Of My Face, Bitch!
She stood near me. She chatted me up. She is a lout. She even went as far as wanting my contact. At first I thought she was some "educator" chaperoning her charges but some poking around reveals that she could just be a mad woman on the loose!

I Can Think Of More Homo-Erotic Adventures For A Man's Club
Yeah. More erotic, more adventurous, more outlets for getting off your sexual libido.

I Don't Wanna Hold You For Too Long If You Feel You Are Really Ready
I can think of only one principal who dispatches his VPs to head schools after a one-year apprenticeship. This same principal told me once "not to teach him what to do". Well, I suppose he is right in some sense. He has experience as hindsight but then again he can't be right on everything and age confers no wisdom sometimes.

Gee, I Can't Really Say Yeah!
Now I am not exactly on the side of students. But then again, having made my rounds of schools, I am not exactly impressed with educators either. Educators heading departments, co-stewarding or stewarding schools.

Let us just say there are two sides to a coin. In fact I am inclined to believe that the students from privileged families with maids to clean up after them or being the single child tend to be spoilt. The few PRC rich kids I met are like that. Not all though.

I think schools cannot be stretched over half a day and then all throughout the day. I would be listless , restless and brain-dead myself listening to lessons, period after period, sitting still at my desk. Surely there must be some activities interspersed throughout? Some moving around? And some free time for myself. To explore outside the school? Some recreation of choice? A visit to the library to do my own self-learning?

Again what constitute disciplinary problems? The way a student look or behave? And exactly what kinda behavior or attitude? A questioning attitude isn't exactly encouraged, is it?

Did We Have Many More Entrepreneurs In The Pre-War Generation Than We Have Now?
But the exam-oriented and A-star listing system must surely be wrong. And all that academic studying translating into nothingness?

And the pre-dominance of women and wimps in the education service. That must have something to do with it too, doesn't it? Every little thing CANNOT. NGEOW!

Like I told Auntie, the previous gaylords were men's faces but with a woman's character and mouth.