Basket.

Well, here I am in Cambodia.

A very uneventful two-hour flight took us to Phnom Penh International Airport, which was spartan but clean and adequate. We were processed efficiently enough and were soon on our way to the city proper in a tuk-tuk.

What we shortly noted was that Phnom Penh had a rather rustic, small-town air. I mean this as no insult, and the signs were readily apparent that this was a city very much still under construction. Most of the largest buildings appeared new, and piles of construction materials lay by the roadsides (the roads themselves being mercifully adequate), ready to be turned into more concrete/fibreglass symbols of modernity.

We then found accommodation and had dinner. Yes. The first day of any trip is almost never exciting (except previously in Thailand). Things promise to be more thrilling tommorrow.

Our trip can also be followed at our travel blog.

Back from one holiday, onward to the next.

What did I do in Australia? Well, basically I ate and slept. But isn't that the very definition of a relaxing holiday? A tromp to, and through, Brisbane also yielded five excellent books, and a bookstore with one million texts is truly an awe-inspiring sight. Little else was achieved besides realising, once again, how vast other countries actually are. It takes four hours to fly across Australia and just over an hour, at the most, to drive across Singapore.

Next - Cambodia, and Angkor.

After somehow managing to do alright in a semester where I put in considerably little effort, I'm going to spend much of the next two months away from this island. Which is good, because I need a break from this place. There's really no better way to spend an exceedingly long holiday.

For starters, I'll be in Australia from Friday the 13th until the 21st; 3 days later I'll be in Cambodia until the 5th of July, and about 3 weeks after that I'll be in Vietnam until just before the new semester, and academic year, begins.

That ought to ensure I'll be in a fair enough mood for a possibly less relaxing semester than the previous two.

I realised a little late that I have no posts in May. Well, what better to return with than more sterling citizens' letters from our august national broadsheet?

Does NUS Still Prefers Muggers?
ST Forum, June 3rd

WHEN are two Bs and a C not good enough for entry to the National University of Singapore (NUS) arts faculty? When, it appears, one of your Bs is in that 'new' subject, Knowledge and Inquiry (KI).

While people are keen to have a fourth university offering a liberal arts degree, NUS seems to eschew the liberal arts.

Of course, I may be wrong, and biased, since it was my son who received the NUS rejection letter. However, it rankles when he has a bunkmate who has secured a place in NUS with one B and two Cs (and the requisite pass in General Paper).

I watched my son enjoy KI. The subject offered him the chance to hone his critical faculties, debating and research skills.

As a philosophy major myself, I revelled in the discussions we had on moral philosophy, the scientific method, his research paper. I rejoiced in his rekindled interest in physics.

We looked forward to him pursuing his love of military history, politics and philosophy at NUS, confident his Bs in History and KI and C in English Literature were enough. It was not to be.

It appears NUS still prefers students who pass in the traditional 'mugging' subjects, and relegating KI to the status of General Paper.

This is ironic, as KI could be considered the most basic of university subjects - it was the only course of study in the past, and requires the skills any thinking, creative person must possess - ability to reason and express oneself clearly and critically, and passion to defend one's stand.


I must say that I have not seen a finer specimen of the "my son" letters so disturbingly common in this part of the world. Truly, this - this - is the way to write them. Gets right to the heart of the matter, makes the entitlement complex crystal-clear and is not embarrassed at all about making ludicrous statements and ridiculous demands.

That is very unfortunate, because the letter implicitly raises a good point - which is that our universities are not transparent about the process(es) whereby they select their students. It is a problem prevalent in Singapore, of course. Government agencies almost(?) never need to give you a reason for anything, and our bureaucracy is superb at politely stonewalling reasonable enquiries. Feedback is sent in and vanishes into an endless chasm, never to be heard from again, and nothing changes despite bland promises that such feedback is valuable and important. We know incredibly little about how most things work around here. If the writer had chosen to hammer home this point regarding our system of tertiary education, it would have been a perfectly sensible letter, although it probably wouldn't have helped much.

Instead, however, the letter does not explicitly make the point. Instead, it goes down the all-too-familiar path of a patent, poorly-explained inability to accept rejection, followed by fulsome praise for the offspring in question, presumably thought of as being justification as to why said offspring deserves and is entitled to a place in a university that receives well over twice as many applicants as it accepts (I daresay, has space for) every year.

It is this entitlement complex which is really irksome. The worst thing is that in many of these letters, with this one absolutely taking the cake, it is combined with a very haughty superiority complex. Look, no one deserves a place in university - maybe you'll get one if you know people in the right places, who knows really, but the vast majority of those in our local universities worked hard to get there. The effort they put in does not deserve to be cheapened by anybody insisting, implicitly or explicitly, that their own offspring simply deserves a place because, in a nutshell, "he is so smart". Your son or daughter is not entitled to a place in university just because you think he is smart or qualified. Get that straight.

As for that superiority complex, the last two paragraphs collectively make up a brilliant example:


It appears NUS still prefers students who pass in the traditional 'mugging' subjects, and relegating KI to the status of General Paper.

This is ironic, as KI could be considered the most basic of university subjects - it was the only course of study in the past, and requires the skills any thinking, creative person must possess - ability to reason and express oneself clearly and critically, and passion to defend one's stand.


KI is not special, despite what you might like to think. Of course it requires "the skills any thinking, creative person must possess" and the "ability to reason and express oneself clearly and critically", and the "passion to defend one's stand". Here's some news for you: it isn't the only A Level, or even AO Level subject to require that. GP does, too; no excellent GP essay can be produced by someone who lacks the "ability to reason and express oneself clearly and critically" and who lacks the passion and ability to defend his stand. In fact, most of the Arts subjects (can't speak for science, personally) at A-Level standard require thinking individuals who are able to reason critically and express themselves clearly. To denigrate all other subjects besides KI in this way is grossly unfair of the letter-writer.

I can understand how frustrating it is to not be able to get something you desire. Who can't? It's how you deal with that frustration that marks you out as the kind of person you are. We can then see that the author of this letter is no better than a petulant child.

Been that long since I last posted? Well.

Anyway, the topic of the moment is, unless you've been living in self-contained seclusion (very difficult to do in a country with over 6,000 people per square kilometre), Singapore's favourite fugitive. It has been two months; I guess he's still hiding in our island's "sprawling" rainforests. I mean, what other explanation could there be?

With much uncomfortable explanation to do, instead, was the Government of the Republic of Singapore. Or that would have been the case, if this place was actually run like a Republic. Instead, the top personnel all got to keep their jobs - and very comfortably at that. No, I'm not surprised, obviously, but it's still extremely galling to see our premium-cost politicians brazen out this storm when any individuals in their position in a system operating like ours was designed should be squirming extremely uneasily in their comfortable leather-backed office chairs instead. Especially given how much taxpayer money they are receiving every year.

Instead, we had the Home Affairs Minister express only the least signs of contrition for failing to properly do his job, and his boss firmly in approval. While there is a case that he should not lose him job, at the very least more regret and solemn pledges of improvement, even an offer to resign, would have been more convincing that he was truly sorry. As it is he seems more resigned to present realities - the guy has got out and we still can't find him; oh well, what are you going to do? That's not the correct attitude to take at all.

His performance, or lack thereof, was however overshadowed by his boss, who gave us the hollowest soundbite to come out of Singaporean politics this year: "no witchhunt". In a sense he's right - no witchhunt of top officials who are all friends and acquaintances. No witchhunt of lower-ranking officials as scapegoats? Yeah, right. As everyone who has worked in any capacity for any length of time for the government, or simply served National Service, would know, in the case of any fuck-ups, lots of lesser mortals will be made to pay while their incompetent superiors look on with stern approval. That's probably happening in the ISD, MHA and WRDC this very moment. For the lucky ones, it'll be simple pay cuts, or early retirement. For the unlucky, they're likely to join the ranks of the unemployed with a black mark on their records, which here is a virtual sentence to menial labour. For the desperately unlucky... who knows, really? I don't. Maybe they make them dig their own shallow graves and put a single bullet through each spinal cord. With the amount of transparency there is, I wouldn't bet against it.

But the point is, top management gets away scot-free. Sure, it happens all over the world, but it's not so blatant and probably not at as high a level as here. The escape was a colossal fuck-up, and all the mistakes that led to it make for highly entertaining reading. And those are only the details they chose to release publicly. I bet even more laughable errors were made. And the people ultimately responsible? They'll continue running the country.

That's comforting.

I haven't been this ill in a while. All afternoon all I could do was lie down and feel completely shitty. I really hate stomach flu and I wonder how many varieties there are, because whenever I fall sick it seems invariably to be this illness. Can't I just get immune to them all already?

First time missing school/work due to illness since 2005. Wish that I get well soon. I don't like falling behind.

Singaporeans have been finding out the past week just how rainswept our tropical island can be. Rain came down light, piddling but relentless - Nature's dripping faucet - and though you didn't get wet all at once, you got wet a little bit at a time, which can feel worse. And it's not even that much cooler, because the rain, even though it wasn't a thunderstorm, brought out the humidity in full force. There is much talk about the dreadful British weather but I don't think we have it much better here at the Equator. If it's not ferociously burning weather, it's either depressingly persistent drizzle or vast, sudden torrents catching you outside with a weak little umbrella as only cover. There is absolutely nothing in between. No deciduous kaleidoscope of leaves. No magical snowfalls. No emergence into the bright of summer after the dank of winter. Every day, rain or shine, and that's about it.

There has been little else happening lately. Mas Selamat is still at large and still in Singapore, if you believe the local news. Other issues have died away, happily for the powers that be, in the wake of this one. Personally, deadlines are working their usual nasty power of clustering together, although this week is already better than the last. I am satisfied with progress thus far this semester, despite the dripping weather.

It's all good enough at the moment.