Basket.

Me vs Mothra, Part Deux (sort of, anyway)

Some may remember the exciting duel I had with a moth of prodigious size a couple of months ago, where I came off second-best against the (relatively) little beastie. Tonight I once more had occasion to combat a creature of similar structure, but of slightly different build. In fact, I am writing this fresh after my triumph, as my adversary's broken body lies about one meter-and-a-half to my right.

It all began when I noticed a creature moving erratically around the room. Alarmed at first, lest it be a cockroach, the aerial sort of which I am particularly adverse to, but the earthbound breed I hold little love for as well, I was soon able to confirm by observation that it was merely a moth, and quite harmless. Thus reassured, I returned to my work.

I was rather deeply engrossed in the tedious job of conquering the world when a creature suddenly barrelled right across my chest, giving me more than a bit of a shock. It then began sweeping around the room erratically, flying in spirals, and on more than one occasion, coming straight at me. At first I tried to shoo it out of the room, but it refused to leave. Finally deciding that I would be unable to continue going about my usual activities with such a monstrous disturbance in the room, I resolved to annihilate the creature, harmless insect or not.

To achieve this aim, I picked up a nearby book, which though venerable, was solid enough to carry out the task at hand. But my adversary made itself extremely difficult to exterminate; it flew very fast, and fluttered very erratically all about, such that I could not find a time when it was still enough to ensure its demise by use of the book. The task was made doubly difficult by my slight naturally squeamish disposition towards insects, flying ones in particular.

A battle that lasted in the region of ten minutes ensued, as I several times flung the book at the creature, hoping to hit it and snuff out its life. But all these attempts failed, and the beast had the better of the early rounds, flying right at me and causing some consternation to my person, landing on my leg and back while I frantically scanned the room for it and generally making itself a total nuisance whom I was infuriatingly powerless to remove.

Yet I noticed it many times flew close to the floor; the best position it could take for me to demolish it with a swift toss of the educational material. The last straw came when it flew once more at me; swatting it away with one hand, I then flung the book at the earthbound insect, lashing it right across the room. I ended its last thrashings with a final swift blow.

So there it now lies, deceased. But there is honour in defeat, for it fought well and was a hardy and agile opponent.

Well, no real updates in quite some time. I kind of just didn't feel like updating, or maybe I simply wanted to do a weekly round-up of things, or there has not been much bullshit said in the news of late.

Anyway, the last June holidays we will ever have are just beginning. Friday, went to watch badminton, and it was quite a good show. Then went to eat sushi with the class. I guess I can stomach bad food if I have good company. And the conveyor belt was rather cute too. It was a bit too expensive though.

Saturday was a PSC psychometric test. Over 300 questions in all, and some quite interesting. But the maths was worse than SAT.

I feel lazy and unmotivated. Hm.

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Damn I'm good.

What kind of school admin makes a CCA work like slaves for them, then try its damned best to close down the selfsame CCA? A Singaporean one, of course. Not that this kind of behaviour is unexpected, but they have really gone overboard. A bunch of lousy ingrates, that is all they are. Making students work like dogs and not showing the least bit of appreciation. Spare me all the fucking bullshit about "The school would be nothing without the students"; they certainly don't seem to do as they say. "MOE is not run by cold-blooded bureaucrats"? Fuck you.

This is contemptible behaviour, and the thing is it is so typical about Singapore. Every institution here with some power over such-and-such a group of people behaves in scuh a cynical and self-interested manner. Singapore, the capitalist paradise, reflected in the state of its society. We have material progress and well-being, so what? that is not all that matters. The youth get criticised all the time, and no one ever looks in a mirror to see how hypocritical they are. We actually get all the shit, and not only no word of thanks for doing what we do, but barbs charging that we are irresponsible, lazy, lack drive and are self-centred. If irony was a disease Singapore would be a wasteland.

No, seriously, this goes all the way to the top. The government privatised its public transport providers. Have you heard anything for stupid? Public transport provided by private firms. But that is not the main thing. The main thing is that fees have been rising, and will rise again later this year. I find that ridiculous. Transitlink posted a fat profit of something like S$300 million last year and it is still going to raise fees? And why is the NEL so damned expensive? Because they decided to forgo a cheaper human-controlled system and instead gun for the title of "world's first underground heavy rail transit system". To top it all off, their little show of extravagance is more unreliable and inefficient than a human-operated one. Who suffers in the end? The millions of Singaporeans who must take it everyday, and end up paying more for a less efficient and reliable service.

So we end up having a profit-maximising monopoly to provide public transport. That is just... words fail me. The government is supposed to look out for the welfare of the people. It is not doing so by placing so many commuters in the grip of a private company which it knows will try to get rich, and richer, at any expense. Why are they not doing anything to keep transport fees low? Ok yes, no crutch mentality and all that nonsense, but this is taking it too far. There should not be so many fare increases, and the government should control public transport instead of placing it in the hands of profit-maximising public firms who will seek every opportunity to increase their profits at the expense of the poor ordinary Singaporean commuter who has no choice but to take trains and buses to go to work every day.

The government has taken capitalism too far. It has to stop the contemptible behaviour of those associated with it before it can even begin to lament the fall in moral standards and blame it on the youth (not that it does not already do that on a regular basis, sadly). I don't think being utterly ungrateful and showing a complete lack of appreciation for what others do for you is very moral, eh? Even governments have to admit they are wrong sometimes.

It is yet another Thursday night and I thought I would be tired, but it turns out I am not. After all, I have been sleeping rather much later than my average bedtime this entire past week, either fussing about CCA, or handling miscellaneous nonsense, or simply too engrossed in conquering the world as a religious tyrant (Fundamentalism in Civ2=BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT EVA). Plus two consecutive tests today, both of which I am convinced I will attain dire results in, and will fully deserve.

So, I am right here amazingly having the energy to write this and think as I do so. I've always liked my ability to thrive on little sleep; it gives so much more time to do stuff, although I usually squander the extra on frivolities. Nor do I need to spend money on coffee like many others do (although I indulge myself in the occasional can). Ah, so many advantages. Sleeping too much is inefficiency, pure and simple, and we all know where inefficiency gets one in our spick-and-span little city-state.

Tommorrow, another weekend arrives. For once, I am free to go home at the regular dismissal time. But will I take it? That is another question.

Singapore's youth has once more been verbally assailed in the media. Apparently we are guilty of being "self-centred", "not hungry enough" and are "getting soft". This, as usual, has been attributed to Singapore's growing affluence.

So, it's more of that "they are so lucky, all they need to do is study" spiel again. Apparently, the older generation continues to persist in its narrow and myopic view that material well-being equals greater happiness, equals to "having it good". I do not deny Singapore is now more affluent than it used to be; that fact is obvious. What I contest is that we actually "have it good" just because we are materially better off.

Because we don't, from what I see. The education system is incredibly stressful, and Education Minister Tharman admitted as much in the selfsame speech that he criticised Singaporean youth. It is a very competitive system, and getting more so as time passes. Standards and requirements are much higher than what they were when the older generation was still schooling. I'll be the first to admit the vast majority of them were not as comfortable materially as we are now; yet they must recognise that they never had anything resembling IPW (an incredible amount of extra work over and above the syllabus), or had to stay back in school for CCA well past sunset.

So, no, I stress again, we do not only have to study. We have CIP obligations to fulfill, CCA work to handle, stuff like IPW which is mandated by the government and over and above all these, the demanding A-Level syllabus. The older generation only had the last, and maybe a less intensive version of the second thing mentioned. They have absolutely no understanding over what we are going through, and they are not fit to criticise us. It works the other way, of course, but how often do you see a youth complaining publicly in the media that his parents "had it good"?

So, we are "self-centred", "not hungry enough" and are "getting soft". That is one of the biggest piles of bullshit I have yet heard. "Self-centred"? Hello, this is Singapore. We are a bastion of capitalism. Our economy thrives on self-interest. No one, absolutely no one, gets rich without being self-interested most of the time. So you want us not to be self-interested, but still become rich and successful entrepreneurs and contribute greatly to Singapore? Another case of the government wanting the best of all worlds.

"Not hungry enough"? Oh come on, another stab at the fact that Singapore has not seen many young emerging entrepreneurs. I'm sorry, but it's the fault of the system you created. It's still largely rote-based. I mean, guidelines for creativity. Why has no one in the government yet realised how stupid that sounds?

"Getting soft"? A steaming pile of crap. You do not survive in this education system if you are "soft".

Well, guess the Minister was right after all; such judgements are not too harsh, indeed. They are utterly ludicrous and have no basis in reality. The older generation has completely no right to say we "have it good". They do not know, they do not understand, they never will experience it, and so they should shut the hell up and never bring that hackneyed line into play ever again.

I emerge from the weekend triumphant over the stacks of homework that looked impossible to surmount as recently as Thursday. Two essays, two Maths assignments, completed, and I found enough time in between to acquire all 57 pieces/songs of the Lord of the Rings sountrack by Howard Shore, play more Civ II and read all my webcomics. Being efficient never felt so good.

We shall see what Week 9 brings.

Hi, and welcome to this week's issue of "Ministers say the Darndest Things".

"MOE is not staffed by cold-blooded bureaucrats," -His Excellency Mr Tharman Shamugaratnam

It had me in stitches. Government apparatchiks not cold-blooded bureaucrats! They'll be claiming that the president actually has an important role to play in the Singapore government next! What stunning revelations await?

But seriously. The statement seems to imply that either a) MOE is not staffed by bureaucrats or b) The bureaucrats that staff our august Ministry are not cold-blooded. Yes, and I'm the bloody Queen of England. (a) is a distinct impossibility, given that i) This is Singapore and ii) IT'S THE BLOODY MOE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE HELLO WTF. (b) is similarly unlikely as the species described within it has never, does not and will never ever exist on this green earth.

So, where does this leave us? Just one possibility, because I have no wish to touch a certain "L" word.

That possibility is that Tharman is actually right. Cold-blooded bureaucrats don't staff MOE, fucking stupid ones do. These, after all, were the people who foisted Social Studies upon us, approved Project Work as an A Level subject with guidelines on how to be creative and realised just last year how many students actually USE THE SCHOOL COMPUTERS TO PLAY COMPUTER GAMES DURING LESSONS INSTEAD OF DOING THE TASKS SET OUT FOR THEM. To perform such wonderful feats of mental gymnastics and come up with such magnificent education policies that are guaranteed to illuminate the talents of every individual student takes SKILL; it shows that the people concerned are either a gang of evil Masonic geniuses who secretly control the world, or a bunch of complete idiots whose combined IQ is equal to that of a can of tinned peaches. And since our minister has ruled out the former possibility, we can only consider the latter one.

If you find this insulting, sorry, the Minister left me with no choice. Then again, he and his ministry do that often enough.

A good day it was today. Short school day, followed by a field trip to the Singapore Art Museum that was only faintly interesting (I think all art is fraud and all artists charlatans, anyway). But after that we went to watch Troy, which I knew would be a travesty but watched anyway; it turned out to be quite a good film, travesty aside.

Before that, we had quite a time horsing around in a Suntec food court, taking wacky photos of each other eating ice-cream and misusing McDonald's "I'm lovin' it" labels. Well, it's little things like this that keep one going.

I abhor irresponsible people. No, actually I despise them. I think they are the most filthy and low-down pond scum on the face of this green Earth. They are the people who eother smilingly assure you that they will pay up tommorrow, then push it to the day after then asked. They are the people who agree to do something but never seem to be able to find the time to get down to it. They are the people who lie and cheat on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, I've met more than my fair share in my time. It boggles the imagination how these people simply show an utter lack of regard and respect for their fellow human beings, who in many instances are actually helping these unworthy individuals and have stretched their patience to the very limit in order to accomodate these filthy pods of slime. They just make me sick. It is, put very simply, disgraceful and unbecoming of people to behave in such a fashion.

The world is full of assholes, truly.

My router mysteriously refused to work yesterday, dooming my Internet connection for that time being and resulting in me having to take emergency measures, such as calling in our resident techie (somewhat unreliable, he is, though) and hooking up the spare 56K (which is only just bearably fast and severely limits my Internet time). I came home today and found that it works just as well as before. Hm.

Yesterday saw the curtain finally come down on my JC CCA life. After handing over my stake in Outlook one week ago, I passed on my post in the RJC Archives yesterday (my successor is from our junior class, 1A01C 2003 to 1A01C 2004, hm). So that is it, that is the end, except maybe a cameo at RMUN the week after Common Test. It was a quite a year, though. I shall never forget cutting mounting boards with dimunuitive, blunt penknives and dashing to Bukit Timah Plaza at 8pm to get a little box of staplets.

Tommorrow is Friday again. Friday, Term 2, week 8. That... was damn fast.

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Low
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	Low
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

Confirms what I already knew, quite frankly. I'm obsessive-compulsive.

Today, I lost my voice. The most I could manage was a hoarse, barely-recognisable whisper. So I spent most of the day using a combination of sign language, pen and paper, weird sounds and whispers to communicate with my compatriots. And guess what, they are all right, silence and voicelessness sucks. Big time. Hope I get my voice back pretty darn quick.

Back from spending virtually the entire day at ORA Walk-a-Jogathon (the first I have attended, in the last of six years spent in the schools that hold it). It is also to be the last major event organised by HISSOC exco 2003-2004 and the last we will play any major role in. Retirement, at last, as the committee takes over.

As with all previous times, I can't help but feel a bit sad. It was certainly quite a year, from the time I picked up the phone and accepted the post allocated me in April-May last year to the official handover this Wednesday. As a matter of fact, I neither really wanted nor expected to get a post on this very exco; I had secured the "L" in the PEARLS system much earlier. But I just decided to go along with things, and now I know how much the poorer I might have been if I hadn't decided so.

Yes, being on this committee has been a wonderful experience. Putting aside common sense to act like a fool in the RMUN crisis videos, dashing off to Bukit Timah Plaza at 8pm at night just to get a box of staplets on the eve of RMUN, moving LT seats in full school uniform complete with blazer and tie, being subjected to complete public humiliation on screening of afore-mentioned crisis videos, enjoying the post-RMUN barbecue, working like a dog again after promos to get all ship-shape for Open House, being sadistic during exco interviews, exceeding my free messages for an entire month in less than a week trying to get ready for SS week... I bitched then; now I shall miss all of the above experiences.

The endless discussions in Staffroom 4, the staying back until unearthly hours for RMUN, the working frantically to meet impossible deadlines... too bad it all had to go by so fast.

We forged strong bonds indeed. I shall never forget.

I wish our local news was just that bit more interesting. We need more hard-hitting editorials. Here, their idea of one is a two-page New Paper "special report" on how teenage girls slash themselves, or how this many percent of teens have already had sex and how this is very worrying and wemusttakeactionimmediatelyaahhhhh, or, shock and horror, how the education system actually promotes elitism! *collective gasp*

Because it seriously just gets boring when there isn't anything like that down here. Our main newspaper is a dog tamed and kept on a short leash. Some of the comics aren't even funny. Get rid of Bizarro, for God's sake. It's a goddamn travesty to humour. I can't believe they are paying that bastard to draw the pile of shit he daily dares to call a "comic strip". It has never, ever, in my living memory made me even smile. As a matter of fact, the more I look at it, the more I hate it. Scrap that comic and ban the artist from getting within ten kilometres of any drawing tools whatsoever for life. For the sake of all that is beautiful and holy in this world.

Better day today. We'll see about tommorrow. I don't want to sleep, but I need it.

I finally get what I need to critique, then find it is the wrong document. I go through hell and high water to find a number and call, and the person I need most is asleep. At least she will be up later. I really, really, seriously think that someone up there has a healthy dislike for me. It has not been a good week. It has not been a good weekend. It has not been a good day. It will not be a good day. It will not be a good week. It will not be a good weekend.

Friday, I go for CLDCS. I get there early and am feeling very pleased with myself. Then I realise I have forgotten the ticket. After a mad scramble, I only just make it. Saturday is interviews. Oh joy, the only place open in school is the canteen. Firstly, it rains very heavily and we have to move. Then the rugger just in from training make a hell lot of noise, so we have to move back. Ok, that's minor. In the afternoon, I experience a slight altercation before I am able to leave for dinner. Which goes pretty well, compared to the rest of it all. I come back, I try to do some Maths, and it is motherfucking hard. I give up.

Sunday is dreary. It slips by, and I manage to finish Tutorial S1. A good thing, at last. Boring, boring day, though.

Monday, today. I have to wake up and get to school very early. Insufficient sleep. Feel very stoned and not rested the entire day. I hardly spoke to anyone at all, preferred to lose myself in my own little world. But there is much work to be done. I do it, cutting two pieces out of a mounting board with a dinky little penknife barely the width of my index finger. I still wonder how the hell I did it, but I nearly split my right index finger doing so. Aaron is instructed to buy the hugest penknife he can find. What he buys is so vast the instructions adivse that safety goggles must be worn while using it. I ignore that, snatch it, finish the cutting and trimming, and use it to threaten people the rest of the day. We finish our work and Aaron's chocolate mousse from Haagen Daazs, then go home.

High points? I read Blankets, and it was not bad at all. Blackadder was funny. Yet I'm in this weird black mood, as if a sopping blanket just settled over me and I can't throw it off. Seems not to be any more cheer in doing anything anymore. I feel like not caring, truth to tell. Fate is against me, anyway.

Or maybe it's just another one of those times.

Very patchy updates lately. This is due to a true lack of time and energy. Now that SS week is launched and in perfect order, I'm busy with ORA. Seems like it never does end; the numbing routine of it all. Well, our reward is a long weekend, at least.

I wish something interesting would just happen.