Breakfast at work

One of my juniors in college was full of awe when she came to visit my apartment once. It wasn't because my apartment was so clean or so cool (I wish!) -- it was because I had a toaster. I was like, "Toaster only what! Not like a 40-inch plasma tv." And then she gave this philospohical answer, "No. A toaster means that you are committed." Huh??

And then she explained, "It means you are committed to staying and waking up in this place day after day 'cos you are committed to making breakfast, 'cos you have a toaster." It was all slightly over my head.

I wonder what she will say to me now if I tell her that I have a toaster at work. The implications are somewhat depressing.

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A city without a soul?

I've heard it said that Singapore is a city without a soul. I disagree. If you take soul to mean the buzz you feel at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or at the Sydney Harbour, or at the San Francisco bridge, then yes, Singapore has no soul. The skyline at Shenton Way, even with the inspiring Esplanade and the majestic Fullerton, still does not give a sense of place and identity. You get the feeling that these are all buildings constructed with new money, merely shells without culture, people, or life. And it will be worse when the casinos come, with its glittery glamour, its transistory players, and the levy only for the Singaporeans. The levy effectively means that the land is no longer ours.

If you really to catch a glimpse of the city's soul, don't go to Shenton Way, go to the heartlands. Go to Geylang where businessmen and teachers sit over opened durians, eating with their fingers. Go to the wet market, where fishmongers smell of fish and wear rubber boots and rubber aprons. Go watch the people in an afternoon downpour -- watch the labourers under the broken umbrellas in the pick-ups, watch those on the pavement when a large bus drives by too fast and too close, watch the egg delivery man with a red plastic bag over his head, or the Indian man shielding himeself with the newspapers. Go to the nursing homes, to the old estates such as Sungei Kadut or Bukit Merah or Chinatown, where you will find the dialect-speaking immigrants who built up Singapore, the 300,000 foreigners who were given citzenship in 1957.

Maybe while watching, you will see what I see.
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so much work

Got into work early today with the thought of getting a headstart on two urgent research requests from my boss late yesterday afternoon, but what happens instead? I get bogged down by requests to tweak and print four photos, reply to an order for books from Sri Lanka, weigh and calculate the postage required, find a dated email to this obscure bookseller overseas, and send information along with a personal letter in response to a request over the phone. Argh. Yesterday I was struggling with finishing this other research topic, when I had to stop to seal and send and frank hundreds of invitation cards, scan a dozen photos, do a quick powerpoint for someone else's publicity drive, not counting the writing of receipts and the updating of excel files and collating of registration forms.

I ought to have eight arms.

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My $0.45 refund

I think I will have to post a picture of the cheque when it finally arrives.

Dear Ms -

REFUND NO: 226/061x/xxxx

Thank you for using our online claim system.$0.83 was deducted for trip taken on 20/4/05 @ 1828 hrs from Dunearn Road to Bukit Timah Road, Little India Stn, therefore total refund of $0.45 including $0.25 transfer rebate to Bus 166.

We are pleased to inform you that we will be sending you a cheque for the refund amount of $0.45 soon.

If you need any further assistance, do feel free to call our TransitLink Hotline at 1800-7674333.

We certainly look forward to your continued support.

Regards

TransitLink Deferred Refund Section.

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So true

Excerpt from His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's homily:

The symbol of the lamb also has a deeper meaning. In the Ancient Near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished. When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, himself became a lamb, he stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how he reveals himself to be the true shepherd: "I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep," Jesus says of himself (Jn 10:14f). It is not power, but love that redeems us! This is God's sign: he himself is love. How often we wish that God would show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity.

We suffer on account of God's patience. And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God.

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Bukit Merah Loop

The first 15 minutes of the run was great. My previous jog was a week ago, and I felt like I missed everything about running -- the repetitive motion of my feet on the pavement, the sweat on the brow, the solitude, the clarity of mind...

Until the stitch hit. I planned to jog slowly anyway, but I didn't think it would be this slow and painful. Seriously, for the next 30 minutes, all I could think of was if my heart was going seize up and if I was going to collapse and die. The pain was just under my left ribs, and I could the throbbing of my heart at that spot. I finally decided that it was a stitch rather than my heart cramping up when I realised it hurt more when I was running downhill rather than uphill. That definitely put my mind at ease. :) I really need to jog more and train up my diaphragm.

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The story of the infarcted mole

I have a mole, or to be precise, I had a mole behind my ear, where the hair meets the neck. It was one of those protruding pinkish moles about the size of a third of the tip of the pinkie finger,and it bothered me because it was a lump of numb flesh, and it didn't feel like it belonged to my body.

So one day, I said to my buddy, "I would like to remove the mole at some point." And she said, "My mum used to have a few such moles on her face. She tied a string around it and it fell off 'cos of the cut in blood supply. Why don't we tie a piece of dental floss around your mole?" I was pleased with the idea and consented to it. So I bared my neck to the waxed dental floss, and she tied the floss around it, and pulled. It hurt. I realised that the mole wasn't as numb as I thought it was.

The dental floss remained in my hair for another five days, as I deftly dodged all questions from my colleagues about the white string? in my hair. The mole got more and more swollen and red and painful, but it refused to fall off. I kept wiping the blood off and dousing it with iodine to make sure it didn't get infected. Five days later, my buddy took a look at it and said that it was looking crusty, infected and infarcted. She said in her best doctor voice that the mole had to come off, and that she would bring the necessary equipment to my house that very evening. I was very scared.

That evening, she came with two blades, antiseptic, bandages, iodine, gauze, needles, alcohol swabs, etc. Two blades! And needles too! I refused to let her inject me with anesthesia, so she put this anesthesing cream all around the mole instead. We let it sit there for a good ten minutes, and just before the home-spun operation she told me that she found out from her mum that her mum didn't tie string around her moles, but that she had gone to the skin centre instead, which took her moles off by laser treatment for $800! What? And here I was with dental floss around my mole for five days?!?

In any case, there was no turning back now, I bared my neck to her again, and in two clean swipes, the mole was off. The dental floss was still embedded in the mole. I felt an adrenaline rush.

Today I have a slight pink discolouration over where the mole was. She did a really good job -- it was her first molectomy too. My only advice is this: Don't try this at home!

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So the knife has fallen

I listened to PM Lee's speech on the Casino Issue on the News Radio over the internet yesterday afternoon. These were the main points of his speech.

First, PM Lee clarified it is not so much an issue of whether Singapore should have a casino, but that whether we should have an Integrated Resort. The casino will be a small and vital part of the Integrated Resort, which would include the food, beverage, and entertainment industry.

He then listed four implications of having such an Integrated Resort in Singapore, namely, that there will be more gambling and therefore more suffering; second, that it may tarnish Singapore's brand name; third, that it may undermine values, especially that of the young; and fourth, the opposition to a casino on religious grounds.

To stem the social ills of gambling, he proposed five safeguards, to restrict the admission of locals by price ($100 a day or $2,000 a year), the use of exclusion (for those receiving social welfare, or voluntary exclusion), the banning of extension of credit to locals, the distribution of wealth for social good such as the toteliser board, and the setting up of a National framework to deal with problem gambling.

PM Lee also addressed the other implications of introducting such an integrated resort, by saying that they would not allow garish neon signs, that they would continue to emphasise the moral education of the young (he gave an interesting illustration by Deng Xiaoping at this point, something about opening the window and feeling the breeze and having to fight the mosquitoes, to illustrate that the way to solve porblems is not by cacooning yourself), and that while he respected the beliefs of the religious groups, the government had to maintain a "secular and pragmatic" approach.

PM Lee closed by describing how the Cabinet arrived at this decision on April 9th. He reassured the public that it was not a foregone conclusion from the beginning, but that there had been vigorous discussion and debate in parliament. In fact, it started with a majority opposing the presence of an Intergrated Resort, but when they saw the multi-million proposals, they had "no choice" but to continue. He continued by saying that they decided to have two IRs in Singapore, one in Marina Bay catering to the businessmen, and one in Sentosa catering to families. He argued that having two would compliment each other, creating competition and economic mass without increasing social cost dramatically. Even so, he acknowledged that there were risks involved, and that he held ultimate responsibility for this decision.

All in all, I felt that it was a very rational and balanced speech, taking into account the risks and the social costs of such a venture. I hope they know what they are doing, and that they have done enough balanced research into the best means of creating safeguards and frameworks to cope with the fallout that will come. I will miss the dark, lonely plot of land at Marina South. It has a magnificent view - overlooking Fullerton and the Esplande right by the edge of the water. I'm not sure what it will look like the next time I go back there.

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Whazzzup!!!

Happy Monday morning, everyone. Hope everyone had a great weekend?

Still on the topic of birthday presents, I got a pair of black nike dri-fit wristbands. They look cool and all, but I'm not sure what to do with them. Do I use them to wipe the sweat off my forehead? Or wear my watch over it to keep my watch strap dry?

In other news, The Sunday Times carried this article yesterday: "Macau tycoon bets Singapore can keep casino ills at bay". DUH! And I am going to trust a the guy who made millions by lauching Macau's first casino?? Talk about having a stake in the issue! That is like the Pope making a comment about the business viability of having a casino in a 4 million population state! Keep to your own turf Mr. Casino Tycoon.

If we care to look to the example of New Zealand, we may find that we may be a little too optismistic in our abilities in "keeping the social ills at bay". New Zealand is like Singapore in population (4 million) and make-up (immigrants, a significant percentage Asian). A recent article in Journal of Gambling Issues by Peter Adams in December 2004 outlined the history of gambling in New Zealand.

• Before the 1980s, they had regulated horse racing and lotteries introduced by the British.
• In the mid-80s, a series of radical economic reforms ushered in an extended period of liberalisation of marketing and regulatory regimes, leading to a flourishing of gambling facilities and products.
• This quickly led to unprecedented increases in consumer spending on gambling products. In 1979, each adult spent roughly NZ$43. In 2003, this figure was NZ$500.
• This also led to an unprecedented hike in P&P gamblers. In 2002, the total number of clients seeking counselling for problem gambling was 177 per cent higher than 6 years earlier.
• Eventually, the Government recognised gambling as a public health issue.
• Adams wrote, "It was in the transition period of moving from a low-access to a high-access gambling environment that the framework of harm was established. Perhaps this has been a pattern in other nations. Successive governments were wooed by the revenue potential and were easily persuaded that negative impacts would be minor and easily contained. The previous controlled gambling environment with its low rates of problem gambling gave them little cause to think otherwise."

I don't mean to sound the death knell, but read the quote carefully. The argument that "Singaporeans will go to casinos overseas anyway" is too simplistic. Having a casino that is easily acessible increases the number of problem gamblers. Studies have found that the presence of a gambling facility within 80km roughly doubles the prevalence of P&P gamblers. Hence the argument "We already have gambling opportunities in Singapore anyway (4D, Toto, horse racing) and it hasn't been too much of a problem so far" doesn't work either.

Did you know that one in five pathological gamblers, more than any other addictive disorder, commit suicide? Or that two-thirds of Gambler Anonymous members had contemplated suicide, 47 percent had a definite plan to kill themselves, and 77 percent stated that they have wanted to die? Or that in the US, they have found that states with casinos have bankruptcy rates 18 percent higher than those without?

When it comes down to it though, you cannot depend on the state to be nanny. Individuals have to make responsible choices in their own lives. No one can stop an adult from taking that slim chance at fortune. What I detest is the exploitation of the poor by these multi-million gaming organizations. One of these casinos ran an ad in the US once which went like this: "You can 1. Study hard 2. Get a job 3. go to work everyday for the rest of your life; OR you could 1. Buy a lottery ticket" Or this ad with a picture of a lottery ticket with these enticing words, "Your ticket out" In my opinion, these ads exploit the poor and perpetuate a lie. The cards are stacked against you when you step into a casino. It is mathematically impossible that the casino will lose, or that you will win in the long run. Yet, these ads prey on the desperation of the poor and marginalised.

And, as a final note, concerning the opinion that there will be a positive spillover effect from having a casino in Singapore ("Casinos can create 10,000 jobs" ST April 17; "Hypothetically, if we have one at Marina Bay and one at Sentosa, then direct employment, I'll say up to 10,000. Indirect employment - shops, hotels elsewhere - I think several more thousands," Labour Chief Lim Boon Heng), listen to quote from Donald Trump himself, multi-millionaire and owner of the Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, “People will spend a tremendous amount of money in casinos, money that they would normally spend on buying a refrigerator or a new car. Local businesses will suffer because they’ll lose customer dollars to the casinos." There are two sides of the coin. Unless the casinos can attract more tourists than it can absorb, there will be a positive spillover, otherwise, we will all suffer.

read the facts!

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Birthday like a Queen

I like breakfast. I like putting my toast in the toaster, waiting for it to turn the perfect shade of brown, spreading the butter, making the coffee, and sitting down in the office with the view of the large sky.

I like birthdays too. :) I got the silly bug-eyed horses as a birthday present from a friend. I also received a black top, a bracelet, a bookmark, a haircut, excellent royce chocolates, running magazines (will tell you all about what I think about running magazines in the next post), sponge bob square pants, etc. etc. etc.

I'm having a birthday like a queen!

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Modernism gone mad

New religious education guidelines for schools in Norfolk:

Excerpt: (Link thanks to daryl sng)

Christianity
Do use the term 'the Holy Spirit' rather than 'Holy Ghost' which suggests a trivial and spooky concept of the third person in the Trinity. Do attempt to organise visits to a church when they are busy. Visiting an empty building can reinforce the impression that churches are a monument to a faith which is no longer relevant. Don't, when exploring the Eucharist, suggest the bread and wine become 'the body of Jesus' or 'the blood of Jesus'. This suggests almost a cannibalistic consumption of human flesh.

Islam
Do avoid equating Islam with terrorism and violence e.g avoid photographs of Muslims holding swords, Kalashnikovs etc

Judaism
Don't refer to the first 39 books of the Bible as being 'the Old Testament'. It suggests that the books are old-fashioned or out of date. Don't use the term the "Wailing Wall". It suggests that Jewish prayer is negative and moaning. The proper term is the "Western Wall".

Sikhism
Do be careful when showing pupils the kachs. Without preparing pupils they seem to some like merely voluminous underpants and can give rise to a poor response.

Buddhism
Do avoid suggesting that all Buddhists are celibate monks or nuns with shaved heads. Do be cautious about asking pupils to "try a bit of meditation". To have a go at Buddhist meditation comes so close to a faith activity that unless one has the consent of everyone it could create difficulties.

Hinduism
Do be selective when using photographs of ascetics and holy men (Sadhu) and attempt to prepare the pupils before disclosing such material. Photographs of emaciated men caked in mud may merely create the impression that Hinduism is for weirdos or masochists.

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Cookie Monster curbs cookie habit

What a travesty! Our furry blue monster will no longer eat platefuls and platefuls of cookies (and their plates), and instead will say, "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food." How to gobble in moderation? And if Cookie Monster doesn't gobble, what's a furry blue Cookie Monster supposed to do?

Excerpt:

Cookie Monster, the biscuit-eating puppet on US children's show Sesame Street, will cut down on his favourite food as part of an anti-obesity drive. The blue-furred muppet who used to sing "C is for Cookie" will now tell viewers that "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food".

Each episode of the show's new series will begin with a "health tip" about healthy foods and physical activity. A Sesame Street representative said the popular character would be "broadening his eating habits" in future.

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The Actual

On daryl sng's recommendation, I picked up two books by Saul Bellow from the library this weekend, The Actual (a novella) and Henderson the Rain King. Bellow won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer, and the National Book Award three times. Whoa.. My only regret is that I left Henderson the Rain King in the backseat of my friend's car and so my reading has been put on hold.

Very. Thought. Provoking. The Actual is by no means one of Bellow's canonical works but it made me hungry for more. It is written in the first-person and yet it had such a fluidity of prose that other minor characters were enlivened as well. The idea of Amy Wustrin being so ingrained in Harry Trellman's consciousness is intriguing. It may be more true of life than I like to admit. As Henderson's inner tormenting voice said (before I misplaced the book), "I want! I want! I want!"

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TEST

I'm having blogger issues. I hope this will right all the wrongs.

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The Route with the Plastic Bag

I jogged home from work yesterday. I carried a plastic bag with my spectacles, handphone, other SIM card, ten dollars, and house keys. By the end of the run, the plastic bag was wet and not very pleasant to hold. How do folks run to and from work? What do you do with the logistics of keys, hps, money, clothes, etc.? I can't run with anything hanging off me (i.e. waist pouch, back pack etc.) 'cos the jiggling drives me nuts so I grasp whatever I have to carry in my hand.

Some people are cool; some people carry plastic bags; I belong to the latter.

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Yay thumbnails!

Yay Siren! Thanks for the tip. I realised why blogger was generating the intriguing "not-a-real-namespace" domain. It was because the html Amazon created failed to put the webpage in the img src= tag. If you add the webpage in front of the image name in the img src= tag, that should do the trick. Yeah baby. :)

So I read two books over the weekend, on Siren's book recommendations.

The Nanny Diaries just didn't cut it for me. It was funny at some points, but the characters were uninspiring. The main character is a push-over, and the rest of them were 2D cardboard cutouts. And I didn't like the picture of the authors on the back flap. All in all, it was okay for an afternoon's entertainment, but Bridget Jones' Diary beats it hands down.

This book is harder to place. I suppose I ought to have read the first and second books of the trilogy before reading the third, but the third was the only one available at the library. I can't tell if the author means to use exaggeration and hyperbole, or if the storyline is far-fetched, but I think I will read the first two in the series before I decide.

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Stupid Thumbnails

I give up. Flat out give up. I would ask those who stop by here for help, but I think it would be like a smoke signal in the middle of the atlantic ocean, in the middle of a downpour, in the middle of a ban on all transport by sea. So I am going to gripe instead.

You know how some people have that a little book log in their sidebars, with the little perfectly sized thumbnail? I saw it on mrbrown's and siren's site and I coveted it. I rolled my mouse over the thumbnails and noticed that mrbrown's thumbnails all link to Amazon and have a "mrbrown-20" tag on them. I googled it and found out that you can join to be an associate member of Amazon, and earn money if your readers buy books through your links.

Now I'm not interested in making money (see above reference to this blog being a smoke signal in the middle of the atlantic ocean, in the middle of a downpour, etc. etc.; sometimes you have to feign disinterest for lack of ability). I just want thumbnails without having to save and resize the images manually. So I signed up for my account, and tried to paste the html in.

When I paste in the pic with all the extra gunk (price, ugly amazon button, default text), it works (what they call an iframe). But when I paste in the image solo, it doesn't! Instead it gives the box with the red "X" which I've gotten all too familiar with recently. I roll over the box with the red "X" and what does it say? http://not-a-real-namespace instead of http://www.amazon.com! Are you telling me Amazon is a figment of my over-wrung imagination? Try imagining away their million dollar profits and billions of page clicks every year! Not-a-real-namespace... *mutter*

In any case, it doesn't work, and so I still don't have thumbnails. Not that anyone cares, since we are in the middle of the ocean in the middle of downpour in the middle of a drought of water-bound vehicles.

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What if?

What if we had up-to-date media coverage of Jesus' execution the same way we are seeing the Pope's funeral on TV? What if the Pope suddenly got up, dusted himself off, smiled and said, "Hello"?

"Today, we are bringing a special report from Golgotha, also known as The Place of the Skull, where criminals have been hung for their terrible wrongdoing for centuries and centuries to come.

"Behind us you will see the three crosses on the hill. On the cross in the centre hangs Jesus of Nazareth, 33 years old, brought to the gallows for blasphemy. Just this morning he was almost allowed to go free in Pilate's court, but the mob shouted and became unruly, and Barabbas was let go instead. We managed to catch up with Barabbas for this exclusive interview:

Interviewer: Mr Barabbas, you should be the one hanging on that cross right now. What do you think of this morning's recent turn of events?

Barabbas:Well, I don't know how to describe how I feel right now. It is like, I should be there (points to cross), but I am here. And I didn't do anything. Someone just started shouting my name, and then... I can't describe it...

"Thank you Mr Barabbas. Well, it looks like Jesus isn't dying anytime soon. We'll be back after the break to bring you a minute to minute update of the political intrigue surrounding the execution of Jesus of Nazareth."

*break*

"Welcome back. Jesus of Nazareth died yesterday at noon and we are standing in front of the cave where his body is in. Rumour has it that this cave, in an expensive part of town, belongs to Arimathea, a high-ranking official in Herod's court, but he has neither affirmed nor denied the rumours. Behind me are two elite Roman guards guarding the grave from theft, and the stone is sealed by the seal of Ceasar himself.

"Mourning is restricted to a very small section of the Jewish community, primarily women and children. It is hardly conceivable that just one week ago this same man came into Jerusalem amid an elated crowd shouting "Hallelujahs!" and bearing palm leaves, and now, he is dead, and even his disciples have disappeared."

*break*

"Breaking News. It is noon-time and we are standing in front of Jesus' grave. The seal has been broken; the stone has been rolled away; and the guards are nowhere in sight. There is a rumour going around that some people have seen Jesus alive! Just as he promised to do! They say that Mary Magdalene and Martha, both Jewish women, have seen him and touched his feet..."

*CUT*

"Welcome back to Jerusalem News, where we given you minute to minute updates of the day's prime news. Conclusively, the body has been stolen. All Roman officials have been called up in the search for the stolen body. We have give further updates as they come in, and until then, God's peace be with you."

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Thoughts over Toast

It is going to be a busy day at work today. I got up earlier than usual to wash my running gear and then to head to work. Now I'm collecting my thoughts over coffee and melted cheddar cheese on toast. Things to do today:

1. Pass boss 2 presentations and 1 set of compiled notes.
2. Extract contents of CD/ DVD to my comp.
3. Ask boss if he would like to use the DVD.
4. Do page layout for page two and three of E Letter.
5. Solve boss' dial-up problem.
6. Do a "books read" section (complete with small thumbnail) on my sidebar.
7. Pray for hm, cousin, and the succession of the pope.

That's it for now. Will go check the email.

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Terry Schiavo has died

Terry Schiavo has died. BBC has a compilation of key quotes following her death. The comments from the Schiavo camp angers me most.

Mike's very upset. My sister's crying. It's very emotional. It's been a long,hard fight, but I believe she's happy. Terri's probably happy now to be free and not be shown all over TV. I would imagine if it was me I'd be very embarrassed, everybody looking at my picture lying there. John Centonze, brother of Jody Centonze, Michael Schiavo's fiancee

She's got all of her dignity back. She's now in heaven, she's now with God, and she's walking with grace. Scott Schiavo, Michael Schiavo's brother

What do you know about dignity? Sometimes I think it is the people who are healthy, well, intelligent, rich, and proud who are hung up about dignity and being embarrassed. Is there less dignity in a nursing home, and say, needing help to use the toilet? Within the confines of such a nursing home, isn't it just a normal, expected activity?

I agree that death is better than the process of dying. I agree that she is probably happier. But I disagree that she has more dignity now that she is dead. If dignity is conferred, I have never thought any less of her while her images were broadcasted all over the world. If dignity is intrinsic, she is still a child of God, whether on this side or the other.

There is grace for the weak that the strong cannot even begin to comprehend.

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