a mindset...

I wonder how many people have read this letter sent into the forums of the Today newspaper. If you haven't, here it is - http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC111226-0000019/Disparity-in-tertiary-education-facilities

It is the view of a fellow Singaporean on the facilities of the education institutions in Singapore. He wonders why ITEs are so well provided for. Yet he observes that the students there do not appreciate what they have been given, hence the amount of vandalism on the campus grounds. This observation was made when the author of the letter went to ITE East for a seminar. He made the statement that if JC or Poly students were given such quality institutions to study in, they would definitely appreciate it more, and definitely not vandalise it.

It is quite sad to see that Singaporeans still have this perception of ITEs students. Are ITE students any less worthy of the a quality education? Would it bother anyone if a JC built a 25 million dollar arts centre? But if an ITE decides to build a shiny building, why are so many eye brows suddenly raised? I believe that everyone has a right to quality education. And that includes the nice shiny buildings that house these institutions.

Would JC and Poly students necessarily appreciate the buildings more such that they do not vandalise the infrastructures? I seriously doubt that. JC and Poly students would probably not vandalise anything because they fear punishment. Not because they have never thought about it. Furthermore, if the ITEs were old decrepit buildings, wouldn't that just invite more students to vandalise them? Shiny new buildings encourage and teach students to cherish and value what they have. Sure they will always be students that break the rules, but these students can be found everywhere. Thinking back to my own JC days, the tables were definitely not in any pristine conditions.

test test...

How long have I not blogged? I am not sure. However, spending some time reading my past post have made me realize one thing. I seem to be more perspective in the past. Did I lose my opinion? Maybe. Or maybe I've just misplaced the time that I need to post my thoughts. Perhaps that might explain the last post right now.

Honestly, there isn't much on my mind right now. But I do think that restarting the blog might be a good idea. Opinions on things that happen will be a refreshing way to see my own thought process in another decade or so. Maybe, laugh at my naive, shallow wit.

It is time to write again, and pick up another cent or two to improve my thoughts.

opinions...

It seems like a long time since I've written anything. And in actual fact it has.

Anyway, here is an opinion on the recent debate on whether criminalizing suicide attempts are effective. And the answer obviously is no. Formally charging someone for attempting to take their lives just seems counter intuitive to how they need help and not someone to tell them it what they have done is "just another bad decision" in their already crumbling life.

The "crime" of suicide probably stemmed from the fact that it is a deterrent. Knowing if you don't complete the task, you would end up in jail somewhere would probably stop SOME people. Perhaps, it might even be a greater motivation to ensure that the attemptees do a thorough enough job to ensure their own demise. Not ensuring this would then lead to jail time. Seems like a very pragmatic, Singaporean thing to encourage everyone to do everything with 110% effort. Failure is not an option.

But I digress. Failed suicidees should be instead given some form of support. Isn't that what they really need? Perhaps what they should do is to institutionalize them at a support facility instead of merely locking them up with others more worthy of jail time. Sure it might mean that a certain amount of money will be needed to be pumped in to help run this, but isn't this what we should expect of society? To extend a helping hand?

People never think they need help till they have fallen through the cracks of society. And when they have fallen through the cracks, they need someone to reach in to pull them out. If they can find the strength to climb out of the deep dark hole on their own strength, they would probably not have fallen in in the first place.

Think about it. When you have fallen into the deepest, darkest place in your mind, would it really help that your physical surrounding is just as dark and cold?

it was merely a stare...

Going by what came out in the papers today, the youths of today are pretty scary. A groups of youths hacked another youth to death just because he stared. Is a stare worth a person's life? Does a stare warrant a death sentence? I honestly cannot phantom what they could have thought. It wasn't even an open challenge to a fight. It was merely a stare. It might not even be a stare. It might just have been an extended look.

One wonders what these youths have been taught in school. Or what these youths have not been taught in school. The violent tendencies of youths these days are worrying. They think they can solve everything with their fists. If everything could easily be solved with their fists, the world would be much simpler. The world population would be much less as well.

I think Gandhi said it best, "An eye for an eye will only leave the world blind." Or in this case, a good long look cost a youth his life.

Perhaps too many youths grow up thinking that they are somehow protected or immune to the laws of the land. They don't take enough responsibility for their own actions. This has to change.

burn a what?!?

I cannot believe or condone the actions of some Christians over in that place I shall not name. *cough-a-cough-mer-cough-ri-cough-ca-cough* I hope I'm not catching my Dad's cough.

Well, I cannot believe they are advocating an public burning of Qurans as a way to commemorate the September 11 bombings. And they claim this is something they believe God wants them to carry out? I really want to ask where he is hearing all these voices from... REALLY? How does this make you any different from the very fanatics whom you are trying to denounce? Your own crazy actions only make the crazy people seem less crazy.

And how do you rationalize the fact that the rest of the world is so vastly adversely affected by your actions. If it were truly from God, you would think that you would have more support. AND, if you really truly believed it was a directive from God, why would you see the need to arm yourself with pistols? Tapping on the gun during the interview while saying you are being well prepared for any possible backlash, is a sign of nothing but a lack of faith to see you through the event. If Our God is for us, who can ever stop us? If you see the need for a gun, you doubt. I truly doubt your motivations.

In the crazy fiasco they call God's direction, they finally claim that if Obama tells them to stop it, they might. And since when did government trump heavenly powers? I just want to say that if you need your leaders to step in to stop something so obviously wrong, then I doubt your own discretion, your ability to see right from wrong, and ultimately even the theology that you preach form your pulpit.

On behalf of the fanatics, I would like to apologize.

Unfortunately, in every community, there will be one of two we like to think we would be better off without.

our national pride...

I saw a letter in the forum today. And I felt compelled to respond to it. It was a letter from a Singaporean who lives in China. She said that to help her 2 children remain connected to Singapore, she got them to watch the parade together. I thought that was an amazing idea. Then came the bomb. She thought that the segment that showed various Singaporeans sharing their dreams to be unSingaporean. It turned her off. She turned the television off.

Well, I loved the dreams segment. I thought that it was great that they got Singaporeans to actually verbalise their dreams. Most Singaporeans just don't share their dreams. Hence, they don't have dreams. Or they don't think they should dream...

iPhone, iPhony...

I want an iPhone. The iPhone has many problems.

Divided.

Anyway, they said that they will be releasing a new app that would help users tell signal strengths more accurately. I wonder why people would want that. I would rather they change the physical design of the antenna. Wouldn't that be a better solution? The app doesn't solve the problem.

The solution is a phony effort.

how do they know?

The question of the day is this: how do the MRT people know how many people are in the trains? Did they employ a person just to look at cctv footage and count the number of people who enters and exits each train?

If they claimed to know how many Singaporean are in the MRT system at any one time, that I can believe. But to claim they know how many people there are in a train at one time? Is that even possible?

What is the crush-load anyway? The kind people at MRT might want to clarify.

a nation of screamers...

I have a neighbour that screams at her child. It's not a one off event. It's quite regular. But while I cannot make out everything that she says. At least you can make out it's directed at her child.

But that's not the point. Instead, I want to talk about what happens when parents constantly scream at their children. Firstly, I want to say that screaming is not effective, unless you claim that it's good exercise. Anyway, what's the point of screaming? Do you need to tell your neighbours that you are discipling your child as the model parent should? Or is your child hard of hearing, therefore the need to raise your voice? Perhaps your child is hard of hearing because of all the screaming in the first place.

The worst effect of screaming at the child would be that the child would grow up thinking that screaming is the only way to deal with people when they are upset. So you get teenagers screaming at each other thinking it's normal. You'll get more and more parents screaming at their children, not knowing how else to deal with ill discipline.

I think the only setback of living in Singapore is that none of the neighbours are doing anything about it. (Including myself) Indifference. That's what a nation of screamers will be built upon.

national education...

It's not a good sign when you see more and more pastors making the papers for all the wrong reasons. Today, another pastor made the headlines for making insensitive remarks towards another religion. And Christians wonder why they are always being misunderstood by the rest of the community.

Sermons can get pretty dry. However, if pastors need to resort to to making fun of other religions to maintain the attention of the congregation, that's a sad sad state to be in. Attend a speech and drama class, learn the proper way to engage your audience. Oscar Wilde said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. And everyday we fight a war to prevent teenagers from making fun of their peers. With role models like these, no wonder we are on the losing end.

So this is a national educational message: Don't make fun of others. There are other things out there that are actually funny. If you can only find laughter when you put someone else down, you've got to reevaluate your sense of humor, there might be something connected wrongly somewhere.