MERITOCRACY IN SINGAPORE?? YEAH RIGHT.

Just a few days ago I was speaking to a friend (let's name her Miss X) about my change in race. From Malayalee to Chinese.

In case you're wondering right now why I was able to change my race, it's because I'm half-Indian, half-Chinese. Originally Indian, however with a letter of approval for change of race, endorsed by my mother's husband, I am able to change my race.


Anyway, back to my point.

Practising Meritocracy is definitely encouraged in Singapore, however, is it really carried out?
You might say, "YES! It is definitely practiced in Singapore. Malay, Indian, Chinese, Eurasian, everyone gets a fair chance to work what!"

My answer to you, a simple NO.
I shall elaborate with a conversation and a real life example to prove my point.

While I was speaking about my experience at the ICA, she remembered about how her dad just came back to Singapore and was searching for a job. And how he can get rather scary at times. She was relating to an experience he had.

Her father decided to call company XYZ for a job as a receptionist. (This was for fun, because the Advert stated that they wanted people who were able to speak mandarin.)

He called up company XYZ and the person on the other line said "Can you speak Mandarin?"
Miss X's Dad, "Yes, I speak rather fluent Mandarin in fact."
XYZ, "Oh, then what's your race?"
Miss X's Dad, "I'm Indian."
XYZ, "Sorry, we're looking for Chinese people only."
Miss X's Dad, "WHAT THE... *and he started screaming on and on*"

Well, this is one fine example to prove whether or not Singapore practises meritocracy all the time.

Unbelievable? Believe it.
This is life.

I had a wonderful dream last night.

I dreamt of my wedding day. Well, I got married in a church. And I got married to a guy.

Problem is, I can't seem to remember where, when, and who that guy is.
HAHA. I saw his face in the dream okay!

AND MY WEDDING GOWN WAS NICE.



I've a sudden craving for Jelly Beans.

JUST SO U KNOW, GEEKS ARE COOL.

And that wasn't the main point for this post.

My main point is that, my bottom right wisdom tooth is growing, and it's hurting like CRAZY!!! RAWR.

Amplify Amazing Race - July Babies Birthday

Saturday was AWESOME.

Amplify's Amazing Race. Travel around Singapore, walk in the rain, sweat like crazy, and get time penalties which you don't deserve. HEEHEE, IT WAS FUN!

My group was COOL.
Eunice, Keith, Larris, Marius and Nat!

It's tough to be placed LAST, but someone's gotta do it. We were placed 6th, but we had TONNES OF FUN. Stopping by to rest, buy food from Mr Bean and Old Chang Kee.
You guys just can't get better!

Warning: Many pictures ahead, you can skip all, if you wish to. All but the second last one that is.




KEITH


Eli and Larris








Haha, he's like the cutest small boy I've seen in my life!












HAHAHAHA! Sorry, I can't help but laugh at this one.




SORRY AUNTY. We promise we won't play with tissue paper anymore.










3/4 the race, and we were tired already.




Back at CSC!
Trust me, we were DEAD BEAT.





After Amazing Race, we had an awesome birthday dinner celebration for the July babies in Amplify. THE SPREAD OF FOOD WAS DELICIOUS.



Singing "Happy Birthday"


Make a wish. Blow the candles. May your wishes come true.



JULY BABIES.

Now let's have a closer look at the cake Stefan was SO EXCITED about.



And boy was he in for a surprise.


TOLD YOU STEFAN LOVED THE CAKE.


GROUP.

Chaoz.
Remember, CREDIT. Or TAG.
No robbery.

STUPID SCHOOL RULES

Well, I'd most probably be blogging about the title since Titles are meant for summarising the content of the post.

I went into school yesterday all excited about the school week. And I was looking forward to all the learning that was going to take place (see how good a student I am?)... Well until morning assembly that is.

Apparently, one of our girls (more like EX-Girl) had pictures of herself in uncompromising poses up on the net, and this super kaypoh person just had to complain to the Principal (I will not put her name down here because it's highly dangerous. Ooooh, I'm so scared.)

"GIRLS, I have to reinstate this rule RIGHT NOW. No pictures of yourselves in uniform in your blogs. None at all."


WHOA. This is pure crap.
So much for the school hymn.

"They reap not where they laboured, We reap what they have sown."

Yes, indeed we are 'reaping' their harvest. This unwanted harvest.


I do know about the whole issue, and I'll post it up once I've gathered all the information I can. Besides, the internet is a sea of gossip and gossip. I'll just have to fish for the right one.



A prefect came up to me today and said, "I read your blog."
Me: "Yeah."
P: "So what you going to do about all your pictures?"
Me: "You think I give a shit?"
P: "Hahaha."
Me: "Yeah, report me. Who cares."


This is getting overboard.


Hello teachers, if you're reading this.

Sing A Song

SING A SONG - MOUNT RUSHMORE SINGERS


I THINK GUYS WHO CAN SING ARE HOT.

-sizzles.

JUST HAWT.
Yummy.

165th Speech and Prize-Giving Day

Today, St. Margaret's Secondary School had their 165th Speech and Prize-Giving Day. (Hmmm. How can it be 165th? Don't tell me they had a prize day ever since the first year of school? -shrugs)

Anyway, I was really privileged to win the Kilgour-Holloway Bursary. $150 bucks! The highest amount so far I think.
WHOOHOO. It really pays to be a tad bit poorer eh?
Just when I needed to save for my Sydney trip!
GOD REALLY DOES PROVIDE.


Eunice Olsen appeared as Guest-of-honour, and she gave out only the special prizes! Haha, which meant she shook my hand!!
Those who had top in subjects or something like that shook some other guy's hand (and I swear that guy was hitting on Eunice Olsen. Like who wouldn't? She's freaking prettaye!)


Cam whored a little.


Choir Juniors. Amanda and Judith.


Busy signing autographs.


I GOT A SHOT WITH EUNICE OLSEN!!


Haha, I'm a HUGE fan of the head prefect.


Left: The prefect who does duty for my class and REFUSES to smile. Liying.
Right: Choir junior who just mad. Clarissa.


Tabitha and Nat.


FOOD FOOD FOOD.
The food was NICE.


Choir junior. Priscilla and Amanda.


I JUST CAN'T FIND ANY SIMILARITIES.

Oh yes, this leads me to remember about the convo I had with Mr AA.
Mr AA: "She's your mom right?"
Nat: "OMG, you can tell?"
Mr AA: "Ya, she looks like you."
Nat: "I CANT FIND ANY SIMILARITIES!"
Mr AA: "Then you can find the differences??"
Nat: "I think I suck at this SS skill Mr AA."


CUTE!


Today was truly unforgettable.
Mr AA made it so much better. I don't know what's it about him, but you just want to hear him more.

Today morning's devotion was about Encouraging, and how a simple gesture like encouraging could make an impact on someone else's life.
To think I experienced it first hand.

He saw my mom, and said, "She's got a really good brain in that head. And she speaks well. She's going to do very well."

After all these months of school, I've finally come to appreciate the term "learning". From a failure in SS, to non-failure in SS. Mr AA, salute you.


Another person who made it better was Tabitha. Well, let's just say the most unexpected words came from her mouth (more like hand, since she wrote me a long letter). And it really uplifted my faith in God.
Thank you.


I've got awesome teachers, and THANK GOD for them. I'm so blessed, I feel like I'm robbing someone of their happiness sometimes.

THIS IS PAINFUL.

Don't ask me how I got that scar on my back. It's just NOT HEALING as it should.
RAWR.
Save me someone. I can't even move properly now.





It's just a cm scar what!!!! Complain about what?
It just hurts.
At least you forget about emotional hurt Nat.
Now I know how Jesus feels. Imagine something going into your skin and pulling it along down your back. It didn't stop bleeding for at least five minutes.
But this is just one scar Nat.
SHUT UP OKAY. SHUT UP.

I've had enough of reality.

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

Today's the 200th day of the year! LIKE FINALLY.
TIME FLIES. LIKE ZOOOOOM.

Anyway, caught HARRY POTTER and the ORDER OF THE PHOENIX today!
It was awesome. The action was there. But it was super anti-climax.
A 6 hour movie cut into 2! ):

I'd give this movie 3.5/5 stars!
But if you're a Harry Potter fan! It's 4.6 stars!

P.S. I'd die for Sirius Black. He's so HOT. Gary Oldman. LOVEYOU.

O Level Chinese Listening Compre was FUN.

Other than the fact that I had to rush back home right after we got dismissed to obtain some form of identification (other than EZ link card), so that I could prove that I was present.

I know I didn't score full marks. 8/10.
But still fun nonetheless!

Thanks God, for keeping me awake!


OH YES, and right before the exam, Symphony 92.4 played Canon in D and the Waltz, which made me smile non-stop :D

"Nat's Going to SYDWYD" Fund. Update I.

Here's the breakdown of money I've collected so far for "Nat's Going to SYDWYD" Fund.

Old Lady : $50.00
Tabitha: $4.00
Ulindra: $2.00
Keith: $2.00
------------------
Total: $58.00

THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS!

Till then. I've got a lot more to save.
By the way, I made a MAJOR mistake my previous post.

It's $2000.00. Not $1000.00.

I'm praying so hard Blessed Sacrament Church will help us pay a portion of it.

Bacteria Transformaton, Science Centre

Went to the Science Centre 14/o7.
Had an okay time transforming bacteria.

Success rate of the bacteria being transformed is 0.5%! WHAT'S THE USE THEN. Just show us the transformed bacteria, instead of getting us all excited, and then we fail.

Anyway, 4e6 was camwhoring, and since I had a camera, I went around snapping people. I LIKE DOING THAT.

























OMG. I LOOK LIKE A DENTIST!
*screams* :D









Anyway, after all this, I went into Science centre. Alone.
Contrary to many who think so, I PREFER TO BE ALONE.
The freedom of choice. Where you want to go, where you would like to go next.

I decided to check out the new exhibits at iSpace.
All this infocomm techonolgy stuff is ultra cool!

But before that, I had a looksee at the toilets at Water Works. NICE AND PINK.


This was the first thing I saw when I entered the iSpace section. WHOA. I wanted to hop in. Nice cobalt blue.


And my iSpace journey begins. I had to take a card which contained a RDIF chip, and I registered my name and age with these kiosks.


Afterwhich I headed up and I had to pass through a walkway. It made me rather dizzy.


This was one of the exhibits I saw. They spoke about the evolution of inventions. How they just got better and better! And guess what? The poster you see is not a poster, it's digital, as you slide the display across the board, they tell you about the pictures that correspond behind it.


And I saw this toilet bowl called BioStool. It can measure your weight, blood sugar levels etc. I didn't attempt to measure my blood sugar level and cholesterol. But I did attempt to take my weight with the BioStool. All you had to do was sit on it. AND OMG. It was accurate!

Headed down to the ecogarden afterwards. And the air there is so FRESH! All that photosynthesis made the air there a lot more breathable.
I saw this plant named the "Mother-in-law Plant". Was trying to draw some parallels to mother-in-laws but I couldn't. Because all I know about mother-in-laws is that they are EVIL to their daughter-in-laws. Then again, that generalisation made by me was influenced by media, which proves to be inaccurate. SINCE WHEN was media accurate?

I didn't take any more photos, but I had a damn fun time just playing with all the exhibits.
Technology you rock!


Anyway, speaking about technology (this is where I start to think about SS lessons).
It's always changing isn't it?
So is our economy.

From a labour intensive economy, we moved on to a capital intensive economy. Now we're moving towards a Knowledge-based economy (KBE). What next?
Innovation driven economy? Newfangled idea economy? Lastest thing economy?
HAIYA. Let's just call it a God-help-us economy.