Emotions, General, Rants

Someone Else

You always think it will happen to anyone else. Anything that has a million to one chance of happening, will happen to someone else;except the lottery.

I have had a few friends who, for all appearances, just seemed quiet or introverted. Then I learnt that they were on medications. Medications that would help you feel good.

A lot has happened in just the last 4-5 months.
My dad passed away. In the span of 2 months, we found that my dad had diabetes, discovered stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and lost him to it.

My mother-in-law has had a relapse of schizophrenia. My sister-in-law and father-in-law are busy looking after her and are being drained. My father-in-law’s blood pressure is also raising because of lack of rest and it is also causing his work performance to suffer.

A new colleague in the workplace has resulted in a divide in our team and led to me being victimized for a small mistake and me losing my favorite part of my job. The disgruntlement that some of my colleagues and I share have made it hard for us to work effectively and will result in the organization as a whole suffering.

Miscommunication and the stress have also caused me to accidentally rear end another vehicle. Resulting in a huge dent in my wallet.

There are a slew of other things affecting me and it is weighing me down. Last Friday as I was driving home, I realized that I’m not happy. I have been feeling down and out of sorts since then.

A close friend is not surprised, saying it’s been a real terrible year for me.

Be careful of depression, it can get you before you realize it. It can happen to you. It only takes a series of unfortunate events.

General, Movies

Hentak Kaki

Here’s a short simple film about something all Singaporean males can understand. Army life.

The nice thing is that we see how someone seems trapped into a life where there is no way out.

“2nd Warrant Officer Teck Hong has served his entire life in the army. Now 38, he finds himself needing to make a pivotal decision, should he continue serving in the army or leave and face the harsh reality of life outside. He knows that if he continues serving, his past injuries limits his roles in the army to administrative positions, something he loathes. However, upon meeting a certain detainee at the Detention Barracks in the army, his life takes a turn.” 

https://www.viddsee.com/video.php?video=hentak_kaki_2011

Politics

Unhappy People

Why did punggol east drift away from the MIW? It is a sign that people are unhappy. Dr Gillian Koh, one of the go-to “political analysts” that the mainstream media approaches, said that the constituency is not representative of the nation. I ask what makes it representative of the nation? Are the voters not Singaporean enough? Are the voters not a sample size of the country? While one can argue that their views may not be representative of the nation, it is definitely representative of a people that are unhappy with the ruling party.

You see the government emphasising Total Defence including Social, Psychological, Military, Civil, and Economic Defence, but somehow almost all their policies seem to emphasise only the latter. This harms the Social and Psychological aspects of their Total Defence message.

If you want the population to balloon to 7 million, you cannot do it artificially through importing “talent”. You don’t fix a leaking sink by pouring more water in. You do it by making Singapore a place to call home. Then Singaporeans will stay; Singaporeans will have their families here. Then there will be an eventual increase in population. One that the national infrastructure can keep up with.

Stop with all the shortcuts. Nothing worth having comes easily.

General

Cross-Country Phone Retrieval

It was late one Saturday evening and my fiancee and I just returned to my place to chill out and relax, maybe watch some videos. We had taken a cab home to my place as we had a number of things to carry. As it had been a long day for me, which included our going to a bridal studio in the sweltering tropical heat. I welcomed the chance to take a shower.

Feeling refreshed from my shower, I came out to find my fiancee distraughtly looking for her iPhone. She had apparently used my phone to call her but remembering that the phone was on silent mode could not make out any vibrations. I deftly took my iPhone from her and activated the Find My iPhone app. A service that I activated on her phone the moment it became free.

Within a minute the phone was tracked to a location that we had not been the whole day. Immediately we knew that it was stuck in a cab. I quickly got all the gear I needed and we went to the car downstairs to chase after the iPhone in a cab. Speeding past many other vehicles, we gave chase, updating my the whereabouts of my fiancee’s phone every so often. I locked the phone and started up the alert sound that would go off even if the iPhone was in silent mode. The alert message I sent was to contact me ASAP.

We gave chase down what I considered to be. The northwest corridor of the nation. Singapore has a few major roads which link the city area to the outskirts and we were speeding down in efforts to retrieve the invaluable object. As we drove along, my fiancee was a bag of mixed emotions, and I was trying to control mine, to paraphrase a wartime saying, keeping calm and carrying on. I was just hoping that the cab wouldn’t get onto an expressway. With the greater distance and speed that can be covered, it would be near impossible to track it quickly enough to get the iPhone before someone turns it off or the battery dies, leaving us in the dark.

After driving approximately 15km down the stretch of road, my fear came true. The cab had gone onto an expressway.I tried to catch up to its location about 6-7 km away. But when it reached the approximate location the were no more updates to its location. I exited the expressway looking for a spot to park and attempt a re-triangulation of the wayward phone, venting my frustrations at the inept telco service, while hoping that no one has turn the phone off.

Sending yet another alert message to contact me, we also tried calling the cab company, however, it was the time of night when calling the cab companies is as futile as resisting the Borg. 10 minutes later, the signal was picked up again and we were off.

Because of the inability of the service to accurate pinpoint the location (Yes telco service prover I’m looking at you), we carried on westwards towards the most extreme end of the nation. A this point, I had travelled over halfway across the country.

With traffic in the way and another delay in pinpointing the iPhone’s location, we had reached the destination only to find that the cab has gone northwards. Disregarding any speed limits I had gone ahead, thanking my childhood island-wide treasure hunting games for the ability to read maps effectively and the familiarity it gave me to pretty much anywhere in the country. By the time we caught up to the triangulation zone, we deduced that the cab was in traffic junction and of the two cabs there one was from the cab company we took earlier.

Giving chase to the vehicle, I checked the tracking system again to ensure we got the right cab. Though there was a point where the service halted again, I decided to keep this cab in my sight as it was the only one lead that we had. Also, this particular cab company did not have a tremendously huge fleet so it was reasonable to expect that that was the only cab in the general vicinity.

We followed suit, noting down the exact license plate number for any references we might have in bringing a lost item case to the cab company. I sent another message to the iPhone, bring a greater sense of urgency to request for a call back.

Pulling up next to it, we recognized the driver and I started to sound the horn and high beamed him from the rear. No response. I thought back to some of the comments the driver made during our trip and thought that perhaps he wasn’t the brightest bulb around. Trailing behind him on the expressway, we were glad that we thought we had gotten our man. I was initially worried that we would not be able to track the cab down, let alone if someone picked up the phone and decided to take it home.

However, the cab driver did not seem fazed by the attention that my car had been giving him and drove on. His passengers, a couple, however, realized that they were being followed from the northwestern part of the country they had boarded, to the mid west town they were heading to. We started to frantically sign to them that there was a phone in the cab. And we thank God that we could see them looking around on the floor of the vehicle for the errant communications device. To aid them I sounded the alert again. And while at a traffic junction, a Caucasian gentlemen exited the vehicle and approached mine. He asked if the phone in the cab was ours and we said yes. They were alighting around the corner and said that we should just follow.

We followed them around the corner into a private apartment block where, pulling up behind them I cautiously exited the vehicle and approached the cab to retrieve the iPhone. The cab driver seemed puzzled that we were following him all the while. I was puzzled by his ignoring a ringing phone that did not belong to him that was in his cab. I pinned it down to him probably attempting to be dishonest and attempt to hock it off to a used phone dealer. Thankfully, being the not-so-technologically-inclined, he probably had no idea how to even off the phone.

I just took the phone and left, thanking the Caucasian couple for helping us, and remarking that the Find My IPhone app was a a godsend. I once again got into the car and drove halfway across the country back phone while my fiancee thanked me for my efforts.

General

For Better Or Worse…

Few moments in history will be recognised, beforehand, as a watershed moment, the turning point.

I lay awake right now, literally hours away from casting my first vote in the country I call home. As I browse through the slew of news that has come through since nomination day, April 27th, I see this photo album.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150176728402867.328152.524682866

As I see the photographs, tears well up in my eyes. For the first time in Singapore’s recent history, I see a passion for the direction where the country is headed. Years of walkovers led me to believe that so many have grown apathetic to the governance of the country. As such many have moved away to build their homes elsewhere. But with the Internet, we know that these inner voices of dissatisfaction reside in many others. We are not alone and we are not afraid.

This statement is agnostic to political parties. Whilst many have issues with the current ruling party, there are a few in there who seek change from within. Without a doubt, change will happen.

As though preparing for a war, I know that the 8th of May 2011 will forever mark a change in Singapore’s history. No matter what the results are, it is a sign that the people have a voice and they will use it. No matter what the results are, let no one, no government that rules this country ever forget this day, the day that Singapore will be forever changed.