Category Archives: Uncategorized

2016 Week 47 Update

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Another hectic week where I was left wondering where the days flew by!

BB went for his school leadership camp for 3 days and GG missed him terribly. She kept asking me when he would come back and that she missed having him around to fight and play with. BB said pretty much the same thing when GG went do her leadership camp a couple of weeks back. Guess this showed me once more the special bond that both have, which is more I think because they shared a womb and have been together their entire life. I really hope GG will be able to cope with BB’s absence during his National Service which will be for two years, though he should be able to make it home most weekends. They’ll be older too, so hopefully more mature. 

You all must have heard of the demonitisation of the Indian rupee which happened two weeks back. What the government did was declare the 500 and 1000 rupee notes not legal tender anymore and it’s created chaos in the country. Suddenly the money people had for their daily expenses didn’t exist anymore and the queues in bank were and are insane. What it means to me is that no bank or money changer in Singapore has any relevant and legal rupee anymore. For us, who are flying to India next week, this has created so much problems. I’ve been running around asking people for whatever small change they have and have just about managed to cobble enough for a taxi ride from the airport to my home! Hopefully there are money changers in Mumbai airport from whom I can change some money, otherwise I have no idea how I am going to shop for the poonal. 

I also decided to take my involvement in BB & GG’s schools up a notch. I volunteered to be part of the school Parent Support Group’s exco committee. I also want to do the same for GG’s school but I am already in what they call the core committee and her school is not so into the PSG as BB’s school. 

We also caught Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them over the weekend and all of us, me, GG & BB loved it. It’s a sort of prequel to the Harry Potter series and I understand this is the first of five movies. If you are a Harry Potter fan, please do see the movie. 

That’s all from us this week. The next few updates will be from India! So more from there….

Have a wonderful week!!

Travel Woes…

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After almost eight years, I am now taking the public transport to get to work and it has been a huge culture shock to me! I had read about the crush in the public transport system in Singapore but it was only when I actually experienced it did i realize the magnitude of it.

By and large Singapore has a fairly decent public transportation system with trains, called the Mass Rapid Transit or MRT serving major towns and the Light Rapid Transport or LRT connecting newer towns to the MRT stations and buses which either connect the outer lying areas to the city centre or connect the suburbs to bus or train interchanges. The two operators which run the bus/train network are SMRT and SBS.

Eight years back when I last took the bus on a regular basis, it was easy since I was taking it from the first stop to the last one and was guaranteed a seat. My connecting bus from the interchange to my office was also from the first stop and since the journey was some 10-15 minutes only, not getting a seat was not a big issue! The traffic on the roads was not so bad and I could reach my workplace in the western part of the country in less than an hour. Then last year when S was on his last reservist duty, I had to take the public transport for about 4 days and I took the bus as usual and the journey took me almost double the time! The traffic in the roads was terrible and made me realise just how many vehicles were on the road, in spite of high car prices and the other expenses that come with owning a car! I then took the train on the other days and that was not too bad considering I was travelog in the opposite direction for most of the journey. I was so thankful to be driven to work once S was back!

Now since July I am working in a new place which is on the fringe of the Central Business District (CBD).  This means along with me, approximately 60-70% of Singapore’s working population travel in the same direction as me. The first few days I took the train, but the crush there brought to mind the Mumbai train crush the only difference being that people are a bit more polite here and all buses and trains are air conditioned. I’ve had to frequently miss trains because there was just no way I could enter the train! I then started taking my chances with the road traffic and am now taking an almost direct bus which takes me to a busstop about 7-10 minutes walking distance from my office. This bus is also extremely crowded. The stop I usually get on is the last one before the expressway and the days I can actually get on the bus is good! But there is one thing that I have noticed which is fairly disturbing. Most people do not like to move to the back of the bus but crowd around the exits. This means that the bus is front heavy and newer passengers have to squeeze in the front with zero personal space while at the back it is fairly comfortable.

Wish the powers that are (aka the transport minister or the biggies in the ministry) take these busses and trains incognito without getting the operators and the grassroot leaders in the picture and get a first hand experience of what most Singaporeans go through. Only then would any policy designed to alleviate suffering really take place, otherwise it’s all just gloss.

Monday Morning Blues

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What is it about a Monday morning that makes pretty much everyone want to snatch a few more hours of sleep and not let the weekend end?

I tried to find out what exactly was the Monday Blues and found differnet theories. One of the more interesting ones, said to be scientific in nature said that within our bodies, our internal clocks naturally operate on a day that is longer than 24 hours. By the time Monday rolls around each week, we’ve built up a sleep deficit of at least an hour. Of course, the weekend revelries and facing another work week don’t help matters. For tips on how to beat those dreaded blues, click here.

I had originally posted a cartoon I got off the Internet, then decided to change it to an original photo from my iPhone. This photograph was clicked at the Singapore Flower Show last year.

What about me you can ask? I do suffer from Monday blues, but I think it’s a bit more deep-seated than that. More on my analysis of what’s going on in my head later….

Quote of the Day

When ever I can remember to do this, I’ll leave you guys with a quote. Here’s today’s quote which I get from an iPhone app called Inspiration

“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.” ~ Dale Carnegie

Farmville

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Image source

Now that I wrote about Facebook, can games on it be far behind?

When I first got on Facebook, I was not interested in any of the games there. Then after I started getting heaps of invites to games, I started with playing Farmville. This game was the first one I played and am still playing. I also played other such games, but lost interest in it soon.

Farmville, for those who probably live under a rock is a real-time simulation game by Zynga where you manage a virtual farm by plowing, seeding and harvesting crops, animals and trees. This is a very popular game with over 77 million people playing the game across the world every month!

I’m hooked to the game like I said before and although I play it everyday, am I addicted? Well I don’t know, but hope not!!

Singapore Education

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The ‘O’ Level results were out yesterday and as usual most of the top scorers were foreigners! This is a lesson for us – when children who come from outside of Singapore not knowing much English can go from an F6 to an A1 in two years or less, then why can’t our children do the same? Are we mollycoddling our young ones? Here’s an article I just read while browsing WordPress which somehow relates to this issue. Most of the top scorers, especially the foreign students came from China and in two years stared acing subjects. I also know of the son of a friend of a friend who came to Singapore when he was in P3 (I think) and failed in all subjects in his first exam here. He then persevered (to the extent of reading dictionaries daily) and went on to become a top student in his school and after his Primary School Leaving Exams (PSLE), went to one of Singapore’s top secondary schools – Raffles Institution.

Everytime these results come out, I show them to D&P and in my heart, hope that they emulate these children. After all, which parent would not want their child to be academically brilliant, especially here in Singapore which is obsessed with paper qualifications and want to know which primary/secondary school you went to, even if you are the Prime Minister of the country!

The front page of The Straits Times has this picture. It showed a line of people queuing up for something in the dark. As a teaser the article asked readers to go to a specific page to know why these people were queuing up. The shocker – people were queuing up to get admission forms for a kindergarten! And the best part – the admissions were for their tiny tots for 2013!! Here’s the article from the Straits Times website. The article also has a picture with a baby who looks to be less than a year old. And it also mentions that this kindergarten was the alma mater of the Singapore Prime Minister and his children. So what does this tell us – even if you are the PM of the country – where you went for Kindergarten is important!

No wonder parents in Singapore get so hysterical when their children reach P6 and it’s time for the dreaded PSLE. My turn in the next four years – with two of them doing the PSLE, wonder what I will be doing (boink!)