i've been following the elections rather closely and am rather surprised by my own lack of apathy. by my own admission, i'm rather politically apathetic because my family is doing rather well; the increased cost of living or other bread and butter issues that have cropped up as elections topics do not directly impact me. while i am aware of the problems which other members of society experience, i'm not ashamed to claim that i lead a sheltered life. thus as long as my life could carry on as per normal, i was very contented to remain as an observer of local politics and national policies, and will only voice out if a policy detrimentally affects me.

that's what i thought.

i think the catalyst came when the parties released their manifestos. the first manifesto i read was the WP manifesto and i was pretty impressed by it. and i thought "hmmmm. let's see how the PAP manifesto compares to this". my interest was purely for the sake of comparing the policies and trying to figure out where exactly do these 2 parties differ on.

then the PAP manifesto was released and i could not help but feel insulted by the ruling party. they claim that singapore has progressed, they claim that we are more educated, and yet they release a manifesto that has absolutely zero content. do they expect voters to vote them in just because they have been in power for so long? it's an insult to my intelligence. i was sincerely expecting a manifesto that allowed me to see what policies they have planned and thus i could do a comparison with other opposition parties. and yet what they gave was so lacking in content that a single essay or term paper i write for school actually contains more words that what they claim is their manifesto.

i am not going to blindly follow someone. even if you want me to jump off a cliff, you also need to give a good reason and substantiate your view. and i'll jump only if you can convince me. in other words, we need information.

that was when i decided enough is enough. there is no way i want my society to be governed by a party which does not deem it necessary to provide its electorate with sufficient information. there is no way i want my society to be governed by a party that ridicules its electorate's intelligence. there is no way i want my society to be governed by a party that refuses to hold itself up to scrutiny.

so i decided to take a look at SDP and NSP's manifestos and found that they do have credible points too. i am not anti-pap and neither am i pro-WP/SDP/NSP. i just feel that these opposition parties have something to contribute. of course i do not fully agree with their manifestos and there are some points which i find odd, and bordering on ridiculous, but most importantly was that i feel these are parties that are willing to be held up to scrutiny.

we should give them a chance and do vote for them if we think they are credible and able to deliver their promises. going by the same logic, we should not vote for opposition just because they are opposition. we should only vote if we think they are capable enough. and this is where there is a need to judge not only the parties, but also the candidates that are running. it is not enough to have strong manifestos, it is equally important to have the individuals capable of arguing for it. in this sense i am rather disappointed with the opposition candidatse in my GRC. they do not strike me as capable enough. maybe i am just disappointed that they did not send their "A" teams to my GRC. but i shall pass judgement only after i assess them more.

similarly, the PAP antics of buying votes using estate upgrading plans need to stop. how stupid do they think we can get? i do not live in hougang or potong pasir but i go there often. and it is pretty damn obvious that those estates are in serious need of upgrading. as the government of singapore, they have no choice but to improve these estates. so what if they are in opposition territory? the money used for upgrading comes from singapore as a whole! these arguments have been covered extensively by many people and regardless of how i try to see things from the PAP perspective, there is absolutely no legit reason to why they are doing what they are doing. and i am saying this despite the fact that i am usually able to argue for both sides of the coin.

the PAP must accept the fact that the rise of new media means they have lost control of the flow of information. the difference between them and the CCCP is that the CCCP need not hide behind a facade of democracy, and thus they are able to legitimately have almost full control of information. the PAP needs to hide behind this facade. and because they created this facade, they have created a social movement that is asking for a real alternative voice to be heard in parliament. seriously, how much can it hurt them if 1 or 2 opposition teams get elected in?

if the PAP is really confident in their abilities, then they should stop the gerrymandering of election boundaries, stop attempting to buy votes using estate upgrading plans, and start putting themselves up to public scrutiny. compete in the elections with no gimmicks. if you can win it, then you have a real mandate, and society will just have to accept that majority of singaporeans chose you legitimately. if you resort to gimmicks to win, then your mandate is built on thin air. the undercurrents of resentment will definitely grow.

i have a gut feeling that i am not the only gen-y person who feels this way. there definitely are others who are more politically aware only because of the antics which PAP created. of course this bodes well for Singapore. but just because we are politically aware does not mean we should be firmly anti-PAP. there is a need to have a rationale mindset. this is where i fear the opposition movement/supporters will simply fall into a mass of gibberish and riff-raff because many "supporters" are rooting for opposition because PAP is not perfect.

let's face it, no party is perfect. no policy is perfect. whenever something is done, somewhere else, something needs to give way. we need to decide how much imperfection we can accept. more specifically, we need to decide what type of imperfection do we want.

too much meat in 2 days.

had waterloo chicken rice lunch after ocbc where 8 of us finished 2 chickens.

then went over to Barossa at esplanade for steak buffet of WAGYU BEEF, BLACK ANGUS BEEF and KING ISLAND PURE GRASS FED T-BONE. had one of each and i was delightedly full.

today's dinner was at Republic of Steak. I've killed enough cows so I had Republic Pork Steak.

really too much meat in 2 days.

school's starting this week. my first class is on tuesday. it's an 830am introductory stats class.

so fun right? my first lesson is math.

i shall prove that i can count beyond 100, i will conquer stats with a little bit of help from my friends.

 AAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

ARBS IS GONE AND XABI HANDED IN A TRANSFER REQUEST!

my world is collapsing.

 oh god. wacko jacko kicks the bucket. arbs might go to real. emma watson is still attached.

terrible news all of these.

 The Coffee Nations. fantastic little cafe.

 English to be standardised across Europe

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as 'Euro-English'.

In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of 'k'. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced with 'f'. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

 - god knows why my parents booked a 3D2N cruise to nowhere. but i'm hoping it'll be fun nonetheless.

- going to have my first SMU presentation. not really exciting in the conventional sense, but still exciting yo.

- and the week then ends with possibly being FUELed up at the F1 Pit Stop Building on 23rd May

 Worldwide Festival =D