That Time of the Year... Again

Wow... it's been ages since I've blogged. Looking back on 2008, it's been a tumultuous year for the world.

Major events in the world include:

• Australian government apologised to Australian aboriginals for the generations of discrimination. A bittersweet event. What's done is done. We can no longer turn back time on atrocities such as the Stolen Generation.
  
  
• Protests by the exiled Tibetan against China rule that led to many deaths.
  
  
• Ma Ying Jiu won Taiwan's Presidential election. Rejoice! At least there's a proper person at helmship instead of clowns.
  
  
• Cyclone Nargis ravaged Myanmar, and it showed the world how important it is to have a good government. D***a*** government delayed international help resulting in the lost of more lives than expected.
  
  
• The Sichuan earthquake that shook China. The abominable Chinese practice of taking short-cuts and producing sub-quality products has finally turned on them and at what price.
  
  
• Beijing Olympics and Paralympics. I seriously don't understand the big deal over the table-tennis medal. It was a medal won by a Chinese national and Singapore bought the medal. End of story.
  
  
• Sanlu milk powder in China was found to contain melamine causing many infants and children to develop kidney stones. Upon investigation it was found that Sanlu milk powder is not the only dairy product contaminated with melamine, it also included other products that used dairy products as raw materials. This definitely put a dent in international confidence on food stamped with "Produced in China".
  
  
• Isreal resumed peace talk with Syria.
  
  
• China resumed dialogue with Taiwan.
  
  
• Typhoon Fengshen sank ferry in Philippines.
  
  
• Hurricane Gustav swept through Haiti.
  
  
• World economic recession. Major financial institutions in US such as Lehman Bros, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac either collapsed or is now an empty shell.
  
  Closer to home, stupid Singaporeans bought minibonds and were happily collecting the interest earned without making a peep until Lehman Bros collapsed and all their minibonds became scraps. Then started the whole charade of pointing fingers at relationship managers for misselling and MAS for not intervening earlier etc. Didn't hear them complaining the relationship managers of misselling when the bonds gave them good returns. Investment in bonds, big or mini, are personal choices. If the government has to intervene in every single thing a puny-brained Singaporean does we might as well declare Singapore a communist state.
  
  
• Barack Obama won the US Presidential election. Mixed feelings on this. I am glad he won, and George W Bush's airhead reign is coming to an end. But I pity Obama for having to clean up the mess Bush made.
  
  
• Anti-government protesters crippled Bangkok's airport. I've come to the conclusion: 泰国人吃饱没事做.
  
  
• Bombings and terrorists attacks everywhere. What's the world coming to?
  

Well, here's wishing everybody a happy 2009. We'll ride out of recession in a couple of years' time so hang in there everybody.

Spoonfed Nation

Talk about spoonfeeding. Saw this signage at the NE MRT line, and I almost laughed out loud at the stupidity of it. I would think it commonsense that a person would try to look for a less crowded doorway if he/she wants to increase his/her chances of getting onto the train during peak hours, but obviously I am wrong. People like to be treated like game lemmings.

Bintan - Resort

I had fulfilled three quarters of my dream to travel with Craziblues, Yun and Tian. Left Singapore last Friday afternoon for Bintan with Craziblues and Yun.

The experience wasn't much given we were cooped up in Nirwana Gardens Resort while there, and there was scant entertainment. The highlights of this trip is probably the 1.5 hr body massage that left us with oily hair and smelling of pepper essence, and the diarrhea that I had in less than 12hrs after I was back from Bintan. Otherwise we basically, as Craziblues put it, slept and watched Discovery Channel.

Conclusion, it was a boring trip. As Yun said, we should just book a hotel in the town area, if we are ever going back, and explore the "real" Bintan.

Service Standards

I hate the service line with a passion. Well, maybe not service line in general, but definitely service line in Singapore hospitals. How people like my supervisors, university graduates, can be brain-washed into believing the service standards set out by the higher ups are the way to go is beyond my understanding.

Basically, their idea of a good service is to bully the poorly educated, good-natured, or meek patients while groveling the feet or licking the boots of those who can speak louder, speak more fluently, or knows how to write complain letters.

Recently we had a few cases of patients demanding to be served immediately after they missed their queue numbers. In all cases, the pharmacists they spoke to were already halfway checking another patient's medicine. Even though those patients who missed their numbers were told they would be served by the next available pharmacist, they insisted on being served immediately. One gave the excuse of having to rush off for meeting. Another, like a broken record, kept asking why she cannot be served immediately. Whatever it is, one of those patients wrote in to complain that she (I think, since the recent cases all involved female patients) was not happy that she was not served immediately.

The end result was a discussion at a recent roll call whereby the supervisor said, we should be flexible, stop whatever we are doing to attend to the patient immediately ie. dispense the medicine immediately, if he/she is agitated or getting angry. See where this is going? Patient A throws tantrum, threatens to complain, so pharmacist is suppose to stop checking patient B's medicine and attend to patient A immediately. Does not matter that patient B has to wait longer than necessary to get his/her medicine. We do not want a complain from patient A do we? Throw in patients C and D who are equally demanding and patient B, who happens to be good-natured and patient, will have to wait even longer for an available pharmacist to attend to him/ her.

In conclusion, we are basically providing "good" services to patients A, C and D at the expense of patient B. How is that considered good service is beyond my puny brain. If you are a service provider, be kind to the patient Bs out there. They don't deserve to be shoddily treated just because they don't make a nuisance of themselves.

It Runs In the Family

Brother: Eh do you know Cineleisure?

Me: Yah, cinema in Orchard.

Brother: You know how to get there?

Me: Take MRT to Somerset.

Brother: But where exactly is the place? Does the building have a name or something?

Me: Don't know leh.

Brother: My friend say it's in front of Famous Amos.

Me: Got meh?

Brother: There's a John Little there?

Me: Yah, at Specialist Centre except Specialist Centre's not there anymore. Cineleisure is near to ex-Specialist Center.

Brother: That still doesn't tell me where exactly is this Cineleisure.

Me: Aiyah, just call your friends and ask them to meet you lah.

Brother: *started dialing his handphone*

Haha... so it turns out I'm not the only one who's got a bad sense of direction. I guess such things run in the family.

Lost

It was only yesterday that I had my last violin lesson. Today, I felt lost. It just feels weird not having to practise anymore for a lesson and suddenly I haven't an idea what I was suppose to do. I can continue practising Papini's Un Soir A Portici, and Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 violins in A minor (I suppose)... I wondered if this was how I felt when I stopped my piano lessons many years back. It was so long ago that I cannot remember what went through my mind and how I felt back then.

新加坡奇景

在上小提琴课的路上看见了我想只能在新加坡才看得到的景观。一座组屋底层正在办马来婚礼，对面座则在办华人丧礼。白事撞红事。生活空间太小啦！