Minty-Tasting Water - Is This Fluoride Or Is It Mint?By the way, have you tasted the drinking water at the amenities centre of the MacRitchie Park?It tastes minty, like toothpaste or the tap water I drank from at Guangzhou on my travel there once. Which leads one to wonder if this is mint or is it fluoride? Does fluoride have a taste in the first place because we have all come to associate fluoride with mint. Or is it just me?If it is fluoride, then the next question is if it is fluoridated too excessively, wouldn't that lead to dental or skeletal fluorosis?Is Drinking Water Here Safe For Consumption?At home, on several occasions, I had diarrhea for no apparent reason and I could only trace it to the boiled water I drank because it happened only immediately after I drank from it. And I ate or drank nothing else that could precipitate this diarrheaic onset.
That leads me to ask another question if the drinking water supply at this old mansion I am living in is safe? First Geylang, Then Selegie And Now Bukit Timah/MacKenzie RoadHave you ever turned up at Exit A (leading to the Bukit Timah/MacKenzie Road route) of the Little India MRT station on a Sunday evening at about 6pm?The entire car-parking lot was mobilised by our darker-skinned foreign workers. I got off the exit this evening to make my way home and I was obstructed by the huge (this is an understatement considering that the entire open-air car parking lot was teeming and bursting at its seam) crowd that had gathered here.When will it get worse?When a fight breaks out? Or a fire alarm raised which can lead to a stampede perhaps? Some fire-safety issues and security concerns? Or the vehicles parked there get damaged?It Is Like After Mother Has Cooked Dinner, She Sends Her Children Away To McDonald's For Their Evening Meal While Inviting The Neighbor's Children Home For DinnerThis is exactly how I feel.
My school starts a counselling program and we pay something like 5K in all for it. The next thing I know, employability remains a BIG ISSUE and they only recognise us on a case-by-case basis for the single major degree in psychology.
That honour of recognition goes to the Polytechnic diploma holders.
That means we have to go elsewhere for our degree program and we most likely have to do the double majors in psychology and marketing management with my school if we wanna pursue our higher education. On top of bridging modules they deem fit.
So the question is: why even start a counselling program when they are gonna selectively recognise it for the single major when most of us have to do the double majors? Isn't this like my headline above?
What's more, we have to pay a full 10K difference in course fees (that pinches on the pocket - OUCH - make that triple "OUCHes") and pursuing irrelevant modules like tourism and marketing. Plus a longer time to complete the program.
The modules may perhaps widen job prospects but who wanna pay 10K for them? If this isn't ridiculous, what is?
Who Plagiarises Who? You Or Me?It is bad enough the program was dogged by all those issues I have blogged about.
What makes it worse, is that in an about face turn-around, while prohibiting plagiarism on the part of the students, the lecturers were plagiarising word-for-word from books in their study guides and power-point slides.
Books which in some cases were recommended reading texts for the program.
What is the BIG USE if both study guide and powerpoint slides contain ONE and the SAME material anyway?
It shows very little care and disregard for the program and my school has the benefit of 10 intakes so far. I am surprised they haven't cleaned up their act yet.PsychoMetric Nothingness And Education FraudI paid 80 bucks for two psychometric tests after much hard-selling and touting in class by Henry and I was also curious. The tests turn out to be essentially a bundle of papers with some useless word sentencing without a contextual understanding.
When I flipped open the pages, I seethed with more anger at the kinda questions they were asking.
Mostly dichotomous ones that seek to find out what they sought to find in the first place. And the context of the questions asked was missing. For instance, "do children get on your nerves" depends whether we are handling our own one or few child/ren at home or a class or school of them in an education setting.
I didn't bother to submit my tests in the end. A pure waste of money and time. That kinda money could have bought me a nice branded Ralph Lauren Polo tee. And I would rather read a good book or go out shopping than attending classes, listening to nonsensities spouted from various "education" "gurus".
That would have been a more realistic education.
There Is A Stall Selling Whole Roasted Pigs At Ion Food Hall, Maybe You Should Visit And See Yourself There?Some of the foreign worker pigs are getting lazier.
Take this young foreign punk at the MacRitchie Park. I am not sure what time he starts work but he will invariably come in to clean up the amenities centre only when kayakers and runners are around.
Even then the showers are never cleaned up properly and he dares glowers and kick the wash basin to express his displeasure. He expects us to keep the place clean for him when it is his JOB to and with the water trickling, the jet spray heads dismantled and flimsy toilet paper, it is small wonder the place is a mess.
But this is a PARK for heaven's sake! Mud, soil and grass in all. What was he expecting? Gemstones and crude oil?Plus old uncles were carting pails to wash themselves and their other goodies and therefore hogging the shower facilities.
But he is young, healthy and strong
(late teens or twenties?)! What is he paid to do anyway? Sit around and fuck spiders?
In fact given that the Park is such a HUGE place, it is surprising that all the foreign workers choose to congregate at this ONE and ONLY location to do their work.
THE BIGGEST SHOW ON EARTH!
Visit The Roasted Pig Stall At Ion FoodHall And See Yourself There, Pigs!At Old Aunty's, I have just cleaned up the ceiling fan and the top of the wardrobe, tasks which needed a tall ladder and yes, they were coated with layered morphs of dustballs accumulated over the years of their lease-life. But the thick dusty drapes remain.
That shows further how mercenary but LAZY the foreign
and local (whoever you are) pigs are.And the common toilet just outside my bedroom is once again soiled with filth the moment the at first trioed and then coupled and finally single tenant had moved in.
The vagaries of human relations and sex for you.
And I know not to trust Old Aunty. I am just putting up with her and tolerating her lies. She will pretend not to know when she is in on it with the other tenants. In fact I have a feeling the new tenant is Ben's friend.Just like Sabby. But in this case, I am still treating her as a friend and she will get her just desserts if she is conniving anything behind my back because when I passed the class once during breaktime for Henry's class, I could hear some of their peals of laughter.They pretend to talk to me to gauge my opinion of the program and what I have to say about the lecturers which usually rates poorly.I also do not trust the gays at the men's club because I have seen who is talking to who and who is connected to who. And one of them is linked to Raffy, the Filipino tenant here and another to Victor, Ben's agent and whatever.That I am fully aware of.My cusses rain on you and your loved ones. Be it debilitating or something else.
People Are People (Like Depeche Mode Martin Gore's Song Goes)I asked to trade in my polo for a smaller size but I was told to "dryclean" it first as I was wearing it before the exchange. I was told this is personal hygiene.
What ridiculity when the piece I bought was a display one with GOD-KNOWS-HOW-MANY other sweaty, odorful and filthy customers have tried it on.
And mind you to dryclean it as if it is a business suit and when the shirt specifically forbids drycleaning.
This is like the new adult CEPAS GIRO-linked EZ link card being issued. It now extracts a 25 cents deduction with every automatic top-up. This has never happened before so what is the rationale for this NOW?
Or the towel woman at California Fitness still insisting that she wants the towel to be returned to the second-floor counter before 12pm even though it is soaking wet.
Imagine a soaking, dripping wet towel transported from the third storey to the second storey. Safety issues of the slippery surface kind. And it is soaking wet only because of the steam bathing and showering and of course the consequent wetting.
I guess people are just people and on the two former occasions, the service personnel bore the full brunt of my screams.
Once More, PigHeads, The UnHoly Trinity Is Out For MeOnce more pigs, the blimps, bimbs and wimps are on my "unwanted" list. I am having nothing to do with most of the girls or women in my class because I can perceive what the cultural differences are.
At best, we are friends. Like Sabby, my current best friend in class even though she is married with 3 girls, has a husband in the armed forces and owns a maid. And she is Sikh.
The class can connive whatever they want. If it is something evil, they get the retribution in return.
This Bears RepeatingI have to repeat myself once more I think. Only younger Asian Chinese/Koreans/Japs for that special beau. Selectively others (but I am mindful of cultural as well as lifestyle and habit differences) and maybe even younger white males. Keyword - younger and physically appealing.
My own abode and fast. And in appropriate places. No nosey neighbors. No older generation. No culturally different neighbors. My career choice within an education setting, preferably higher education sort.
Is this too hard to understand?
Remember, my curse remains true. Whatever you are doing now, it will go round and happen to you or the ones close to you. Just remember that.
The Bounty Is Plentiful And Cheap TooThe NEXT generation never had it so good. There is so much variety on the retail apparel and fashion scene these days and they don't cost a bomb.
Take for instance River Island, the British high-street fashion wear. It offers so many chic and genre casual footwear that go for under 100 bucks.
Kids can really deck themselves out fashionably and they don't have to bust their budget too. They have shops like the Japanese Uniqlo (which incidentally has Jil Sanders now heading its fashion design) or Cotton-On.
And the young people are cafeing and eating out at posh restaurants almost like an everyday affair. The pickings are good and some food are delicious. But you pay the price of course.
I really envy them. We never had such choices back in our days.
Luxury Brands Are Just Luxury Brands, Be They Be Made From Hemp, Cotton, Flax Or AcetateSo whatever it may be, we pay for the brand name and nothing else. That we are ALL fully aware of.
Plus it is made in the countries of origin, usually Italy or France and you can see the marked differences in the exquisite craftmanship in stitching and the very clean lines.
Luxury brands are particularly common among the girls and women in our midst who are in most cases showing off their travel-bags, usually a Louis Vuitton
or Gucci, the BIG TWO rivals in the luxury market.
The distinguishing classic tartan design of the Burberry brand is fast appearing among the bag toting crowd here and on men's shirts, women's blouses and even jacket collars.
I guess we are a nation who relishes brandishing luxury goods for good measure.
