Tuesday, July 26, 2005
DPP Seminar - 25 - 29 July 2005
if you're wondering why the fuck i'm so busy this week - i have a developments in public policy seminar everyday from 9am to 6pm the whole of this week. tt effectively means no exercise at all, no gym, not clubbing, and for this week, no social life.
actually, i qualify tt. i have a social life. but the only social life i have is with a) my girls (wed and thurs), and b) my baby. ok, unless you count sat, and then c) james as well, and tt's coz i haven't seen him since fucking april 29. ARGH.
how's the seminar like? well. can't really say much without risking a) being hauled up by the ISA b) being slapped with an OB marker c) losing my scholarship etc, so can't say that much. except maybe these few phrases: 1) boring; 2) wayang; 3) know-it-alls; 4) MORE wayang. oh, but the food is good. if ONLY the damn sessions DON'T make me feel fucking DRAINED by the end of each day.
yesterday we did an overview of the government structure, principles and policies in general. thank god for yuwei and hsien, my saving graces. and for the other spf scholars justin, wanyi, leng lee and qicong who were there to talk to. there were 35 of us in total; mainly moe scholars with a few lone jtc, lta, mcys, moh etc scholars thrown in the mix. a majority of them were overseas scholars, hailing esp from london unis, although there was a pretty brilliant guy from harvard as well as 2 from chicago.
thing about doing public law, is tt when someone who knows almost nuts about the government structure starts to talk to you about it, you just want to laugh when she can't answer simple questions. but i shall say no more. i find tt a lot of whatever is being said about the subject matter on paper is highly positive and paints a very rosy picture, which makes me wonder why don't the speakers realise tt if you don't provide a holistic view of said subject matter, the target audience might just be largely skeptical and unreceptive to what you try to put across?
coz if we look very receptive and enthusiastic... which we do... let's just face it. if there is 1 thing tt scholars are good at, it's wayang.
if all the policies are fine and dandy, then why are there still problems in the system? why do i get the feeling tt all we're supposed to do is to find out tt the policies are all innately 'good' (if we were to use a normative term here), thereby shutting us up and allowing us to defend them better?
where the fact remains tt even though the policies are sound, there is something inherently WRONG with the system, coz it seems everywhere tt somewhere inbetween top and bottom, people screw up. therefore the original intentions of a policy get screwed up and warped, and by the time it hits the ground, it's no longer a semblence of what it was, or rather, its effect ends up being different from what was intended.
and i hate it how we always refer to 'the ground' as if we were above it. as if we were about 'the masses', the so-called 'proletariat'. i'm getting sick of the class divides. so i admit, they do exist, no matter where you are regardless of the claims of equality and meritocracy, class divides have always and will always continue to permeate society. my point is tt a lot of class bias comes from mindset. and since here we are pretending tt we're so-called mre fucking 'enlightened' than the rest of the proletariat since we can afford to sit in our ivory towers and discuss their problems as if we know them inside out, i think tt the alteration of the mindset should stem from US, now should it not? why do we continue to perpetuate it?
i'm tired. i don't know whether it's from the programme or the concentration, or whether it's from playing the political animal in a room of other political animals, all looking to scramble up the social ladder even now, impress the civil servants and their peers, and well... wayang wayang wayang.
yesterday the bus ride from the college to plaza sing took me one whole fucking hour coz of the rain. the bus was fucking crawling. i was pissed by the time i'd reached PS. had dinner with him and his friends - the last of the group he'd wanted me to meet. according to him, i've now met everyone. then we detoured to ice cold beer so tt they could drink. between the 3 of them they finished 12 bottles of becks. he drank 5 of the bottles. they played pool as well. but i was so fucking tired i didn't really say much. plus i needed to go home early. i'd slept really late the night before. was supposed to meet leng lee at the mrt at 8.20am. in the end i OVERSLEPT till 8.20am. fucking panicked.
anyway no avail. he wanted to call me later. spoke to him till 3.00am in the end. so much for sleeping early. but he'd asked me about how i was like in school. said it was hard to imagine how someone like me would have been so quiet back in sec school. and i'd explained a lot of things, including how i underwent a serious mindset change. coz let's just say in jc, i was almost as political as everyone else in tt room. i wanted to climb, i wanted material success, i wanted to be that damn good.
fortunately i changed my life philosophy. with a 180 degree turn. maybe tt's why mine and his are pretty much similar now.
fortunately i managed to wake up this morning. shared a cab with 3 of the guys to changi prison. yes, we went to prison this morning. my 3rd prison visit. i hate visiting the prison. even though it's clean and new, i hate how depressing the environment is. i hate how sad it makes me feel. i hate how claustrophobic it makes me feel, and how i feel like i cannot breathe and there is a great pressure on my chest as i walk by the gray passageways with the iron bar grilles and the younger-than-me inmates waiting their time out.
prisons' has this whole rehabilitative scheme, of which the yellow ribbon project is one limb of. it's for the people who fall through the cracks of society. as we all know, most inmates aren't innately bad. they come here coz they're from really bad backgrounds, they were born unlucky, they weren't educated right, they missed the chances tt the more privileged ones of us were given, and as a result they have to pay for it with their freedom.
that's why the rehab programme is here: to give them a second chance. and i believe tt. i believe in the programme. let's face it. society is hard on giving second chances. there's always a stigma. it's never easy to change your image in society's eyes. once you go to prison, it's difficult to get back to a position tt you were once in. but i guess even though the rehab programme may never restore the expectation loss, at least it does let you start off SOMEWHERE.
i know i make all this jokes about being a mata and sending people to prison and giving them more business, but as far as possible, i feel tt prison can still really ruin someone's life. i wouldn't send people to jail except as a last resort, unless they really deserved it and would not change otherwise. i wouldn't send people to jail just because it's a by-the-book procedure. yes, i believe in justice, i believe in upholding the law, i believe in keeping the peace, but i also believe tt i'm dealing with human beings like me, who have the capacity to think, live, and feel. and i'm not in any position to play god with their lives.
tt's why i advised tt friend not to report his friend for substance-abuse except as a last resort. so it's illegal, so it's against the law, and he IS harming his own body. but 6 months in jail or 2 years in rehab... is long time to spend out of a life. and after tt it's going to be almost impossible to start living as per normal again. if he can't change, if he won't listen, if he won't give up and there is no other way to save him, then so be it. but if you can persuade him without resorting to the police, please give him tt chance.
we came back to the college for lunch. then we had a security discussion before a panel discussed security issues with us. i think tt was really really draining. i'm sick of the word terrorism, and yet we can't not talk about it. every group mentions it. same reasons yadda yadda yadda. our group can't agree on certain government policies because we have idealists (the teachers) and realists (me and 1 or 2 others). tt's why i'm in security and not education. i don't have a burning desire to mould the young or to teach for the sake of teaching.
fell asleep during the panel thing coz i was just so mentally drained. before tea time my mind was already zapped. i guess it was all the discussions. my god. what kind of reactive/tactical actions taken by the government. what kind of proactive/strategic actions taken by the government. what is the role of the people and what have we done or not done. social apathy/complacence is a burning problem. is terrorism over-glamourised? what about bi-lateral relations? how does the US/China issue affect us? what about our relations with our neighbours malaysia, indonesia and thailand?
one of the speakers mentioned something about the characteristic of terrorism post-911. it's no longer organised top-down the way it used to be. there are splinter cells in different countries and regions. he calls this "franchised terrorism". aka McQaeda. even when bin laden (c.f ronald mcdonald) is no longer leading the al-qaeda, it doesn't mean the whole organisation dies out. in fact you can't even link terrorism to a specific race. converts to radical islam can become suicide bombers, even if they're ang moh or chinese. the 'poverty trap' argument may no longer hold true because apparently the london bombers are from middle-class/lower middle-class backgrounds with stable jobs, just as the jemalyah islamiah detainees were also mainly middle class/lower middle class.
extensive research is still going on into what fuels terrorism? why is it tt it has become a movement from the ground, and no longer from the top? what drive ordinary people with no seeming reason to blow people up, to blow people up? was walking from the college to get a bus at holland v home, and was asking leng lee this question. she thinks it's for the thrill. i guess i don't agree. i see it as something else. one theory i have is tt some of these middle class converts might have been disillusioned with life and materialism as they saw it, thereby seeking refuge and finding their so-called 'purpose in life' in radical islam. and because suicide bombers are generally matyred as having died in a bid to defend the faith, maybe tt's why they might have resorted to it... but once again, this is just a theory. i'm not a muslim and i did not take islamic studies (although i would want to, considering the history, diversity, and sheer vibrant richness of the religion), so i am in no real position to really theoraticise.
and yes, i am harsh. i will not condemn the london police for mistakenly shooting down the wrong guy. i know tt humanitarians would condemn the police to death for this blunder, but let's face it. i'm in the force (or going to be. i apologise for always referring to the police as 'we'). i know what it's like. i know the problems tt we in singapore (as well as all over the world in every other country) face. it's always a question of damned if you do, damned if you don't. we make mistakes. sure, it's a life. but there's ALWAYS the unanswered what if question. and if 1 life were sacrificed tt 58 might be saved, then you know fucking well what my stand is.
.
.
.
.
.
anyway i logged on the ubc website just to check my timetable. i have 22 credits out of a min of 28 settled. guess i can settle the other 6 over there in september if it's not done by then. things are looking good. i got the law modules i wanted and i get to take a psychology module too. exciting. all i need now is for my study permit letter. things are falling into place.
all tt's really left now, is you.
now playing: hotel costes - cafe de flor
actually, i qualify tt. i have a social life. but the only social life i have is with a) my girls (wed and thurs), and b) my baby. ok, unless you count sat, and then c) james as well, and tt's coz i haven't seen him since fucking april 29. ARGH.
how's the seminar like? well. can't really say much without risking a) being hauled up by the ISA b) being slapped with an OB marker c) losing my scholarship etc, so can't say that much. except maybe these few phrases: 1) boring; 2) wayang; 3) know-it-alls; 4) MORE wayang. oh, but the food is good. if ONLY the damn sessions DON'T make me feel fucking DRAINED by the end of each day.
yesterday we did an overview of the government structure, principles and policies in general. thank god for yuwei and hsien, my saving graces. and for the other spf scholars justin, wanyi, leng lee and qicong who were there to talk to. there were 35 of us in total; mainly moe scholars with a few lone jtc, lta, mcys, moh etc scholars thrown in the mix. a majority of them were overseas scholars, hailing esp from london unis, although there was a pretty brilliant guy from harvard as well as 2 from chicago.
thing about doing public law, is tt when someone who knows almost nuts about the government structure starts to talk to you about it, you just want to laugh when she can't answer simple questions. but i shall say no more. i find tt a lot of whatever is being said about the subject matter on paper is highly positive and paints a very rosy picture, which makes me wonder why don't the speakers realise tt if you don't provide a holistic view of said subject matter, the target audience might just be largely skeptical and unreceptive to what you try to put across?
coz if we look very receptive and enthusiastic... which we do... let's just face it. if there is 1 thing tt scholars are good at, it's wayang.
if all the policies are fine and dandy, then why are there still problems in the system? why do i get the feeling tt all we're supposed to do is to find out tt the policies are all innately 'good' (if we were to use a normative term here), thereby shutting us up and allowing us to defend them better?
where the fact remains tt even though the policies are sound, there is something inherently WRONG with the system, coz it seems everywhere tt somewhere inbetween top and bottom, people screw up. therefore the original intentions of a policy get screwed up and warped, and by the time it hits the ground, it's no longer a semblence of what it was, or rather, its effect ends up being different from what was intended.
and i hate it how we always refer to 'the ground' as if we were above it. as if we were about 'the masses', the so-called 'proletariat'. i'm getting sick of the class divides. so i admit, they do exist, no matter where you are regardless of the claims of equality and meritocracy, class divides have always and will always continue to permeate society. my point is tt a lot of class bias comes from mindset. and since here we are pretending tt we're so-called mre fucking 'enlightened' than the rest of the proletariat since we can afford to sit in our ivory towers and discuss their problems as if we know them inside out, i think tt the alteration of the mindset should stem from US, now should it not? why do we continue to perpetuate it?
i'm tired. i don't know whether it's from the programme or the concentration, or whether it's from playing the political animal in a room of other political animals, all looking to scramble up the social ladder even now, impress the civil servants and their peers, and well... wayang wayang wayang.
yesterday the bus ride from the college to plaza sing took me one whole fucking hour coz of the rain. the bus was fucking crawling. i was pissed by the time i'd reached PS. had dinner with him and his friends - the last of the group he'd wanted me to meet. according to him, i've now met everyone. then we detoured to ice cold beer so tt they could drink. between the 3 of them they finished 12 bottles of becks. he drank 5 of the bottles. they played pool as well. but i was so fucking tired i didn't really say much. plus i needed to go home early. i'd slept really late the night before. was supposed to meet leng lee at the mrt at 8.20am. in the end i OVERSLEPT till 8.20am. fucking panicked.
anyway no avail. he wanted to call me later. spoke to him till 3.00am in the end. so much for sleeping early. but he'd asked me about how i was like in school. said it was hard to imagine how someone like me would have been so quiet back in sec school. and i'd explained a lot of things, including how i underwent a serious mindset change. coz let's just say in jc, i was almost as political as everyone else in tt room. i wanted to climb, i wanted material success, i wanted to be that damn good.
fortunately i changed my life philosophy. with a 180 degree turn. maybe tt's why mine and his are pretty much similar now.
fortunately i managed to wake up this morning. shared a cab with 3 of the guys to changi prison. yes, we went to prison this morning. my 3rd prison visit. i hate visiting the prison. even though it's clean and new, i hate how depressing the environment is. i hate how sad it makes me feel. i hate how claustrophobic it makes me feel, and how i feel like i cannot breathe and there is a great pressure on my chest as i walk by the gray passageways with the iron bar grilles and the younger-than-me inmates waiting their time out.
prisons' has this whole rehabilitative scheme, of which the yellow ribbon project is one limb of. it's for the people who fall through the cracks of society. as we all know, most inmates aren't innately bad. they come here coz they're from really bad backgrounds, they were born unlucky, they weren't educated right, they missed the chances tt the more privileged ones of us were given, and as a result they have to pay for it with their freedom.
that's why the rehab programme is here: to give them a second chance. and i believe tt. i believe in the programme. let's face it. society is hard on giving second chances. there's always a stigma. it's never easy to change your image in society's eyes. once you go to prison, it's difficult to get back to a position tt you were once in. but i guess even though the rehab programme may never restore the expectation loss, at least it does let you start off SOMEWHERE.
i know i make all this jokes about being a mata and sending people to prison and giving them more business, but as far as possible, i feel tt prison can still really ruin someone's life. i wouldn't send people to jail except as a last resort, unless they really deserved it and would not change otherwise. i wouldn't send people to jail just because it's a by-the-book procedure. yes, i believe in justice, i believe in upholding the law, i believe in keeping the peace, but i also believe tt i'm dealing with human beings like me, who have the capacity to think, live, and feel. and i'm not in any position to play god with their lives.
tt's why i advised tt friend not to report his friend for substance-abuse except as a last resort. so it's illegal, so it's against the law, and he IS harming his own body. but 6 months in jail or 2 years in rehab... is long time to spend out of a life. and after tt it's going to be almost impossible to start living as per normal again. if he can't change, if he won't listen, if he won't give up and there is no other way to save him, then so be it. but if you can persuade him without resorting to the police, please give him tt chance.
we came back to the college for lunch. then we had a security discussion before a panel discussed security issues with us. i think tt was really really draining. i'm sick of the word terrorism, and yet we can't not talk about it. every group mentions it. same reasons yadda yadda yadda. our group can't agree on certain government policies because we have idealists (the teachers) and realists (me and 1 or 2 others). tt's why i'm in security and not education. i don't have a burning desire to mould the young or to teach for the sake of teaching.
fell asleep during the panel thing coz i was just so mentally drained. before tea time my mind was already zapped. i guess it was all the discussions. my god. what kind of reactive/tactical actions taken by the government. what kind of proactive/strategic actions taken by the government. what is the role of the people and what have we done or not done. social apathy/complacence is a burning problem. is terrorism over-glamourised? what about bi-lateral relations? how does the US/China issue affect us? what about our relations with our neighbours malaysia, indonesia and thailand?
one of the speakers mentioned something about the characteristic of terrorism post-911. it's no longer organised top-down the way it used to be. there are splinter cells in different countries and regions. he calls this "franchised terrorism". aka McQaeda. even when bin laden (c.f ronald mcdonald) is no longer leading the al-qaeda, it doesn't mean the whole organisation dies out. in fact you can't even link terrorism to a specific race. converts to radical islam can become suicide bombers, even if they're ang moh or chinese. the 'poverty trap' argument may no longer hold true because apparently the london bombers are from middle-class/lower middle-class backgrounds with stable jobs, just as the jemalyah islamiah detainees were also mainly middle class/lower middle class.
extensive research is still going on into what fuels terrorism? why is it tt it has become a movement from the ground, and no longer from the top? what drive ordinary people with no seeming reason to blow people up, to blow people up? was walking from the college to get a bus at holland v home, and was asking leng lee this question. she thinks it's for the thrill. i guess i don't agree. i see it as something else. one theory i have is tt some of these middle class converts might have been disillusioned with life and materialism as they saw it, thereby seeking refuge and finding their so-called 'purpose in life' in radical islam. and because suicide bombers are generally matyred as having died in a bid to defend the faith, maybe tt's why they might have resorted to it... but once again, this is just a theory. i'm not a muslim and i did not take islamic studies (although i would want to, considering the history, diversity, and sheer vibrant richness of the religion), so i am in no real position to really theoraticise.
and yes, i am harsh. i will not condemn the london police for mistakenly shooting down the wrong guy. i know tt humanitarians would condemn the police to death for this blunder, but let's face it. i'm in the force (or going to be. i apologise for always referring to the police as 'we'). i know what it's like. i know the problems tt we in singapore (as well as all over the world in every other country) face. it's always a question of damned if you do, damned if you don't. we make mistakes. sure, it's a life. but there's ALWAYS the unanswered what if question. and if 1 life were sacrificed tt 58 might be saved, then you know fucking well what my stand is.
.
.
.
.
.
anyway i logged on the ubc website just to check my timetable. i have 22 credits out of a min of 28 settled. guess i can settle the other 6 over there in september if it's not done by then. things are looking good. i got the law modules i wanted and i get to take a psychology module too. exciting. all i need now is for my study permit letter. things are falling into place.
all tt's really left now, is you.
# posted by Kitana @ 7/26/2005 08:10:00 PM 
