absolutum dominium

i feel tt if i don't travel, i'm wasting my time here.

i'm on an exchange programme dammit. i need to see the places tt i am in. i need to see more of canada, and more of the US. and if this means taking a week off school to travel, then so be it.

my most interesting activity today was cramming into anne and charlin's room to watch the latest episode of nip/tuck with them and diana.

although nip/tuck totally uncensored is so scandalous. you get to see naked butts and a disproportionate amount of sex scenes. and tt includes oral sex, threesomes and foursomes.

but tt said, i was highly disconcerted by my conversation with the boy tonight. he was walking to far east plaza for his monthly haircut as we were talking on the phone, and he happened to pass jeyaratnam selling another of his books. and he was like "fuck. tt bastard's selling his books again."

and he was going on and on about how much of a pain in the ass he was; everytime he appears in orchard to sell his books he's doing something illegal, and everytime the cops (i.e. him, when it's his shift) have to follow him around and tell him to pack up and go home and not create trouble, and he says tt it's such a waste of resources coz you have so many cops, cid, isd etc. people just surrounding this one guy. why can't he just go home and stop giving everyone trouble?

and i was quiet for a long while. i said: "i hate to tell you this, but i am a JBJ supporter. i respect and admire tt guy. always have from the time when he was a Queen's Counsel, and even now when he's down and out and he's still fighting."

the boy's point is tt you have to understand the consequences. if you want to make yourself heard, make things easier for everyone, find a legal platform.

i'm like: you know tt's not possible. he has no fucking money. he was bankrupted by the same government and the same people tt he was once fighting for. he can't get a licence coz you're not going to give it to him. he has no fucking thing to lose. not anymore.

when we were in nanaimo, i was talking to eileen about JBJ. she knows how strongly i feel about him. it's not about sympathy or pity, it's not tt i don't think tt a lot of what he's doing is foolhardy and probably not very helpful (although the fact tt so many branches of the cops are practically trailing this one little helpless old man who isn't in any shape to harm anyone says a lot, either about our country's paranoia, or about the impact tt the people in power are trying to deny); it's about respect. it's about admiration. it's about idealism and belief. and qualities tt i want to possess, even if i don't intend them to play out the same way.

is it possible to work for a government when you cannot support every single facet about them?

i mean, let's face it. i'm currently in canada. it's so rights-based and individualism oriented. and mark my words, it's def a freer country. you can do so much more here than in small, restrictive singapore. whatever you want, you got it. booze is cheap, sex is cheap, drugs are not legal, but they're def not criminal either. you want to hold a demonstration, by all means. you want to stage a sit-out like the retrenched telus workers, no one's going to stop you. we've currently got a strike by the high school and elementary teachers regarding their dissatisfaction with their current contracts with the government (i.e. not enough moolah).

but it's got its downsides too, of course. when teachers go on strike, the students suffer. there's no one to teach them, there's no accountability. striking affects businesses and the economy. there's a bit more political instability because governments are voted in by popularity, and thus policies may be dictated more by public opinion than by national interests per se, and even if they are, who is to say tt the government tt is here today will be here in 4 years to execute a policy tt it made today with effects tt extend beyond 4 years? besides tt, i feel tt all this 'me me me' kind of national and cultural mindset is responsible for what i see as moral and social decay.

on the streets, you see homeless people begging for change. the welfare system here is good, it's so good tt you might as well be unemployed than have a low-wage job. taxes are high coz of tt. because of the de-criminalization of drugs, you have a few druggies around. the first few weeks i was here, people were O.Ding on counterfeit heroin tt ruthless dealers would sell them, and you had about 9 deaths in 2 weeks. i think tt's a higher statistic than the number of heroin traffickers tt we've hanged in singapore in a period of 2 years.

sometimes, i think you tend to lose sight of yourself in this individualistic environment. sometimes, everything's all about self-gratification, making your own life. i won't say tt i am not guilty of this because i am. i dream, i have plans and goals for my own life and i tend to be more independent and removed from other people than most of my peers. but tt being said, i do believe in certain values. in family, in friends, in community. i believe in belonging. i believe in respecting your elders, and even though i tend to complain about my parents a fair bit, i have no respect for people who do not respect their parents or talk back to them. i believe tt many things are relative, but i don't believe in absolute relativity because then where does humanity come in?

well. and yes, before i veer completely off-tangent, let's not forget tt singapore is still a very good place to live in. we have the infrastructure, we are clean, we manage to preserve our asian values with relative success (i used to scoff at 'asian values', but when i came here i started to realise its importance in a place where everything can be relative), we have a modern bustling city life and a culture tt is unique to us. and it's easy to overlook all this when you live in singapore and you find it so restrictive and stifling and too competitive, and maybe i'm too nationalistic and all tt, but for all of canada's beauty and freedom and the amount of things tt i can do here, my heart still roots for singapore.

but tt being said, no country is perfect. canada is not perfect, and neither is singapore. just as i feel tt the states and canda are too liberal, too open; singapore still has some way to go to becoming more open. i applaud the powers of policing, i have seen the ridiculous nature of allowing strikes and i think it's a good idea to completely ban them, unlike what the canadians think it is possible to live without chewing gum, and the death penalty while thought of as barbaric by human rights advocates has helped keep our drug and crime rates under control; i still think tt we need to be a little more politically liberal.

maybe i'm still too biased. maybe my admiration for JBJ has overshadowed objectivity. but as much as i believe in the government and the direction tt they have for singapore thus far, i find it hard to love a government tt won't even leave a poor old man tt they reduced from being one of the greatest men in the history books of this country, to a poor old pauper who has to resort to hawking his books by the road, alone.