Thursday, May 27, 2004
- Political Philosophy Paper Done!! Hope my prof liked it. Else (of course) I'm screwed.
So, you would think that with such a task out of my way I would be breathing a little easier. WRONG - have a history paper due next Tuesday, just started researching yesterday. Shoot.. Having to transit from the Genealogy of Morals to the Green Revolution in the space of a week is not fun at all.
Chee Soon Juan came down to our school yesterday to give a talk on democracy in Singapore, but I COULDN'T GO (arrrgh) cos I had a stupid Sports Club budget meeting to attend. The Sports Club Budget Meeting is a humongous waste of time where you listen to all sports clubs ask the school for money for their equipment. I got to hear gems like
Ultimate: "Rugby, it says here that you need 15 rooms for 30 people. Do you really need 2 to a room?"
Rugby: "Yes, we don't like to share beds with big guys, its really not pleasant"
Ultimate: "We put SIX in a room!"
"Our members spend a lot of money on shorts, socks, cleats and social events (that are really part of the game) and so we would like the school to subsidise our other expenses. Furthermore we get injured quite often and the medical costs are quite draining financially."
Yes, how strange that no other club has to spend money on shoes and clothing and socializing and getting injured. I can;t believe I had to spend 3.5 hours on this. That's 210 minutes of lost research... :(
NBA Playoffs are proceeding (more or less) according to expectations, Lakers 2 Wolves 1 and Pistons 2 Pacers 1. Maybe there's hope for my bracket yet.
nayko |5:47 PM
Thursday, May 20, 2004
- Been writing my final political philosophy paper for about 1/2 day now. Progress: 3/7 pages. Paper due in: ~18 hours. Material is not making sense to me... ARGH... STRESSED.
Also, Kings lost by 3 last night. My bracket is busted =(
Tomorrow will be a better day.
nayko |5:30 PM
Sunday, May 16, 2004
- Your NBA Playoffs' 04 update:
Lakers 4 Spurs 2 - After being 0-2 down, Lakers come back to absolutely paste the Spurs. Mwahahahaha. Derek Fisher will forever be remembered as the hero of this series due to his Game 4 miracle shot, but the constant efforts of Kobe and Shaq of course shouldn't be forgotten. A good job by Parker and Duncan too, but they disappeared after Game 2.
Wolves 3 Kings 3 - On the brink of being eliminated, Kings storm Game 6 104-87. Go Kings!
Pacers 3 Heat 2 - To be honest, haven't been following this series too closely. Expected the Pacers to win in 5 but Heat have been surprisingly resilient. Although the Heat have exceeded expectations, I doubt they can take this series from the Pacers.
Nets 3 Pistons 3 - Game 6 just ended like 2 minutes ago, with a most satisfactory result. Detroit somehow manages to get a good-sized halftime lead whittled down to two, but hold their composure and take Game 6 81 - 75. It's not that the Nets are bad, but I think this is Detroit's year (as far as the Eastern Conference goes, anyway).
My pre-tournament picks were
Conference Semis: Lakers over Spurs, Kings over Wolves, Pistons over Nets and Pacers over Heat.
Conference Finals: Lakers over Kings, Pistons over Pacers
Finals: Lakers
Looking good so far... but could easily be busted in the next couple of days. We'll see.
Back to work.. :P
nayko |7:24 PM
Saturday, May 15, 2004
- Lots of work.. lots of stress =(
This is wrong. Spring Quarter isn't supposed to be so bad. Last year it was fun, last few weeks were spent looking forward to summer and happily not doing work. This year its already week 8 and I still feel like there's so much undone.
Then again, last year I wasn't worrying about moving into an apartment, finding people to sublet the apartment and getting a licence.
I think I need to settle down and focus. =( Workworkworkworkworkwork...
nayko |1:14 AM
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
- Trade Union
An association of the workers in any trade or in allied trades for the protection and furtherance of their interests in regard to wages, hours, and conditions of labour, and for the provision, from their common funds, of pecuniary assistance to the members during strikes, sickness, unemployment, old age, etc.-- Oxford English Dictionary
Recently, I read about the formal expulsion of Captain Ryan Goh from Singapore, following his alleged leadership of a "mutiny" in the Alpa-S labour union. (Airline Pilots Assocation, Singapore for those unfamiliar).
I don't know about all of you, but my reaction to this was: it's funny.
Yes, indeed, its funny how he was expelled for doing something completely within the parameters of a trade union, at least defined by the foremost dictionary in the word. Funny how working for the "protection and furtherance of interests" of his fellow pilots got his Permanent Residency status revoked. Funny how he was singled out as the instigator of this mutiny, despite the fact that 55%, a majority, of the union voted for the change in leadership of Alpa-S. Funny how this 55% never came to support him once this entire affair started. Funny how in light of all the previous rhetoric on the neccessity of foreign talent,we are now told that "Singaporeans should decide the fate of Singaporeans." Funny how the person who made this statement also said, about 30 years ago, that all his life, his entire adult life, his dream was to see the union of Singapore and Malaysia. Funny how as I was typing this, a fear that someone might read this and create trouble for me actually arose. Funny how a majority vote by a union of adults working for private companies is overturned by a governing body. Funny how there is, in reality, nothing funny about this situation at all.
Then again, maybe funny isn't the word I'm looking for. Let's see, what other words could possibly substitute "funny"? Maybe disgusting. Disgraceful. Or maybe saddening. Sobering. Painful.
No, I think funny is the best word after all.
Yes, it's funny how naive and idealistic people can be. Funny how ultimately, its economics that takes priority over all else. Funny how, in a "democratic society, based on justice and equality" an exercise in civil liberty would ever be considered dangerous and undesirable.
The world is a funny, funny place indeed.
nayko |4:21 PM
Sunday, May 02, 2004
- For all of you who have been confused as to what on earth the last entry was all about, here's the low down. So CUSA got invited to do the pregame show for a White Sox (baseball team) game, and they wanted to do Lion dance as part of it. Since 1 person from the CUSA Lion Dance team got injured Gary roped me in, and I, being ever stupid, of course said yes. (And then proceeded to question my decision for the next 2 weeks). So bright and early this morning we headed down to US Cellular field...
Feeling hyper before the perf
So we got there, and had some time before the actual lion dance in the stadium. So I was happily stretching, and Gary comes up again, and says some very interesting things which I shan't repeat verbatim, but the gist of it was:
We have to do some Wushu outside the stadium. Now.
I start freaking out a little not having revised any quan shu before this, but in the end decide to just fake some changquan. For ALL changquan people out there: I'm SORRY, I mutiliated your taolu. But I was desperate. =( And then we take the lion around for a while and go scare some little kids... was pretty fun cos people wanted to take pictures with us after that =)
And then we headed in for the real show...
In the belly of US Cellular Field... feeling nervous
What can I say? It was quite an interesting experience, performing in a huge stadium in front of lots of people and being projected onto this GIANT screen... luckily not too many people were there since it wasn't a big game, cos we weren't fantastic, but I guess it was fun after all.
All done... yea!
And this really should be the last performance for the quarter... was fun performing and all, but I think we need to emphasize more on developing our Wushu syllabus now. Not very pleased with our club's progress thus far... (basics: urrrgh) so need to get some things right before the end of the year. Still, there's hope and we have some talented people so it doesn't look too bad. =)
And so we switch you back to your regular channel. Just got done reading Marx, now have to go do a lab... It never ends.. Bleah.
nayko |10:23 PM