This week I start cold calling. Nothing from applying for jobs advertised, so I start calling on the agencies again and getting in their faces, and also approaching consultancies, to start with. My finances can handle another three months, as in this month, March, and then two more.
Remember my tale about the Chinese temple in Chinatown that broke my heart because it had been subsumed totally by Buddhism? Well, since then I took a walk around the nearby area between Changi Rd and East Coast Rd, Telok Kurau Rd and the Siglap Canal. There were three temples in the area that I visited, one had insignia - a Chinese character, and people's portraits, but no other iconography, the other two were both totally Buddhist. So absolutely no luck there.
I have tried out my Thoth deck, Aleister Crowley's deck, but found the pictures too 'busy' and hard to respond to. Also the booklet that came with them was next to useless. I did see a book at Kinokuniya on the Thoth deck, I might buy it, or I might not - I can't say that I am that impressed with the deck. I was told when I was a young student of the arts that it was a very powerful deck, that many were scared to use it because of what happened to Crowley, but that the cards had been designed before he went bad, but still to be wary of them as they were so powerful. This is not my experience now that I have tried them; confusing and convoluted, but so far not powerful.
I also tried out the manga deck my sister got me for xmas. They are a little odd in some ways, the artist has reversed the genders; i.e. everywhere there is a man in the Rider Waite deck he has used a woman and vice versa, so the Hanged Man becomes the Hanged Woman, the Kings become Queens and the Queens become Kings. Why? Because of this reversal I did not want to risk using a standard Rider Waite interpretation and relied upon the booklet that came with the deck for explanations, unfortunately it contained no interpretations for reversed cards, so I ensured that I shuffled the deck without reversing any. I did not use the standard Celtic cross layout that I almost always rely on, but the booklet had a nice little six card layout it said was good for relationships. So naturally I did one on Jazreel :)
Come on, what else would you expect of me?
Anyhow, same as always; [Relationship as Now] got the Two of Cups, [Relationship as Future] got the Ten of Cups, the usual sort of stuff, and yes, the Tower was in there as well. It was also in my Thoth deck reading, but I couldn't make sense out of most of that one.
Hard to believe, but it appears that my comments posted on Mr Wang Says So are still drawing attention. I got another comment posted here; not supportive this time, rather along the lines of "I read something bad about Singapore, therefore Singapore is bad, therefore everywhere else is better" sort of reasoning. There are poor people suffering in SG therefore it cannot be a better place than AU; I am sorry to have to burst a few illusions, but there are poor and homeless in Australia, and far more than I have seen here in SG. My statement stands; in my view SG is a better place for me to live in.
What I can't understand is the difficulty some people seem to have with the bits "in my view" and "for me"; it is as though because their view is different (and I stress the apparent lack of experiencing AU that these people exhibit) then it seems to follow logically for them that my view is flawed.
Wish I could remember the name of that guy that was on the Channel 10 "X-Files in Australia" type documentary back in the early days of the X Files. His partner (business and research) had been murdered, yet he was still demonstrating his technology on national television. One year later and he was murdered, shot through the head, it got four or five lines in one column on something like page fifteen of the Murdoch press, but I am guessing that they went onto thin ice to publish that much. These examples of government sanctioned murders would open up the discussion a bit. It is not easy to get names of people gaoled or certified because of their political activity because the mainstream media never carries such info, so you have to rely on underground sources and your circle of acquaintances; and, of course, in any discussion these will be challenged by people that will only believe something published in the state controlled media. How can you argue with such a mindset?
I will only believe that my God does not exist if you can show me my God saying that He does not exist.
It is, after all, a religious debate. Which is to say that it is defined by emotions and 'faith' and not by intelligence, logic, or facts. Just as 'religious' people need to believe in a better place, one that is found after death for the faithful, so these individuals need to believe in a better place; they just transfer this myth to the physical world by saying it is some other country where all social ills have been solved. They then contrast this with wherever they are residing to highlight everything that they do not like about their own country.
In a way I felt that Singapore was the ideal country. Now that I am living here some of the gloss has worn off; but I still think that, for me, it is a better place, for me, to be living. If some Singaporeans have difficulty with this and insist upon insisting that their country is some sort of Hell on Earth then that is their problem. One that will not be solved by emigrating to Australia or America, trust me. You will find some things better, some things worse, and some things just different. Also you will find many of the locals complaining about all of these Asians that the government is letting in, and why are they doing that? they don't add anything to the country or the economy, they just lower our standard of living blah, blah, blah. Oh, and don't forget the 'they are corrupting our women' sort of thing. You know, exactly the same stuff that a lot of 'angry Ah Phets' say about Ang Mohs.
Same stuff, everywhere in the world that you go; Germans complaining about non-Germans living in Germany, Scots complaining about non-Scots living in Scotland, Thais complaining about farangs in Thailand, Australians bemoaning the end of the White Australia policy. Same stuff, everywhere. Small surprise, therefore, that there are Singaporeans that say the same stuff, that have exactly the same feelings and make exactly the same comments that racists and xenophobes everywhere do. That they are so definitely a minority is shown simply by the constant election results in Singapore, but that they are so vocal a minority is a bit different; such comments would get you before the Federal Court in Australia. I know this; I have a friend that has a website that is operating under a Federal Court order, prohibiting him from saying some of the things he used to say and limiting the things that he says in the future. I seriously believe that some of the things said at me on the Mr Wang Says So site would have been grounds for lodging a complaint in Oz.
Perhaps I should investigate the Racial Harmony laws in SG?
Maybe they offer Whites some protection from vilification? Unlike Australia, where the Racial Vilification Act and other, state level, anti-racist laws do not provide any real protection for Whites, only for non-Whites. That being the definition of racial equality in Australia; just as the definition of gender equality is that the wife gets 70% of the assets in any divorce - mine did too, and I counted myself lucky that I got what I got. And that was with no children, otherwise I would have been lucky to get 10%.
And now the new Socialist government is considering allowing 'mistresses' to sue for 'divorce'; they are considering a law that would allow a woman that had been in a relationship with a man for two years or more, but not living with him, to be able to sue him for a share of his assets. End result? Australian men will be terrified of starting any sort of sexual relationship with a woman; they will go for casual sex only. When they want children and marriage they will leave the country to marry somewhere safer. So add 'matrimonial' refugees to the list of political refugees, economic refugees, social refugees.
Now a mass of SGers will complain about that statement; for your info I saw some programme on SBS once that stated in the voice-over at the end that over 300 Australians had been granted political refugee status by the US. But then again, I have friends that are 'economic refugees' from the US and are doing quite well in Australia. So that one goes both ways. But then again again I don't know but have read a fair bit about SGers emigrating to Oz to escape the work focus and to enjoy a more relaxed lifestyle in Australia. I don't know about that one; most business professionals that I know, myself included, regularly worked 50 hour weeks in AU, even though the law is that the standard week is 38 hours (40 hours per week, or 5 days of 8 hours, with a rostered day off every 4 weeks). By law any work over 38 hours is overtime and must be paid accordingly, the Federal Court does not recognise that 'salaried' employees are not entitled to overtime as many employers try to argue. But most people work those hours unpaid out of desperation to keep their jobs. So my personal experience of Australia is not quite the easy going place that so many SG blog flamers would have me believe. I would routinely work 8am to 6:30pm on some contracts. Eating at my desk whilst I crunched data.
Monday, March 2
Saturday, February 21
A Flame A Day...
I have been so totally flamed!!!!
Mr Wang Says So posted a letter from a Mr Gopal about official discrimination against non-citizens in Singapore. Honestly I have to say, doesn't that happen everywhere? Is not a governments and a nations duty to care first for its own citizens?
Anyhow, I dared to enter the fray [big smiley face here].
Of the 15 comments posted since that 6 were counters to mine; of which 2 were points of discussion by Mr Wang, one of which I disagreed with in my second post, 4 were total flames, and 1 was Mr Wang asking for the tone to be kept civil; which took up 73% of the line space. And about four would have been entered before mine went visible, so really it is 50% of the comments and 85% of line space.
And what did I say that annoyed the citizenry so much?
That foreigners pay taxes that are used (in part) to provide benefits to citizens.
Anonymous said; "And what do you really know, Aussie? You're just another opportunistic FTrash from down-under who has not been here long enough to understand our society ills and now muscling in to get at our well-paying jobs."
FILTHs didn't actually insult me, he just went off the deep end by extrapolation.
Old-Timer said; "Face it, Aussie - you're a swell-headed moron." and also took great umbrage at my statement that I feel politically freer in Singapore than I do in Australia, questioning whether I was a real Australian or not. He made a statement about "Unless you're some world renown scientist who has cloned Dolly the sheep in your resume, ..." which I find humourous in an ironic way because I did work with that team for a time. I did their project costing model.
So, your well-paying jobs? Truth be told, my impression of the remuneration outlined in most job adverts makes me wonder at how the average Singaporean survives.
But when added to the way some SGers seem to insist on walking into me on the footpath, refusing to pass in a polite manner, I begin to feel that SG is perhaps too xenophobic, too hostile to foreigners for comfort. Should I count this as a mark against remaining and take my (as yet unused in SG) skills somewhere else?
I am still convinced that I should give SG another six weeks, to the end of March, before I start getting too concerned and making arrangements for possibly returning to Oz.
However I must commend Mr Wang for running with so open a forum.
Yes, I was insulted extensively, and mostly inaccurately, but I acknowledge that Singaporeans for the most part probably have little exposure to an Australian sense of humour and won't understand that some things are said in a light-hearted manner. As for the rest, they are entitled to their views, and, like Voltaire, I may not agree with them, but...
Mr Wang Says So posted a letter from a Mr Gopal about official discrimination against non-citizens in Singapore. Honestly I have to say, doesn't that happen everywhere? Is not a governments and a nations duty to care first for its own citizens?
Anyhow, I dared to enter the fray [big smiley face here].
Of the 15 comments posted since that 6 were counters to mine; of which 2 were points of discussion by Mr Wang, one of which I disagreed with in my second post, 4 were total flames, and 1 was Mr Wang asking for the tone to be kept civil; which took up 73% of the line space. And about four would have been entered before mine went visible, so really it is 50% of the comments and 85% of line space.
And what did I say that annoyed the citizenry so much?
That foreigners pay taxes that are used (in part) to provide benefits to citizens.
Anonymous said; "And what do you really know, Aussie? You're just another opportunistic FTrash from down-under who has not been here long enough to understand our society ills and now muscling in to get at our well-paying jobs."
FILTHs didn't actually insult me, he just went off the deep end by extrapolation.
Old-Timer said; "Face it, Aussie - you're a swell-headed moron." and also took great umbrage at my statement that I feel politically freer in Singapore than I do in Australia, questioning whether I was a real Australian or not. He made a statement about "Unless you're some world renown scientist who has cloned Dolly the sheep in your resume, ..." which I find humourous in an ironic way because I did work with that team for a time. I did their project costing model.
So, your well-paying jobs? Truth be told, my impression of the remuneration outlined in most job adverts makes me wonder at how the average Singaporean survives.
But when added to the way some SGers seem to insist on walking into me on the footpath, refusing to pass in a polite manner, I begin to feel that SG is perhaps too xenophobic, too hostile to foreigners for comfort. Should I count this as a mark against remaining and take my (as yet unused in SG) skills somewhere else?
I am still convinced that I should give SG another six weeks, to the end of March, before I start getting too concerned and making arrangements for possibly returning to Oz.
However I must commend Mr Wang for running with so open a forum.
Yes, I was insulted extensively, and mostly inaccurately, but I acknowledge that Singaporeans for the most part probably have little exposure to an Australian sense of humour and won't understand that some things are said in a light-hearted manner. As for the rest, they are entitled to their views, and, like Voltaire, I may not agree with them, but...
Thursday, February 19
My Day in Soho
I was just reading some articles on the AsiaOne website when I noticed that most of these linked articles and forum posts were dated 2007, whereas is was todays 2009 front page for AsiaOne. Nice to know that their news is so current.
One article was about NUS slipping from 19th to 33rd best uni in the UK Times opinion, again two years old, but interesting. My view is formed by this little fact:
to become a CPA Singapore member or accredited by the ACRA (Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority) you have to have either a recognised foreign degree plus a bridging course to familiarise you with Singaporean laws, or a degree from either SMU (Singapore Management University) or NTU (Nanyang Technological University). Notice the lack of any mention of NUS (National University of Singapore)?
In my humble opinion if NUS is delivering degrees in accounting that do not qualify the graduate as an accountant, then the university is sub-standard. I would imagine that this lackadaisical approach extends to other faculties as well, for me tarnishing the uni as a whole, for why would such unacceptable output be accepted in one faculty if it is not university-wide policy? For a university to accept such a position for itself, to accept such a level of performance, for me indicates that it is not a serious place of learning. Not somewhere to send your kids if you want them to be able to be employable on graduation. Perhaps this uni specialises in the arts and humanities? I suspect that it is the uni that Singaporeans enter if they cannot get into one of the 'real' unis.
Going back to a post the weekend before CNY (Chinese New Year) where I stated that I had lunch at the beach with three women and seven girls, alter that to five women and four girls. I may have over-counted the girls, but the real surprise is that two of the 'girls' were adult. You know how everyone says that Chinese women always look ten years younger than they are? Well one girl that I could have sworn was 12 is, in fact (I am told), 22. And further, she is a graduate from Curtin Uni in Australia, hence her excellent English (not that she was studying English, rather that she lived in an English-speaking country and so had lots of practice). And further further, that she was there because one of the women was trying to set her up with me. One of the women that the other women were trying to set up with me.
Nobody tells me these things. Not until two or three weeks later. How am I meant to know? There was me thinking "God, she is so beautiful, I wonder how long before she becomes legal, 'cos I have no desire to go to gaol...".
It is getting noticeably warmer at night; I have left the aircon on all night for a couple of nights running now. I guess that 'winter' is over. There have been a couple of 'mild' thunderstorms through, but it is still clear and sunny most days. I had thought that the monsoons were returning, but they receded again.
In the meantime, my fickleness astounds me. And why am I just getting to know this part of my being? I can be so focussed on something, so dedicated to some past time, and then a few weeks later not be doing it at all. I need things to come in bite-sized chunks; I really want to carry on with my education, but I will need to have it delivered in one or two weeks long intensives. There is no way I can imagine myself seeing out three or four years of part time study. I would just get bored. And it no longer has any required immediate impact upon my career. Yes, I am sure that it will help my career, but I can get work easily enough without it. (Well, back in Oz, so far not here in SG...)
Which brings me to the next point, probably the last for today as I am getting bored with this, I have applied for more than twenty jobs this week, one or two 'sorry' emails back, nothing else. Come to Asia, earn twice as much, pay half as much tax. Well I do understand that if I do get work that I will be paying about one third the tax that I would pay in Australia, but the job adverts that mention salary ranges are all offering less than half what I am used to getting. Maybe I still need to figure out how I am meant to be targeting myself in this market?
One article was about NUS slipping from 19th to 33rd best uni in the UK Times opinion, again two years old, but interesting. My view is formed by this little fact:
to become a CPA Singapore member or accredited by the ACRA (Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority) you have to have either a recognised foreign degree plus a bridging course to familiarise you with Singaporean laws, or a degree from either SMU (Singapore Management University) or NTU (Nanyang Technological University). Notice the lack of any mention of NUS (National University of Singapore)?
In my humble opinion if NUS is delivering degrees in accounting that do not qualify the graduate as an accountant, then the university is sub-standard. I would imagine that this lackadaisical approach extends to other faculties as well, for me tarnishing the uni as a whole, for why would such unacceptable output be accepted in one faculty if it is not university-wide policy? For a university to accept such a position for itself, to accept such a level of performance, for me indicates that it is not a serious place of learning. Not somewhere to send your kids if you want them to be able to be employable on graduation. Perhaps this uni specialises in the arts and humanities? I suspect that it is the uni that Singaporeans enter if they cannot get into one of the 'real' unis.
Going back to a post the weekend before CNY (Chinese New Year) where I stated that I had lunch at the beach with three women and seven girls, alter that to five women and four girls. I may have over-counted the girls, but the real surprise is that two of the 'girls' were adult. You know how everyone says that Chinese women always look ten years younger than they are? Well one girl that I could have sworn was 12 is, in fact (I am told), 22. And further, she is a graduate from Curtin Uni in Australia, hence her excellent English (not that she was studying English, rather that she lived in an English-speaking country and so had lots of practice). And further further, that she was there because one of the women was trying to set her up with me. One of the women that the other women were trying to set up with me.
Nobody tells me these things. Not until two or three weeks later. How am I meant to know? There was me thinking "God, she is so beautiful, I wonder how long before she becomes legal, 'cos I have no desire to go to gaol...".
It is getting noticeably warmer at night; I have left the aircon on all night for a couple of nights running now. I guess that 'winter' is over. There have been a couple of 'mild' thunderstorms through, but it is still clear and sunny most days. I had thought that the monsoons were returning, but they receded again.
In the meantime, my fickleness astounds me. And why am I just getting to know this part of my being? I can be so focussed on something, so dedicated to some past time, and then a few weeks later not be doing it at all. I need things to come in bite-sized chunks; I really want to carry on with my education, but I will need to have it delivered in one or two weeks long intensives. There is no way I can imagine myself seeing out three or four years of part time study. I would just get bored. And it no longer has any required immediate impact upon my career. Yes, I am sure that it will help my career, but I can get work easily enough without it. (Well, back in Oz, so far not here in SG...)
Which brings me to the next point, probably the last for today as I am getting bored with this, I have applied for more than twenty jobs this week, one or two 'sorry' emails back, nothing else. Come to Asia, earn twice as much, pay half as much tax. Well I do understand that if I do get work that I will be paying about one third the tax that I would pay in Australia, but the job adverts that mention salary ranges are all offering less than half what I am used to getting. Maybe I still need to figure out how I am meant to be targeting myself in this market?
Friday, February 13
Exhilaration and Soreness
An odd mix; but temporally disparate.
I went for my walk along the beach yesterday morning, I chose to head 'down' the beach, that is south and westwards for me, towards the city and away from the airport. Down near the end, where the path heads inland to the bottom of Fort Road a loud aeroplane noise caught my attention, as it does when it sounds only a few hundred metres up. Mainly, I guess, because it was only a few hundred metres up.
An F16, grey and unladened, was zooming in, landing gear lowering, on its way to Changi Airforce Base (yes, there are two airports at Changi, the commercial one, and the defence force one a little north and inland). A few minutes later a second came in, the wingman I guess. Five minutes later another pair came in, separated by a minute or two. What a total buzz!!
BUT THEN...
Another few minutes and I hear another, different...
AN F5 COMING IN!!!!
My favourite plane; the Northrop (now Northrop Grumman) F5!
I keep heading inland, getting as close as I can to the flight path they had taken, finding some shade under a tree that would not restrict my view. Would there be another? Was the F5 being flown by an instructor that had been directing the pilots in the F16s, or was he flying as an 'aggressor' - in which case there should be a wingman along soon.
A little further apart than the F16s had flown, but yes, another F5 came in.
I was so close!
Open wing mounts and no other ordinance either, whistling as the landing gear was lowered, but not when it was down.
What a dream come true!
This is definitely one thing that I love about Singapore.
It is such a small island nation that the air force has to fly over us all the time. In Australia they have huge empty spaces larger than Belgium to train in, so you hardly ever see them.
Had lunch with Ivy. Spent a long time listening to her friend tell me about her recently departed cat. Got given an email address of a girl that works there. Ivy is the only person I have met in Singapore that can make a lemon, lime, and bitters - the drink that is so fundamental to Australian culture. I just can't find them anywhere else in SG, everyone else tries to sell me a bitter lemon, which is positively the vilest drink imaginable.
Went walking around Chinatown after that and saw the temple. It was so saddening; all of the Shenist mythology is being contaminated with Buddhism; even Guan Ti (Guan Gong) God of War (and Commerce) is represented via Buddhist tales. This is so like the way Christianity subsumed the Gods of Europe and reduced them to minor roles in the Xian pantheon. I am so saddened at how the Chinese faith is being transformed by this alien culture.
The traditional Chinese beliefs are natural and realistic; whereas Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism are artificial and recent creations. I firmly believe them to be false and shallow. I was so saddened to see this.
Then I walked down to the waterside, then along the river to the new barrage that turns the city river into another reservoir, across the river and along another one a little way to Fort Road. This was going to be the tricky bit; getting this far was okay, and once I was at the start of the East Coast Park walkway I would be okay, but the line connecting the two was unknown to me and didn't make sense on the map. Not helped by the fact that the maps in the Mighty Minds map book don't overlap, so you can't be quite sure that you've connected them correctly.
But down Fort Road just a little way and hey! I could see the pedestrian bridge that connects sections 'A' and 'B' of the ECP (and by that I don't mean the roadway). Easier than I thought! And so I walked all the way from Chinatown back to me apartment halfway along the East Coast. After walking around Chinatown for so long it totalled five and a half hours and I was totally knackered by the time I got home.
A fulsome day; filled by a breadth of experiences.
I went for my walk along the beach yesterday morning, I chose to head 'down' the beach, that is south and westwards for me, towards the city and away from the airport. Down near the end, where the path heads inland to the bottom of Fort Road a loud aeroplane noise caught my attention, as it does when it sounds only a few hundred metres up. Mainly, I guess, because it was only a few hundred metres up.
An F16, grey and unladened, was zooming in, landing gear lowering, on its way to Changi Airforce Base (yes, there are two airports at Changi, the commercial one, and the defence force one a little north and inland). A few minutes later a second came in, the wingman I guess. Five minutes later another pair came in, separated by a minute or two. What a total buzz!!
BUT THEN...
Another few minutes and I hear another, different...
AN F5 COMING IN!!!!
My favourite plane; the Northrop (now Northrop Grumman) F5!
I keep heading inland, getting as close as I can to the flight path they had taken, finding some shade under a tree that would not restrict my view. Would there be another? Was the F5 being flown by an instructor that had been directing the pilots in the F16s, or was he flying as an 'aggressor' - in which case there should be a wingman along soon.
A little further apart than the F16s had flown, but yes, another F5 came in.
I was so close!
Open wing mounts and no other ordinance either, whistling as the landing gear was lowered, but not when it was down.
What a dream come true!
This is definitely one thing that I love about Singapore.
It is such a small island nation that the air force has to fly over us all the time. In Australia they have huge empty spaces larger than Belgium to train in, so you hardly ever see them.
Had lunch with Ivy. Spent a long time listening to her friend tell me about her recently departed cat. Got given an email address of a girl that works there. Ivy is the only person I have met in Singapore that can make a lemon, lime, and bitters - the drink that is so fundamental to Australian culture. I just can't find them anywhere else in SG, everyone else tries to sell me a bitter lemon, which is positively the vilest drink imaginable.
Went walking around Chinatown after that and saw the temple. It was so saddening; all of the Shenist mythology is being contaminated with Buddhism; even Guan Ti (Guan Gong) God of War (and Commerce) is represented via Buddhist tales. This is so like the way Christianity subsumed the Gods of Europe and reduced them to minor roles in the Xian pantheon. I am so saddened at how the Chinese faith is being transformed by this alien culture.
The traditional Chinese beliefs are natural and realistic; whereas Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism are artificial and recent creations. I firmly believe them to be false and shallow. I was so saddened to see this.
Then I walked down to the waterside, then along the river to the new barrage that turns the city river into another reservoir, across the river and along another one a little way to Fort Road. This was going to be the tricky bit; getting this far was okay, and once I was at the start of the East Coast Park walkway I would be okay, but the line connecting the two was unknown to me and didn't make sense on the map. Not helped by the fact that the maps in the Mighty Minds map book don't overlap, so you can't be quite sure that you've connected them correctly.
But down Fort Road just a little way and hey! I could see the pedestrian bridge that connects sections 'A' and 'B' of the ECP (and by that I don't mean the roadway). Easier than I thought! And so I walked all the way from Chinatown back to me apartment halfway along the East Coast. After walking around Chinatown for so long it totalled five and a half hours and I was totally knackered by the time I got home.
A fulsome day; filled by a breadth of experiences.
Tuesday, February 10
Moonshine
Singapore is rapidly losing its shine for me.
Oh, yeah, you can probably ignore the last post; it was probably just caused by a sugar down, after pigging out on ice cream for two days. Well, I bought two brands of chocolate sundae and had to compare them.
I want to pay my broadband bill. When I bought it I was promised that I could pay the whole year in advance. The shop I bought it at won't accept payment for my SingTel bill, no, you have to go to a 711 or a SingPost office. I go there. They will both only accept cash or NETS, neither will take credit card. I go online, surely you can pay your SingTel bill online as you can with every other telecom in the world, yes? No! No, there is no bill ID that you can enter and just pay, in fact even finding any sort of online payment method takes a while if you follow the links given to you on the bill itself as they only go to places that tell you about paying bills, not to anywhere that either tells you where to pay or lets you pay. No, in Singapore you have to register online first, and then they will post out a verification code. Get that? Post a code to you!
Sometimes this place is so 19th century!
But beyond that; why does SingTel make it so hard for me to do business with them?
Maybe it is just that it is not easy doing business with Chinese people? They think so totally differently. Most Whites that I have met here seem to shrug it off and accept that you cannot get a Chinese person to understand what you, as a European, think is a very basic concept. I wonder if I learn Chinese will I begin to understand it? As I began to understand so much about Russians (and Ukrainians) when I started learning Russian. (God! Russian is such a beautiful language!)
Was job hunting online this morning, I had spent three hours of searching and had something like 27 IE pages open. Then I tried searching on the Robert Walters SG site -- it crashed every instance of IE open. Hours of work lost.
Sure, you can say that I should have copied the links to a Word.doc. Or, I can say, well now I know not to use Robert Walters. Seems the easiest solution to me.
And yeah, I don't know how to get an em dash to work in HTML. It is so easy to do in Word. Have you ever noticed how much of our written language we have (essentially) lost since the invention of the typewriter? At its most basic you probably think that there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, don't you? After all, most people are satisfied with that answer. The truth is that there are lots of letters and grammatical signs that were once common but have now fallen into disuse because they are not on the keyboard. I used to know the ATSI codes for most of them, 'cos you could hold down the ALT key and then type the four digit ATSI code in to get a real apostrophe or smart quotes (open and close, single and double) or i dash, en dash, or em dash. Word handles the smart quotes automatically now, and can even sort out i dash and en dash correctly most of the time (but not em dash), and even turns three periods (full stops in English) into an ellipse. But still, so many letters are lost to us.
Today has been a waste.
Time spent job hunting was wasted. Time spent trying to pay my SingTel bill was wasted. Time spent trying to get an ID card (as distinct from my employment pass) was wasted. I don't think that anything has been successfully accomplished today.
Except maybe for my early morning walk along the beach.
I did successfully walk along the beach.
Oh, yeah, you can probably ignore the last post; it was probably just caused by a sugar down, after pigging out on ice cream for two days. Well, I bought two brands of chocolate sundae and had to compare them.
I want to pay my broadband bill. When I bought it I was promised that I could pay the whole year in advance. The shop I bought it at won't accept payment for my SingTel bill, no, you have to go to a 711 or a SingPost office. I go there. They will both only accept cash or NETS, neither will take credit card. I go online, surely you can pay your SingTel bill online as you can with every other telecom in the world, yes? No! No, there is no bill ID that you can enter and just pay, in fact even finding any sort of online payment method takes a while if you follow the links given to you on the bill itself as they only go to places that tell you about paying bills, not to anywhere that either tells you where to pay or lets you pay. No, in Singapore you have to register online first, and then they will post out a verification code. Get that? Post a code to you!
Sometimes this place is so 19th century!
But beyond that; why does SingTel make it so hard for me to do business with them?
Maybe it is just that it is not easy doing business with Chinese people? They think so totally differently. Most Whites that I have met here seem to shrug it off and accept that you cannot get a Chinese person to understand what you, as a European, think is a very basic concept. I wonder if I learn Chinese will I begin to understand it? As I began to understand so much about Russians (and Ukrainians) when I started learning Russian. (God! Russian is such a beautiful language!)
Was job hunting online this morning, I had spent three hours of searching and had something like 27 IE pages open. Then I tried searching on the Robert Walters SG site -- it crashed every instance of IE open. Hours of work lost.
Sure, you can say that I should have copied the links to a Word.doc. Or, I can say, well now I know not to use Robert Walters. Seems the easiest solution to me.
And yeah, I don't know how to get an em dash to work in HTML. It is so easy to do in Word. Have you ever noticed how much of our written language we have (essentially) lost since the invention of the typewriter? At its most basic you probably think that there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, don't you? After all, most people are satisfied with that answer. The truth is that there are lots of letters and grammatical signs that were once common but have now fallen into disuse because they are not on the keyboard. I used to know the ATSI codes for most of them, 'cos you could hold down the ALT key and then type the four digit ATSI code in to get a real apostrophe or smart quotes (open and close, single and double) or i dash, en dash, or em dash. Word handles the smart quotes automatically now, and can even sort out i dash and en dash correctly most of the time (but not em dash), and even turns three periods (full stops in English) into an ellipse. But still, so many letters are lost to us.
Today has been a waste.
Time spent job hunting was wasted. Time spent trying to pay my SingTel bill was wasted. Time spent trying to get an ID card (as distinct from my employment pass) was wasted. I don't think that anything has been successfully accomplished today.
Except maybe for my early morning walk along the beach.
I did successfully walk along the beach.
Friday, February 6
Boredom
Ennui, listlessness, oppressive boredom, verging on suicidal.
I have this, weakness, for want of a better term. Why am I here? What am I doing? Why am I bothering to do anything? Wouldn't it all be nicer if I just didn't exist? And maybe, had never existed at all?
I know intellectually it is nonsense, and I know that there are points in my life that have been glorious, full of life, and the possibility of more to come. But so far I see no reason to having been alive for the last 46 years, and sometimes I wish that I had been still born.
As the taunt in Unreal Tournament goes; life is pain, get used to it.
Love is pain. Well, in my experience it always leads to pain. Indeed, there are times that I feel that women were created by the Great Evil One for the sole purpose of causing pain to good men.
I think though, that this has more to do with work, or the lack thereof, than women. However, even if I had work, but did not have love, I strongly suspect that I would soon descend into the same bottomless pit of emotion.
I have not subjected my blogspace to this before, and writing this is strangely enlivening (as in; the boredom, the listlessness, the overwhelming sense of meaninglessness is temporarily abated to some small degree), and therefore you are not likely to get anything like a solid dose. Talking, communicating, lightens the load, and I guess that even writing to a blog site that nobody reads gives ones emotional self a sense of interaction.
Strangely, I had a great time last evening. Why then the sense of despondency now?
I don't know. And if I did know, then wouldn't I have some sort of potential solution to it all?
Anyhow, backtracking a tad, I have been through some periods of extreme depression, and it should be borne in mind that I was only ten or eleven when I first tried to kill myself. Truthfully, I think that this was the only serious attempt at self destruction that I made, I went through a lot of gaming with my first girlfriend, my emotionally immature nature being egged on by her own neuroses. At twice my age I don't believe she had the right to claim immaturity as a defence. I did have some serious episodes between by first and second relationships, but I navigated my way around them, usually by taking a strategy of divergence.
So, all told, I think that perhaps now I am just a little pissed off that things aren't going my way on the job hunting front and consequently I start to wonder why I am even bothering. The logical solution may be to just head back to Adelaide and straight into more than $100 an hour, but I have locked myself into some contracts here (such as the minimum period on this apartment). I could easily cover those expenses with the income that I would be receiving back in Oz, but that in turn would be an acknowledgement that my 'escape attempt' had failed. And that, in turn, has all sorts of implications deep inside my psyche.
You might understand if you had witnessed some of the nightmares that have haunted my sleep. Not that I have had any for many years now, but a setback like this could re-empower them.
How much of this is due to the ennui that ended my last incarnation? It took me years of hard work to come to some sort of grips with the baggage carried over from that incarnation. It weighted the entire first half of my life (well, first half at this point in this life).
It could be so easy to write this period of history off, to say that due to the inadequacies of the society I was born into how could it possibly be expected of me to achieve any set tasks or lessons of that lifetime?
I have not thought about it in that way, but having moved societies this weakens that argument. And I do remain committed to the undertaking to give it another two or three months. I fully expect my first year here to be hard, but if my second is as well then I will move on.
Life has the supposed potential to be enjoyable and invigorating, but locked in my own head I don't take the risks necessary to gain those rewards. And yet everyone that I know compliments me on my bravery in taking the risk in moving my career to another country, indeed, another society.
(Yes, strange isn't it. Even though the English spelling is 'vigour' {'vigor' being the US spelling}, it is not 'invigourating' but rather 'invigorating'. Perhaps the 18th century wave of adding 'u's to words to attempt to recognise non-existent French origins only affected the root word and the derivative words were not altered? And yes, the corollary of that is that the American spellings without the 'u' are, in fact, historically correct, whilst the English spellings are an incorrect nonsense.)
I have this, weakness, for want of a better term. Why am I here? What am I doing? Why am I bothering to do anything? Wouldn't it all be nicer if I just didn't exist? And maybe, had never existed at all?
I know intellectually it is nonsense, and I know that there are points in my life that have been glorious, full of life, and the possibility of more to come. But so far I see no reason to having been alive for the last 46 years, and sometimes I wish that I had been still born.
As the taunt in Unreal Tournament goes; life is pain, get used to it.
Love is pain. Well, in my experience it always leads to pain. Indeed, there are times that I feel that women were created by the Great Evil One for the sole purpose of causing pain to good men.
I think though, that this has more to do with work, or the lack thereof, than women. However, even if I had work, but did not have love, I strongly suspect that I would soon descend into the same bottomless pit of emotion.
I have not subjected my blogspace to this before, and writing this is strangely enlivening (as in; the boredom, the listlessness, the overwhelming sense of meaninglessness is temporarily abated to some small degree), and therefore you are not likely to get anything like a solid dose. Talking, communicating, lightens the load, and I guess that even writing to a blog site that nobody reads gives ones emotional self a sense of interaction.
Strangely, I had a great time last evening. Why then the sense of despondency now?
I don't know. And if I did know, then wouldn't I have some sort of potential solution to it all?
Anyhow, backtracking a tad, I have been through some periods of extreme depression, and it should be borne in mind that I was only ten or eleven when I first tried to kill myself. Truthfully, I think that this was the only serious attempt at self destruction that I made, I went through a lot of gaming with my first girlfriend, my emotionally immature nature being egged on by her own neuroses. At twice my age I don't believe she had the right to claim immaturity as a defence. I did have some serious episodes between by first and second relationships, but I navigated my way around them, usually by taking a strategy of divergence.
So, all told, I think that perhaps now I am just a little pissed off that things aren't going my way on the job hunting front and consequently I start to wonder why I am even bothering. The logical solution may be to just head back to Adelaide and straight into more than $100 an hour, but I have locked myself into some contracts here (such as the minimum period on this apartment). I could easily cover those expenses with the income that I would be receiving back in Oz, but that in turn would be an acknowledgement that my 'escape attempt' had failed. And that, in turn, has all sorts of implications deep inside my psyche.
You might understand if you had witnessed some of the nightmares that have haunted my sleep. Not that I have had any for many years now, but a setback like this could re-empower them.
How much of this is due to the ennui that ended my last incarnation? It took me years of hard work to come to some sort of grips with the baggage carried over from that incarnation. It weighted the entire first half of my life (well, first half at this point in this life).
It could be so easy to write this period of history off, to say that due to the inadequacies of the society I was born into how could it possibly be expected of me to achieve any set tasks or lessons of that lifetime?
I have not thought about it in that way, but having moved societies this weakens that argument. And I do remain committed to the undertaking to give it another two or three months. I fully expect my first year here to be hard, but if my second is as well then I will move on.
Life has the supposed potential to be enjoyable and invigorating, but locked in my own head I don't take the risks necessary to gain those rewards. And yet everyone that I know compliments me on my bravery in taking the risk in moving my career to another country, indeed, another society.
(Yes, strange isn't it. Even though the English spelling is 'vigour' {'vigor' being the US spelling}, it is not 'invigourating' but rather 'invigorating'. Perhaps the 18th century wave of adding 'u's to words to attempt to recognise non-existent French origins only affected the root word and the derivative words were not altered? And yes, the corollary of that is that the American spellings without the 'u' are, in fact, historically correct, whilst the English spellings are an incorrect nonsense.)
Tuesday, February 3
Two Posts in One Day
Haven't done that for a while.
I was browsing Wikipedia, don't know why, generally I totally despise its totally left wing leanings and the fact that the info is from a bunch of badly informed amateurs. Anyhow I searched it to see if it had anything on my dad, as he is pretty famous in Australia, and lo and behold it did. There were a few inaccuracies and a lot of non-possessive apostrophes (see what I mean about badly educated), so I created a wikiaccount and did a minor edit, but didn't bother to add anything.
Then I went to check the wiki listing on Xiaxue, since it is such a battle ground of edit and counter edit. Sure enough SHE IS PREGNANT AND GETTING MARRIED!!!!
Believe that?
I check the edit history and sure enough, someone had already deleted the pregnancy story once but the vandals had put it back with some embellishments. Why does she generate such emotion? Why do so many fools have no purpose in life other than to vandalise the wiki article on her?
I'm not going to get caught up in that one, you could spend your life removing nonsense from that page, much as the Malmedy Massacre article is also nonsense, a regurgitation of war-time propaganda that has since been proven false. But is dear to the hearts of left-wing loonies such as those that own and control wikipedia, so they undo any attempt to state the facts and lock out anyone who repeatedly battles their wills.
So much for the concept of a free and open exchange of views.
Perhaps one day I will edit it and cite half a dozen published works to bolster the case. But more likely I won't, after all it remains nothing but a load of biased opinions vomited forth by under educated and badly informed fools, so trying to correct it is a total waste of time. As you can see with the article on Xiaxue; there are so many of these morons and they have absolutely nothing better to do what so ever.
P.S.
Actually the reason I checked the article on her was that I did my round up of SG blogs this afternoon and she mentioned that someone had posted that she had died. That is a criminal offense in Australia, and I am pretty sure that it would be in the US as well. And wikipedia.org would have the IP address of the perpetrator and would be bound by law to hand that over to investigating authorities. If I was her I might consider lodging a suit. And then also against wiki for providing a public forum where people can continue to defame her in anonymity. But then I have a thing about wikis owners being socially irresponsible.
P.P.S.
Rather than start a new entry.
Was reading my previous entries to see where I was; noticed a few ago that I mentioned Jazreel vanishing again - turns out she had to go back to her home town in Malaysia to look after her mother and is staying a while 'cos her sister gave birth. Also am going to the movies with Marilyn, will see Underworld III; Rise of the Lycans methinks. Gothic, very gothic.
So that tidies up the loose ends from that post.
I was browsing Wikipedia, don't know why, generally I totally despise its totally left wing leanings and the fact that the info is from a bunch of badly informed amateurs. Anyhow I searched it to see if it had anything on my dad, as he is pretty famous in Australia, and lo and behold it did. There were a few inaccuracies and a lot of non-possessive apostrophes (see what I mean about badly educated), so I created a wikiaccount and did a minor edit, but didn't bother to add anything.
Then I went to check the wiki listing on Xiaxue, since it is such a battle ground of edit and counter edit. Sure enough SHE IS PREGNANT AND GETTING MARRIED!!!!
Believe that?
I check the edit history and sure enough, someone had already deleted the pregnancy story once but the vandals had put it back with some embellishments. Why does she generate such emotion? Why do so many fools have no purpose in life other than to vandalise the wiki article on her?
I'm not going to get caught up in that one, you could spend your life removing nonsense from that page, much as the Malmedy Massacre article is also nonsense, a regurgitation of war-time propaganda that has since been proven false. But is dear to the hearts of left-wing loonies such as those that own and control wikipedia, so they undo any attempt to state the facts and lock out anyone who repeatedly battles their wills.
So much for the concept of a free and open exchange of views.
Perhaps one day I will edit it and cite half a dozen published works to bolster the case. But more likely I won't, after all it remains nothing but a load of biased opinions vomited forth by under educated and badly informed fools, so trying to correct it is a total waste of time. As you can see with the article on Xiaxue; there are so many of these morons and they have absolutely nothing better to do what so ever.
P.S.
Actually the reason I checked the article on her was that I did my round up of SG blogs this afternoon and she mentioned that someone had posted that she had died. That is a criminal offense in Australia, and I am pretty sure that it would be in the US as well. And wikipedia.org would have the IP address of the perpetrator and would be bound by law to hand that over to investigating authorities. If I was her I might consider lodging a suit. And then also against wiki for providing a public forum where people can continue to defame her in anonymity. But then I have a thing about wikis owners being socially irresponsible.
P.P.S.
Rather than start a new entry.
Was reading my previous entries to see where I was; noticed a few ago that I mentioned Jazreel vanishing again - turns out she had to go back to her home town in Malaysia to look after her mother and is staying a while 'cos her sister gave birth. Also am going to the movies with Marilyn, will see Underworld III; Rise of the Lycans methinks. Gothic, very gothic.
So that tidies up the loose ends from that post.
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