::Homework Crapbox::
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any Shinzi Katoh fans out there ? fellow peers.... found this tuition agency giving away original Shinzi Katoh bag for students who sign-up tuition.... hope it helps to relieve some of you guys stress..
http://www.olx.com.sg/item_page.php?Id=169385914&g=6#pics
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Swept aside
Three days as a street cleaner exposed the cruel consequences of the government's outsourcing of jobs
If you want to experience the cruelty and callousness of the so-called free market, try living as a street cleaner for three days. I did. It was a searing experience that seemed to last an eternity. Under prodding from the producers of RTHK's The Battle of the Poor Rich, I forsook my life of luxury, shed my smart suit and slipped into a street cleaner's garish overalls to begin an unforgettable reincarnation.This article isn't written to recount my acute discomfort and humiliation, for it was mercifully short-lived. It is to depict a life unseen by unthinking bureaucrats, uncaring corporations and insensitive enterprises on whose radar the needs of the working poor never appear.
Over the past 10 years, the government, in rabid Thatcher-like fashion, has let its outsourcing game run wild - cleaning, clerical work and security have all been outsourced to the lowest bidder. While setting up a showpiece commission to fight poverty with one hand, it is creating permanent poverty with the other, rigidly adhering to its belief in the lowest-bidder principle, in disregard of other conditions beyond the bidding document.
Officials set the minimum wage for various job categories, thinking that this is a sufficient safeguard against worker abuse. No thought is given to raising the worker's productivity or offering incentives for adding value. As a cleaner, I was given only a big broom, a heavy metal cart to push, and a shovel - primitive implements in the technological age.
My service area was in Wan Chai, near the Convention and Exhibition Centre and along Lockhart Road where tourists congregate. There, kerbside drain openings and crevices were choked with cigarette butts and fallen leaves. But, because the government doesn't want to see any cleaner crouch down to pick up the litter - a preference it makes known to bidders, perhaps in fear that crouching cleaners might sully Hong Kong's image as a modern cosmopolitan city - a street that would normally take 10 minutes to sweep took a whole clumsy hour. Such is the ossified thinking of desk-bound bureaucrats who are detached from reality.
In the West, heavy-duty vacuum sweepers are standard street-cleaning equipment, good for raising productivity and wages. In Hong Kong, bidders win contracts because they keep equipment and compensation costs lowest, when they should be encouraged to upgrade their equipment and raise wages.
Outsourcing should never be thoughtlessly pursued. Consider the case of a cook who works at the first-aid unit of the Fire Service Department. He made over HK$10,000 a month in 2005. Now, after it has been outsourced, the same job pays him HK$4,800. His income has been more than halved in six years, a prime example of victimhood through a lack of incentives for improving basic terms and conditions. Who is creating the working poor? Who gets to pocket the difference?
During my three days on the street, I was refused entry to toilets in stores and restaurants. So I was forced to squat on the slippery floor, wet with vomit, in a public toilet. Inside, I met old "Uncle Leung", who ranks even lower than I, earning the HK$21 government-set hourly rate for toilet cleaners, while I made HK$25 as a street cleaner. The market dictates that a street cleaner's job requires more muscle, without regard to the obnoxious nature of the work of a toilet cleaner. In Hong Kong, the more a job stinks, the less it pays, and toilet-cleaning is seen as a job for the old and feeble. In this, the market is wrong. Even if it pays more, there will be few takers.
In my case, the job pays just over HK$5,000 a month for nine-hour days, of which HK$1,300 went to pay for my caged bed. My 15 sq ft bed space worked out to HK$85 per sq ft, far higher than rental rates in Mid-Levels. Should the government stand idle over this twisted market?
My job as a street cleaner required me to get going at 5am from Jordan, as I had to arrive in Wan Chai by 6am, too early for the MTR or cross-harbour ferry. My only means of transport was the cross-tunnel all-night bus. But, alas, its fare is 30 per cent higher than ordinary buses. For workers who have to scrimp their way through each day, why can't all-night buses offer early users the daytime rate? After all, not all night riders are lounge lizards. A fare of HK$13.40 one way ate into my HK$50-a-day allowance; the same trip in the day costs HK$9.80. At current fares, I spent HK$19.10 a day on transport, including the HK$5.70 to get me home by ferry and bus. If I could pay the daytime rate for the all-night bus, my daily food budget would have gone up from HK$31 to HK$35.50, which would have left me enough for dinner at Cafe de Coral (SEHK: 0341).
RTHK challenged me to find cheaper accommodation if I wanted to eat better. Ready to give up my "luxury" bed space, I found a lesser "luxury" going for HK$700. But the cluttered small room was mouldy, damp and smelly, with no gas or hot water. The inside was so dark that occupants find their way with torch light. I instantly turned tail. I'd rather have starved than lived in that rat hole. In a super-rich city, this is how the other half lives!
Five years ago, these HK$700 units went for only HK$400. Five years from now, occupants of the HK$1,300 units will probably migrate to the HK$700 ones. Luxury property prices are cascading down to the lowest rungs of society.
Then there is the quarrel over coins. The poor count every cent. Yet shops and eateries refused to accept my handful of coins, despite them being legal tender. This refusal robbed me of a better meal - the difference between HK$15 and HK$18 with my jingle of coins.
In outsourcing its services, the government sets the standards and sends the signals. The free market obliges. Harmony doesn't come from slogans, it comes from all players in the market being sensitive to the plight of the poor. It is one thing to be poor. It is another to be victimised by an unjust system. Insensitivity breeds inadvertent injustices.
Poverty is not a set of statistics. For three days, in-your-nostrils poverty, once so remote, became intimately mine. It still stinks, long after I have laid down my cleaner's tools.
Michael Tien Puk-sun is chairman of the international garment retailer G2000 and vice-chairman of the New People Party
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[2011 Movies] - "The Tree of Life"
Looking to be possibly the most spiritual movie ever made in Hollywood, at least to date.
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Best Four Movies of 2011
"Limitless"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3AuAoYALcI
"Sucker Punch"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnF4SpS9gUw
"Source Code"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkKuj_SXeEE
"The Tree of Life"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPe0fHuZsc -
[Animal Cruelty] - Korea buries thousands of pigs alive :
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Today newspaper : http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC110304-0000224/Britain-releases-35-files-about-UFO-sightings Britain releases 35 files about UFO sightings @ http://ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ 05:56 AM Mar 04, 2011LONDON - Britain yesterday released 35 previously classified files documenting sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by the military and members of the public dating back to the '50s. The files contained around 8,500 pages which mainly covered the period from 1997 to 2005 and included photographs, drawings and descriptions of flying saucer sightings, as well as letters the Ministry of Defence sent witnesses in response to their accounts. Policemen, a soldier, a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer and members of the public reported sightings of objects including a "chewy mint shaped solid craft" and aerial objects resembling a "ring", a "jellyfish" and a "silver voile spin top". In one account, a man said he believed he had been "abducted" by aliens in October 1998 after seeing an unidentified craft hover over his London home and finding he had gained an hour of time in the process. The ministry wrote to the man informing him that the object was probably an airship, adding that the time he had gained was probably the result of the clocks being put back one hour on the night of his close encounter. Another account released by the National Archives revealed how the RAF was inundated with calls one morning in 1967 after residents of southern England awoke to find six small beeping UFOs lying in a perfect line from the Isle of Sheppey to the Bristol Channel. It was later discovered that engineering students at Farnborough Technical College had constructed and positioned the UFOs in a bid to raise money for charity. Another file documented the experiences of a retired RAF officer who said he saw a UFO while on holiday in Sri Lanka in April 2004. In its reply, the ministry suggested he contact the Sri Lankan government. The files are available to download free of charge for one month at : http://ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
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Posted elsewhere on the internet :
KL prominent busienssman who frequents Singapore often on business. Wife of 30 years just found out that her husband has a Prcian mistress kept at Valley Point condo! How did it happen. Prcian mei mei hired a private tutor for her son. And the tutor she hired came to the house. ..she was an Asean scholar now at SMU . To her horror she saw a mantlepiece wedding photo of her father! When she asked the young boy who itwas - the boy said it was his father!
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Elitist Samantha tells crass, low-class HDB Heartlanders to keep away from her posh, high-class Holland Village. On live radio. http://soundcloud.com/radio913/the-married-men-samanthas
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The English Language In 24 Accents, by Truseneye92 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dABo_DCIdpM
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Why the MANY random links when it's supposed to be 'HOMEWORK crapbox...' Lolz ;)))
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[USA] - FBI releases document of 1947 Roswell alien craft crash http://www.digitalnewsreport.com/2011/04/10roswell-document-on-fbis-online-vault-describes-ufo/8596
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[Video] - PurpleFeather.co.uk's "The Power of Words" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU purplecontent — Feb 23, 2010 — This short film illustrates the power of words to radically change your message and your effect upon the world. At Purplefeather we provide powerful, optimised web content to get you noticed online. Homage to Historia de un letrero, The Story of a Sign by Alonso Alvarez Barreda Music by: Giles Lamb http://sonicdesignagency.wordpress.com Filmed by www.redsnappa.com Director Seth Gardner
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http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110411-272978.html
THIS is like a script for a soap opera - there is a wayward daughter, a desperate mother and a conniving mamasan. It ends with the drama-filled rescue of the daughter, 19, from a life of prostitution. But this is no TV drama : Jane's spiral into the darker side of life is not fictitious but all too real, and such cases continue to occur here in Singapore.
Tragedy struck early. Her father was murdered in 1997 when she was five. Her mother, Jenny, was not around to give her the attention and love she needed - the pre-school teacher was working 12-hour shifts to make ends meet and attended evening classes thrice weekly in a bid to upgrade herself.
Jane also alleged that a relative was molesting her. She claimed she told her mother about it but Jenny denied any knowledge of it.
"I hated staying at home," said Jane who shares a three-room HDB flat with her mother, 20-year-old brother, grandmother, aunt and 12-year-old cousin.
Jane told her mother in March 2008 that she wanted to go to a girls' home but her mum was against it.
The Normal Technical student said: "So I threatened her, saying I'd become worse - smoke, drink and hang out with boys."
Between December 2007 and April 2008, Jane stole almost $2,000 from her grandmother's bank account.
She used the money to buy treats for her friends.
Her family found out only after Jane told a school counsellor.
In May that year, her mother filed for a Beyond Parental Control order at the Juvenile Court. After the order was approved, Jane entered a girls' home.
There, Jane met a girl who introduced her to her 31-year-old aunt. They hit it off so well that Jane called the woman her "big sister".
When she left the girls' home last June, Jane spent most of her time at the woman's flat in Ang Mo Kio, hanging out with other girls, some of whom were prostitutes who worked for the woman.
There, Jane thought she found the love and family warmth she craved, but things were about to take a darker turn.
Jenny, said she did not stop her daughter from spending time with the woman as she did not want to alienate the girl further.
Jane had told her that the woman worked as a kitchen helper.
"She seemed strict but nice. I was grateful she was looking after my daughter and the other youngsters," Jenny said.
What she did not realise was that the woman had persuaded Jane to be a prostitute to help out with her new "family" and earn some money.
On Valentine's Day this year, the woman gave Jane $20 for cab fare and sent her to a budget hotel, decked in revealing clothes and stilettoes.
In the hotel room, Jane panicked and started crying when the customer undressed. She ran out and confided in her 20-year-old boyfriend.
Upset, her boyfriend confronted the woman, who then threw the couple out of her flat.
Jane moved in with her boyfriend. But four days later, the woman called Jane.
She said: "She told me she had another customer and I better do as I was told."
Frightened, the girl gave in.
"I felt terrible after that. Every day, I wanted to get out but how could I? She was a gangster and threatened to get people to beat up my family." So Jane continued to work as a prostitute in Geylang.
By last month, her mother had trouble contacting her.
Worried, Jenny hired a private investigator (PI) to locate her daughter. After a week, the PI told her that her daughter was soliciting for customers in Geylang.
"I was so upset I couldn't work. I cried so hard," Jenny confessed.
She told Jane's secondary school counsellor and both women went to the flat where Jane was living in on March 12.
Said the counsellor : "Jane's mother and I were surrounded by at least 10 youngsters. We stood outside the rental flat, negotiating to get Jane out.
"Some of the youngsters looked dazed and kept muttering to themselves. There were eight girls squatting nearby."
They argued with the mamasan for over an hour.
"She was hurling abuse and shouting that no one tells her what to do. She said Jane was not a young child and nobody forced her to be a prostitute," the counsellor said.
"I told her I was there to take Jane away, not to create trouble, and that I wouldn't hesitate to call the police."
The woman eventually relented.
The counsellor found a temporary shelter for Jane, who moved back home last week.
Jane started attending tuition classes at a counselling centre "so that I can prepare to take my N levels" at the end of the year. She plans to get a part-time job after that.
Jenny said of her daughter: "She's bright and loves kids. Maybe she can be a pre-school teacher like me, a nurse or a flight stewardess. But first, she needs to get a proper education.
"Maybe this incident had opened her eyes a bit more and made her realise the consequences of her decisions."
But Jane may not be ready to put her troubled past behind her.
On Wednesday, her counsellor said the girl had stopped going to the centre, which she is supposed to attend from Monday to Saturday.
"I heard she's hanging out with some friends in that group again. Counsellors can't be there 24/7," she said.
"The family must also do their part to support her and bond with her ."
KEEP an open door for troubled youngsters so they know they can seek help.
That's the advice Care Corner Counselling Centre's Philip Chan gave when he heard about Jane's case.
"Her decision to enter a girls' home seemed like a desperate move. She felt she had no one to turn to in her own home, so she sought outside friends who appeared to offer the love and protection she lacked," the counsellor said.
The betrayal of trust when the woman persuaded her into prostitution - would be difficult to heal.
"Jane has lived with the idea that she is powerless since young. She has no idea what protection she can get," Mr Chan said.
Cry for help
Added Mrs Seah Kheng Yeow, a senior social worker at Promoting Alternatives to Violence:"When a child has delinquent behaviour, his or her actions are often a cry for help. That is why we tell parents they have to take their child's report of abuse seriously.
Children rarely lie about such things." A lot depends on Jane's desire to make a clean break too.
Said Mr Chan: "Her mother will probably be unable to manage her much, since she's no longer a child. The counsellor also cannot be keeping an eye on her 24/7. It's difficult to pull Jane back if she doesn't want to do so herself.
"There could be many reasons why she chose to see that group of friends again - maybe she is bored or feels there is no one she can relate to at home. The most important thing is to keep the door open when she seeks support."
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[YouTube] - "Agents of Secret Stuff" movie
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The story of Kelvin, a poor Singaporean struggling to survive and support his elderly parents
http://www.transitioning.org/2011/04/12/3-years-go-sales-manager-4000-now-dishwasher-6hour/
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Posted elsewhere on the internet :
Author: Requiem
Comment:
Step into any local education institutions; take for example, the local universities like NTU and NUS. I'm currently studying engineering in University, and I tell, I feel that I'm in China than in Singapore. What is happening? Almost 70% of the students in any lectures are from China and India.
I suddenly don't feel at home anymore. Even my kopitiam (coffeeshop) below my house, has China ladies serving us. I honestly don't mind foreigners, however, I feel like I'm losing a sense of 'home' right now. And these foreign 'talents' can't even speak BASIC ENGLISH.
For example, in my tutorial sessions, a China student started asking questions in China accentuated Chinese. The professor, being a China foreigner, REPLIED back in the same language. And it became like a China lecture series. My malay friends are being ostracized and discriminated as such. Where is the racial harmony now?
Worse still, I call starhub the other day, a Philipino lady picked up the call, I was trying my best to articulate and speak in basic and simple English. Apparently she told me she couldn't understand me, and transferred me to an Indian customer service officer. Sigh.
There are alot of people without jobs; even those with degrees. These kind of jobs is given to foreigners, I don't see the value of 'talent' in these; You don't need to be a rocket scientist to take up these positions. Whats more, alot of Singaporeans are fighting with the foreigners to get a place in LOCAL universities, why not let them? Worse still, when they get a place, we have to compete with foreigners to graduate in our OWN country.
I don't know where I live in anymore. I am losing my identity as a Singaporean. I'm proud to be a Singaporean, and, I miss the old days where the trains are less packed, roads less congested, schools feeling like you are in Singapore, and... to be proud of serving the nation. Now... I have no idea where I am anymore.
Please Singaporeans, think of our future. Or better yet, think of our children's future. Vote wisely, as the next 10years, will be a consequence of what we write now.
All it takes is a 3cm cross, that will determine the next 10 years. Vote wisely.
PS: Neighbourhoods upgrades are one thing, but what if you can't afford to buy a house in that estate? Think of our children dear Sirs/Madams.
Warm Regards
A patriotic Singaporean. -
Honestly while you see foreign students in our local Uni, the latest Uni in Singapore, SIT, is actually offering degrees from overseas university to our local students. Kind of ironic.
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Chief is back!
In few months time, I'll go botak~~~~~~~
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Hi,
Statistics can help to predict results:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/21/icm-poll-data-labour-conservatives
Thanks.
Cheers,
Wen Shih -
Every 40 seconds, someone in the USA is being abducted. The international sex-slavery trade, is very much alive today and far larger in magnitude, than most people even begin to suspect.
Discovery Channel on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPB8mBZmb2AHalo Corporation (the good guys)
http://www.thehalocorp.com/Contemporary international sex-slavery trade :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_slavery#Contemporary_sexual_slavery -
Posted elsewhere on the internet :
though i am very against the influx of FTs, i still treat them like a fellow being and have never look at them with a different perspective.
i was having lunch with a PRC colleague. shes a 24yr old gal who just graduated from NTU and now working in a MNC while waiting for PR approval.
just started a casual topic like, wad do u like about this country and how are u coping
so we get the standard reply. wad stuns me, was the answer to my next question.
me: " so wad makes u decide to come here"
PRC: " i didnt"
me: " wa, ur parents force u here or ur bf is here"
PRC: "neither, ur SG gahment invited us here"
me: " huh, wad do u mean"
PRC: " ur MOE went to our school in our village and told us they URGENTLY need students here, infact they were hardselling the whole scheme and many of us signed up"
me: " huh, wad did they offer"
PRC: " they offer us, ALL Expenses paid for our fees in NTU, including lodging and we even get pocket money"
me: *mouth open
PRC: "on top of that, they have send me the INVITATION letter to apply for PR after we grad"
i seriously begin to wonder the magitude of the FT problem has many more sides that many of us do not know,
i lose my pride as a sgporean after hearing this and i really wonder do they really care ?
if u give a PR who starts a business here and bring jobs to sgporeans, by all means.
BUT if u choose to so-call groom a FT and seemingly used up tax payers money to fund it, i totally do not understand the reason why.
my guess is, they bring in more FTs, give them the candy and they bring in more FTs, which i belive is working because she told her friends about this scheme and many of her friends are here now, at the expenses of home-grown sgporeans.
i myself was deprived the chance of studying in a local U.
but yet a villager from a faraway land with no visible society contributions gets the chance of studying here, all expenses PAID.
is it really we got not enough pple here to study in NTU ? then why are they rejecting sgporeans who meet the pre-requisites ? -
[Singapore] - Mr Brown's General Elections satire video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RW1CTxFKbc -
Scroll down to somewhere near the middle of the linked webpage.
[Singapore] - Hollywood photoshopped Opposition posters
http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2011/04/index.html -
An interesting post-election incident that happened to a blogger.
http://gssq.blogspot.com/2011/05/observations-from-friend-who-was-at.html
4. on the way back to the cars, i was alerted to the fact that a boy was being surrounded by what seemed to be policemen.. possibly ISD people.. my friends basically walked on... (i fucked them for that later) but i could not stand for it
so i went to the group of them... two of them were directly confronting the boy and some of them were idling around... they had their backs towards me. i walked up and placed my hand (reassuringly, i hope) on the boy's shoulder and said to him
"excuse me, i'm a law student. do you need help"i figured quickly that they wanted to see the photos he had taken on his iphone. and looked him and the policemen in the eye, and said firmly, "you don't have to show them the photos if you don't wish to. are they arresting you? are they charging you with a seizable offence?" (regardless of what my prof had said in his email, i asked my police inspector friend about this before and he said that, in practice, they can't confiscate your stuff unless they are charging you with a seizable offence)
the guy looked at me and said "it's ok i have nothing to hide, i will let them see." and so he scrolled through his photos and openly let the two policemen take a look and went "if you think these photos are dangerous..."
they were just very innocent photosi'm not bragging but i honestly felt like my intervention had put off the police people just a wee bit
but anyway in the end they agreed that there were no problems with the photos he took and they let him goi just hate this.. FEAR thing you know. it's great the guy was not afraid at all and willing to be open about everything.. but still i think he had the right NOT to. simply if he did not wish to.
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Psycho girlfriend (prequel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jj-Aph_EcwPsycho girlfriend (sequel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyOWE0L2LCM