i was wondering what all the fuss was about. afterall, it's not uncommon for the man on the street to make his gripes and grouses heard, even if it's in the form of a video that's posted on youtube for the world to see.
i finally got to see it, the one with the english translation. i found it initially amusing. who couldnt identify wif corrupt officials and inefficient government right? but then he started making fun of race and religion, to the point of being insulting.
and i was insulted. incensed even. how dare he made such remarks and expect to get away wif it! imagine if this had been abt m.ajulah singapu.ra. he'd prolly be charged wif sedition from the word go.
he's apparently apologised. twice. but i wonder if he'd really meant it. i suspect that people like him will not change their positions quite so readily, no matter how much counselling they get, cos this is deep-rooted - one's perception of other races, other religions.
judge for yourself. watch the video.
then again, don't.
about that negaraku hoohah
pottery finale
why we chose to rent
a friend was lamenting abt how some american guy who bought his home last year is making her all jittery abt making her property purchase decision
".....for some time now we have been reading up on the US sub-prime housing loans which came to the very much expected crash last week..now some of my colleagues (boy was i surprised a lot of these science teachers have been tuning in to the world of $ ) started talking to me about another possible downturn in the economy, exposure of our economy to the US, MAS chekcing on local banks on exposure to CODs..the interest rate in singapore, singapore dollars pegged to cant remember what and baskets of goods..
acck..now i wish i had done the minor in business in my last year in uni..coz i cant remember that much of my econs..we were fine and confident coz we have worked out our sums and will be getting a relatively small and comfortable amount of loan so that our mortgage will be nicely paid off by cpf only. so we will be meeting the lawyers today but now i have a sinking feeling and a big question mark on how the american with a bad credit rating who bought his house on a sub-prime rate will affect our purchase.
so the science teachers are advising me to hold?
hold or let go n buy a new one?....."
Since i AM a bizad grad i shall put in my 2cents worth..ehem.. :P
All things being equal spore's economy's supposed to be on a high for the next few years. we're gona hv f1 next year, a sure boost to the economy. and we have the marina ir ready by 2009? n the sentosa ir ready the yr after that? so all these are supposed to be money spinners for the economy, hence the rosy picture.
We've been doing a lot of house-hunting ourselves...partly cos we were worried abt the rising property prices. we figured it's gonna go up n up for the next few years, so better buy now when the price is high, rather than later when the price is higher. but the ridiculously high cov is putting us off. we're NOT gonna be spending so much money ABOVE valuation for a place just becos the property market’s super hot right now. what’s gonna happen when the market comes crashing down? Which will happen one day eventually cos these things go through a cycle, no? we’d be paying through our teeth then for something that’s gonna be worth two-thirds of what it was?
So our house-hunting has sorta cooled down now. nothing to do with the us mortgage crisis, just our unwillingness to fork out so much money
But the US mortgage crisis is scary eh. we’ve always lulled ourselves into thinking that we’ve decoupled our economy from the US, after the unfortunate incident of the asian financial crisis. But the reality is that we’re still as linked to the US economy as we were back then. And even though the issue is as remote as it could ever be – whoever thought that a company’s unwise decisions to give mortgage loans to those who are not credit-worthy would affect us millions of miles away! – we’re feeling the repercussions now.
Which brings me to my main point: rent
Attended a workshop last week and the trainer was telling us that it’s very bewildering how everyone’s rushing to buy a home the moment they got married. And that before they even knew it, they’d be ‘upgrading’ to a bigger flat. A few years down the road, upgrade again to maybe a condo, then again to landed property after that. Owning a piece property seems to be our endless pre-occupation – the bigger the better. and may I just add – the more expensive, the more mired in debt we’ll be? Sounds pessimistic, but it’s true. How many of us truly have the means to own our home? There’ll be those lucky souls who’d pay off their homes with cash in hand. But the rest of us have no choice but to finance our home with a loan, and the loans will just add up after every ‘upgrading’ exercise. The end result: living in debt for the rest of our lives.
Which is why we’ve chosen to rent our first home. Some of the older folks, and even a few of the younger ones, have questioned the sensibility of our decision. After all, rental eats away at your disposable income, and you’d end up having less money to spend on other essentials like food, bills and such. BUT, renting our home also means that our CPF has not been depleted as yet, and could be made to work even harder than the measly returns that we’re getting at the moment (that is, if you invest yr cpf monies).
Plus purchasing a piece of property is such a grown-up thing to do isnt it, and we're just not ready to be grown up as yet. And stop sniggering there...we know we're both no longer in our 20s, but we still feel young yah :P
We will of course eventually make our first property purchase, InsyaAllah. The lease to our current place expires in 2 years' time, and we've already been told that there'll be no chance of renewing it cos the govt's taking it back (though we never take NO for an answer, so we're still hopeful..hehhe). There's still time till then to make the purchase.
It’s kinda liberating zipping across town on the triumph at 4.45 in the morning. The cold wind against my face. The occasional odd folks we met on the road.
The destination – Jurong. The task – to drive the wish and its load to melaka, for an onward ferry journey to dumai, which is in Indonesia btw (in case you’re as clueless as me)
We made it back home by 2pm. Not too bad eh, this chauffering thingy.
In a few days time, we’ll be zipping across town on the triumph again, at 5.15 in the morning. Only this time, we’ll be zipping across the border too, and exploring roads and trails we’ve never explored before. I cant wait!
potty potter
i finally got my hands on a copy of this. no you havent got it wrong... it IS the half-blood prince that i'm referring to, not the deathly hallows that everyone's excited about. i've never bought a harry potter book in all my life, and i remembered resolutely sticking to this when the book was released back then.
now i cant wait to get my hands on the final book. anyone wants to lend it to me???
i cant believe it’s august already
“You mean we’ve only got 5 months left till the end of the year?” – my exact reaction when spider pointed it out to me yesterday. Whatever happened to the 7 months? How how how now? There are TONS of things to do, TONS of things to be completed, before we embark on our huge project next year. And there’s still the house to do up.
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Our neighbour across the driveway served their notice way before their lease expired, and held a gar.age sale yesterday to sell off their humungous collection of items. Being the nosey cheapo neighbours that we were, spider and me had already ‘choped’ quite a few of their items way before they even went on sale. Yes we’re kiasu like that. So anyways, yesterday was the day when we had to pay up and lug the items back to our house. And boy the house was turned to a dreadful mess, not that it wasn’t messy enough to begin with.
The neighbour was amused. She asked if we enjoyed decorating, and we sheepishly said that we’ve wanted to do that since day one but never got the time. “today is as good a time as any to start, since your house is now a mess” – said she in a straight face, though I swore I could hear the note of amusement in her voice.
But she’s right of cos. Now’s as good a time as any. The big mess totally revved us up. We were awake till 2am this morning moving things around the house. For one, our corridor’s much cleaner and less cluttered. The bbq grill is now neatly placed just beside our newly acquired cupboard, which now houses some of our shoes, soil, fertilizer, helmets, gardening shears, and charcoal. And there are now just 2 shoe racks outside, when previously there were 5. We’ve removed the plant-less pots with the dried-up soil (note to self: get going on yr planting already!), and have introduced 2 more additions to our VERY MODEST collection of plants, again courtesy of the gara.ge sale.
The inside of the house is another story. We have more furniture than we have space. we’ve tried moving things around, but it’s still work-in-progress. The space where our dining table used to be has now been converted to our tv-cum-lounging space. And it’s reasonably done up now, with 3/7 of our newly-acquired sofa set placed nicely there. but of course this would mean that we’d have to put the dining set at the place where the tv used to be, and the old sofa is still there. add to that the other 4/7 of the sofa set which still has no space to call its own, and the coffee table that comes along with the set, and you can imagine the mess the house is in right now.
Like I said, it’s work-in-progress. A headache-inducing, back-breaking, muscle-toning, work-in-progress. But hey, at least I get my exercise.
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It’s amazing how similar our mental models are.
Name the first flower that comes to your mind –chances are, it’ll be rose.
Name a piece of furniture – chances are, it’ll either be a table, or chair, or bed.
And the waiting game entry has everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, asking “so so so, are you pregnant??”
Well, the waiting has ended. Alhamdulillah, I can breathe easy now.
And no dearies, I’m NOT pregnant. We’re not ready, and we’re not trying.
When we are, ready that is, we pray that God will see us worthy to be blessed with kids
And when we are, pregnant that is, we’ll definitely be sharing the good news with those who care :)