Mess
In typical fashion, just when I want to leave for a undefined period and not do or think about anything here in Singapore, things came flying in left right and center.
1. RT deferment is rejected. ie I either come back on time for phase 2 or I get charged and/or repeat the whole cycle from phase 1 again.
2. Job offer on the line, requesting that I start work within the next week.
3. Exam results suddenly due to be out tonight. Not sure how it will affect my trip, its either a high or low.
4. It starts raining non-stop both here and aboard. I checked the weather forecast for my destination and the next 5 days are predicted to be rain with thunder and lightning....
What else can go wrong? Well, I could probably fail my exams, miss my flight, can't get a flight back, repeat my RT cycle, get charged by unit, or perhaps simply get mugged there or killed in a terrorist attack. Whatever. Just bring it on. Lets see how much more misery you can dish out. Fuck.
Its time
I have been re-visiting alot of places that we've been to before. Every place evokes a different memory. This is bad. I keep harping on the past, how can I ever move on? Yet I can't help having this nagging feeling that there is no closure, you just simply choose to disappear and walk out of me, without giving me a reason at all. I can't move on if I cannot get closure from the issue, but I really doubt I can ever get it from someone that refuses to face the problem.
To make things easier for us both, maybe I shall disappear too. I'll be leaving singapore within the next 48 hrs. You can stop hiding and relax. Take some time off. Talk to your friends. Do your shopping. Think about stuff. If you still have anything to say to me, I'm willing to listen. But if you think that you still cannot face me, or have nothing to say, I shall not force you any further.
Have a nice life.
Facing the truth
I went to our, or rather, her favourite spot today. I don't know why I did it, I just seem to drive myself there without really thinking. And I just sat there, for hours and hours, thinking, waiting, hoping.
Thinking of all the times we spent together, remembering all those wonderful memories.
Waiting, as if I half expected her to show up.
Hoping against all odds that she does show up, and at least we can have a proper talk face to face. To let me have a chance to salvage this relationship that I hold so dear.
Guess I was being naive again. She has already made it pretty clear. There is nothing to think about anymore for her part, so why would she be here.....??
That was the place where we started, I thought it would be a fitting ending place. I was thinking to myself, if fate was to allow me this one last throw of the dice, it would probably meant I would still have a fighting chance. Perhaps, this is fate's way of telling me no. Maybe I should really just let it go.
Face the fact.
28 Aug 06
I don't know how to handle this. Or how I will get up from this. How I am going to move on. I'm seriously hurt big time.
My heart had never hurt as much as it did now. I wished this is all a bad dream that I can wake up of. In fact, my entire life had been much of a bad dream that I wanna wake up from. But this is no dream. My life really sux.
I don't know where I should go from here. Should I accept it and try to move on amidst the pain? Or should I still believe that things can still be salvaged?
I can't really bring myself to do anything at the moment. Really stuck in limbo. Can't motivate myself to go apply for jobs, attend interviews or do anything.. Can't bring myself to put on a fake smile and talk about my future when I don't even know where I stand right now.
I think maybe I should leave this place.
How??
Can't sleep, can't eat, can't stop thinking.
What should I do????
Why can't I just let it go???
Why can't I just ignore it???
Why can't I be just like you???
Why am I feeling the way I feel???
F U C K
It sucks to be me.
Feeling terrible
I'm feeling damn terrible, in more ways than one. Besides an aching heart, for some reasons, those sickening looking rashes that tormented me so much a few mths ago seem to be making a comeback on my palms.. hope its just my imagination as I have been rather paranoid about seeing any rashes on me since that incident.
My eyes are also swollen I think probably due to contact lens wear. Bloody hell, I only wear them for less a once a mth and for less than a couple of hours during the interview and now both are swollen and I'm experiencing double vision in my left eye. Hope it will go away with more sleep, but with my kinda luck, think I better go see a doctor if it doesn't clear up by tomorrow, which means more $$$ wasted. Sigh. When will things be better again?
Been doing a lot of thinking. Have I really done everything that I can for this relation? Did I see this coming yet choose to ignore the signs? What could I have done? I seriously do not have an answer.
Some people are just born the way they are. I am never born to be the life of the party, with fun and novel ideas for a date every single week. But did I try to be creative, be more spontaneous, be more pro-active? I'll say hell yeah. Could I have tried even harder?? Perhaps. Possibly. Highly likely. But do you really expect me to keep trying and trying when you don't even wanna go along and try out some of the things I suggested, instead choosing to carry them out with your friends instead? Should I have stopped you from going out with your frens and doing activities that we should have been doing together instead of wanting to give each other space to have our own friends? I can't really help it that I'm not as fun as some other people, is being a couple all about having fun? Can we only share good times and not the bad?
I keep thinking to where we had gone wrong. Does the fire just die off like that, without any emblems that can be rekindled with a gentle stir? Or has the fire actually burnt out cold long ago, before I even actually started to notice? Did someone just came along and pour water over the fire? What other external factors are there? What are the internal triggers? I have no answers, I get no answers. Yet I'm someone that need an know something for sure, else I can never just stop thinking about it. Its haunting even my dreams.
真的是死不瞑目
Aimless
Can't seem to focus my mind. Just don't really feel like doing anything. Its so sickening. There are still so many things I need to do, eapecially since I am still so desperately jobless and saturday has actually the most job listings. Yet I really can't. Fuck.
I wonder what she is doing... :(
It never rains but it pours
Just when you thought things could not possibly go any worse, it does.
I don't understand how so much can go wrong, so many bad things can befall a single person. Am I like a fucking asshole in my previous life that I have to go through so much shit, time and again. I have to grow up faster and tougher than most kids from a young age, learn to fend for myself, protect myself, earn money to feed myself etc when all the other kids you see can have their parents and maids cooing all over them, pampering them, fufilling their needs. I am proud of myself getting to where I am today, and I spit in the face of those weaklings. But deep down, I always wanted to be just like them, to be able to live a simple happy life, where you don't have to keep watching your back to see if something will go wrong and even when it does, there's always someone that you can fall back on, someone that will always be there for you regardless of what you do, how low you fell. For close to 2 years... 2 fucking years... I thought I had found that.
Of course, I am just being naive. As I said, and should have known by now, NOTHING good will ever come to me. Another lesson from the school of hard knocks for me. This time, I'm not sure if I can bounce back... I simply don't have the strength anymore... I'm really really tired.. How many times over simply the past couple of years had I have to go through shit just to get to where I
want am. And now, at the end of the day, all the effort has gone to naught, I have barely half of what I started off with in my bank account, nothing to show for it, a worthless piece of paper they call a degree that cannot get me any job, and my pillar of strength had just collapsed right over me, crushing any remaining spirit that I might have left in me. I am now totally nothing.
I was stupid. Really. If only I had maintained my mantra in life of always holding back, always never giving your all, cause you never know when 100% of your effort will come back and smack you right in the face. If I had only put in 50% of the effort, it will hurt 50% less, and I would have another 50% to start rebuilding again.
Karma. It always comes back to bite you in the ass. Maybe I deserved it for being the bastard that I was. What else can I expect? Bastards end up with bitches. Who am I to try to defy the odds?
Still, it could have been worse. I had planned to get a special tattoo to commemorate our anniversary. Tattoo is for life, and I thought you would be too. I'm not sure if I could spend the rest of my life looking at the tattoo, and thinking about you, and have my heart broken every single day.
I know I sound bitter. I am. For all the effort that I had put in, for all the things I've done, for opening my heart for one single time in my life. This is what I get.
But I do not regret for one moment, that you were once in my life. I can still remember the blur look you always have when you walked into class and it would bring a smile to my face. I still remember how I blushed when I first talked to you. I still remember our first disastrous date, and how miraculous it is that we can still go on to have a second and third date. I still remember your funny hairstyle that made me unable to speak properly due to choking from laughter. I still remember the very first time I held your hand and kissed you in chinablack. I still remember our long walks together at cosy bay and west coast. I still remember you cooking for me, and waiting up for me to return from work.
When I close my eyes, I see your smile, your antics, and the image of you just resting on me. It'll bring a smile to my face. Or a tear.
This is getting too hard for me.
So tired
Been a real busy and tired week. Interviews after interviews, but nothing concrete has yet to come out of it, I'm feeling so sick of it all. Feeling so useless as you get rejection after rejection, something that I'm honestly not too used to getting. Growing more and more depressed with each passing day.
Had thought that after selling off the pub, maybe can take my time to look for a job as I would at least have some cash to tide me over for the next couple of months. However, it only seems to accentuate my uselessness as I bummed around all day, doing nothing and seemingly sponging off the family.
Had thought that maybe I can spend more time with my gal, now that I actually had both the time and some more spare cash, but it somehow feels that the feeling ain't mutal... There's so many other things that she needs to do, so many other people she needs to talk to, so many other activities she'll rather do. Its really sad for me when I see how she's enjoying the company of others or enjoy doing other things yet when she's with me or even talking to me, she seems so off and distanced, like there's a wall between us, I keep hearing myself bouncing off that invisible wall.
Why do I keep failing, in more ways than one?
Why do I need to keep 'bouncing back' in life? Can't I just not fall?
I'm tired.
World class bootlicker all the way from UK
Just came across this ST online forum
letter and this guy totally makes me sick.
I seriously do not know what to make of him. Is he simply another bootlicker aka lionel de souza or does his naive thoughts actually reflect the majority of singaporeans? I hope its the former cos I shudder to think what would happen if it was the latter. I don't even know where to begin explaining what is so wrong with his views... Read the
letter yourself and see what I mean.
Will write more tommorrow, need to be up in 4 hrs time. :(
Observation from taking public transport
I've been taking quite a bit of public transport these days after years of driving, and I'm still not used to the whole EZ link system. After all those years of using the farecard, where admittingly, I'm often guilty of selecting the lowest fare regardless of my distance :P Nowadays however, I'm making payback as I often forget to tap my card on the way off so I'm paying the max price even if I'm taking just one single stop. As they always say, karma's a bitch.
One interesting observation I made recently, is that when some people board the bus, or train for that matter, they like to put their ENTIRE bag to the scanner instead of just the card. I don't get it. Is it so difficult to take a card out from the bag to tap on the scanner? In general though, I noticed that ladies tend to do it more than men as women tend to be the one carrying bags most of the time(duh).
Earlier today, I noticed this mother with a kid in tow boarding a bus, and as you know when you go out with kids, you tend to pack alot of stuff so you normally have a bigger bag then normal, and she was carrying a small handbag in her hand as well. As she board the bus, she scanned the small bag at the scanner, and when it failed to register, she tried turning the bag around, vertically, 45 degrees etc, and when all that failed, she tried to scan the big bag she had with her, and when that failed, naturally, she tries to turn the bag around at various degrees again. All this while, the queue behind here is stuck, and as a result, the entire bus is effectively waiting for this lady. After a while, she finally stepped to one side and started rumbling through all her bags, in the end, she discovered that she doesn't have her card with her and proceeds to pay cash. What a waste of time.... If she had (attempt to) taken out the card before boarding, she would have realised that she didn't bring it along, and thus saving everybody some time. Imagine that at every bus stop, there is just one person like that which effectively delays the bus for a couple of unneccessary minutes, the entire journey could easily take up at least an extra half an hour or so.
Does these things happen often?? Maybe its one of the reasons why buses are always late, and this is really something that you can't blame on the bus company. (but it still doesn't justify any potential fare hikes)
Happy Birthday Singapore
Today, our nation turns 41. The national day had never meant anything for me in the past, other than the fact that it is another public holiday which can be best spent on holiday without wasting a day off the annual leave. Not that the mentality had changed much, but I have slowly began to look past certain reasons that had prevented me from actually celebrating the nation's independence before.
First of all, I'm never a fan of any parade. Parades are always boring, and I especially cringe at those videos of how we have progressed from the 3rd world to the 1st when I see 3rd world citizen behavior daily around me. I wondered at the term 'progress'. Through my entire life, progress meant two things to me. Studying hard and 'progress' through the stages from PSLE to O levels to degree etc, and secondly, to 'progress' in life to earn more and more money. That is how we measure progress and success in singapore. By the number of certifications you own in relation to the size of your bank account.
Slowly, as I matured, I started to realise that I wanted more than that. Like a kid growing up, you crave for more pocket money intially to simply get more stuff, but as you enter your teens, you start to crave for more, such as the loosening of curfew, the right to speak up for what you believe is right. Just like my parents, the nation too slapped me down with beliefs they know better, so they
should will decide. Just like many teenagers, I rebelled against my parents, but I am unable to rebel against the nation. My parents have 2 kids, while the nation have 4 million, it doesnt mind losing one as long as it serves as an example for the 3.99 million. I can fight back against parental control, I can reason with them(to a certain extent) and show them that my point of view is correct but I cannot fight back or reason against a huge, well oiled bureacratic machine with a history of twisted interpretation and double standards....
But I have learned.... That Singapore is an island, a nation, a place where I grew up on. The place itself I have no grudges against. The place itself does not equate to its governer. I am born and raised here as one of the EQUAL owners of this land. I will not be forced out, and one day, I shall regain my place in it. I am Singaporean.
Singapore cracks down on foreign media
From
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2006/08/singapore_cracks_down_on_forei.htmlThe Far Eastern Economic Review has become the latest foreign publication to be targeted by the Singapore authorities. It has been given until 11 September to comply with an Act which demands that it must have a legal representative in the country and pay a deposit of £67,500. Four other publications - the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, Time and Newsweek - have also been ordered to do the same when their licences come up for renewal.
A Singapore government spokesman says its position is that "it is a privilege, and not a right, for foreign newspapers to circulate in Singapore". Reporters Without Borders, the press watchdog, says that the rules are really a form of censorship. Singapore is ranked 140th out of 167 countries in RWB's 2005 worldwide press freedom index. (Via Reporters sans frontières - ASIA)Seems like the govt is really bent on not letting the people get views from what they want you to hear. Is the Straits Time alone really good enough for Singaporeans? All the talk about globalisation, how Singapore cannot afford to stand still etc are basically lip service, or for justifying their own reasons such as getting more and more foreign
rubbish talent at the expense of their own citizen. Sometimes, I seriously think that if I migrate to some other country such as the USA, and then come back to SG again as a FT, just through this process alone, your net worth is going to increase. Anyway, the real reason why FEER is subjected to censorship is due to articles like
this (article reproduced below for personal archival purpose)
Singapore’s ‘Martyr,’ Chee Soon Juan
July/August 2006
By Hugo Restall
Striding into the Chinese restaurant of Singapore’s historic Fullerton Hotel, Chee Soon Juan hardly looks like a dangerous revolutionary. Casually dressed in a blue shirt with a gold pen clipped to the pocket, he could pass as just another mild-mannered, apolitical Singaporean. Smiling, he courteously apologizes for being late—even though it is only two minutes after the appointed time.
Nevertheless, according to prosecutors, this same man is not only a criminal, but a repeat offender. The opposition party leader has just come from a pre-trial conference at the courthouse, where he faces eight counts of speaking in public without a permit. He has already served numerous prison terms for this and other political offenses, including eight days in March for denying the independence of the judiciary. He expects to go to jail again later this year.
Mr. Chee does not seem too perturbed about this, but it drives Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong up the wall. Asked about his government’s persecution of the opposition during a trip to New Zealand last month, Mr. Lee launched into a tirade of abuse against Mr. Chee. “He’s a liar, he’s a cheat, he’s deceitful, he’s confrontational, it’s a destructive form of politics designed not to win elections in Singapore but to impress foreign supporters and make himself out to be a martyr,” Mr. Lee ranted. “He’s deliberately going against the rules because he says, ‘I’m like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. I want to be a martyr.’”
Coming at the end of a trip in which the prime minister essentially got a free ride on human rights from his hosts—New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark didn’t even raise the issue—this outburst showed a lack of self-control and acumen. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the man who many believe still runs Singapore and who is the current prime minister’s father, has said much the same things about Mr. Chee—“a political gangster, a liar and a cheat”—but that was at home, and in the heat of an election campaign.
Mr. Chee smiles when it’s suggested that he must be doing something right. “Every time he says something stupid like that, I think to myself, the worst thing to happen would be to be ignored. That would mean we’re not making any headway,” he agrees.
But one charge made by the government does stick: Mr. Chee is not terribly concerned about election results. Which is just as well, because his Singapore Democratic Party did not do very well in the May 6 polls. It would be foolish, he suggests, for an opposition party in Singapore to pin its hopes on gaining one, or perhaps two, seats in parliament. He is aiming for a much bigger goal: bringing down the city-state’s one-party system of government. His weapon is a campaign of civil disobedience against laws designed to curtail democratic freedoms.
“You don’t vote out a dictatorship,” he says. “And basically that’s what Singapore is, albeit a very sophisticated one. It’s not possible for us to effect change just through the ballot box. They’ve got control of everything else around us.” Instead what’s needed is a coalition of civil society and political society coming together and demanding change—a color revolution for Singapore.
So far Mr. Chee doesn’t seem to be getting much, if any traction. While many Singaporeans don’t particularly like the PAP’s arrogant style of government, the ruling party has succeeded in depoliticizing the population to the extent that anybody who presses them to take action to make a change is regarded with resentment. And in a climate of fear—Mr. Chee lost his job as a psychology lecturer at the national university soon after entering opposition politics—a reluctance to get involved is hardly surprising.
Why is all this oppression necessary in a peaceful and prosperous country like Singapore where citizens otherwise enjoy so many freedoms? Mr. Chee has his own theory that the answer lies with strongman Lee Kuan Yew himself: “Why is he still so afraid? I honestly think that through the years he has accumulated enough skeletons in his closet that he knows that when he is gone, his son and the generations after him will have a price to pay. If we had parliamentary debates where the opposition could pry and ask questions, I think he is actually afraid of something like that.”
That raises the question of whether Singapore deserves its reputation for squeaky-clean government. A scandal involving the country’s biggest charity, the National Kidney Foundation, erupted in 2004 when it turned out that its Chief Executive T.T. Durai was not only drawing a $357,000 annual salary, but the charity was paying for his first-class flights, maintenance on his Mercedes, and gold-plated fixtures in his private office bathroom.
The scandal was a gift for the opposition, which naturally raised questions about why the government didn’t do a better job of supervising the highly secretive NKF, whose patron was the wife of former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong (she called Mr. Durai’s salary “peanuts”). But it had wider implications too. The government controls huge pools of public money in the Central Provident Fund and the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., both of which are highly nontransparent. It also controls spending on the public housing most Singaporeans live in, and openly uses the funds for refurbishing apartment blocks as a bribe for districts that vote for the ruling party. Singaporeans have no way of knowing whether officials are abusing their trust as Mr. Durai did.
It gets worse. Mr. Durai’s abuses only came to light because he sued the Straits Times newspaper for libel over an article detailing some of his perks. Why was Mr. Durai so confident he could win a libel suit when the allegations against him were true? Because he had done it before. The NKF won a libel case in 1998 against defendants who alleged it had paid for first-class flights for Mr. Durai. This time, however, he was up against a major bulwark of the regime, Singapore Press Holdings; its lawyers uncovered the truth.
Singaporean officials have a remarkable record of success in winning libel suits against their critics. The question then is, how many other libel suits have Singapore’s great and good wrongly won, resulting in the cover-up of real misdeeds? And are libel suits deliberately used as a tool to suppress questioning voices?
The bottling up of dissent conceals pressures and prevents conflicts from being resolved. For instance, extreme sensitivity over the issue of race relations means that the persistence of discrimination is a taboo topic. Yet according to Mr. Chee it is a problem that should be debated so that it can be better resolved. “The harder they press now, the stronger will be the reaction when he’s no longer around,” he says of Lee Kuan Yew.
The paternalism of the PAP also rankles, especially since foreigners get more consideration than locals. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund will hold their annual meeting in Singapore this fall, and have been trying to convince the authorities to allow the usual demonstrations to take place. The likely result is that international NGO groups will be given a designated area to scream and shout. “So we have a situation here where locals don’t have the right to protest in their own country, while foreigners are able to do that,” Mr. Chee marvels. Likewise, Singaporeans can’t organize freely into unions to negotiate wages; instead a National Wages Council sets salaries with input from the corporate sector, including foreign chambers of commerce.
All these tensions will erupt when strongman Lee Kuan Yew dies. Mr. Chee notes that the ruling party is so insecure that Singapore’s founder has been unable to step back from front-line politics. The PAP still needs the fear he inspires in order to keep the population in line. Power may have officially passed to his son, Lee Hsien Loong, but even supporters privately admit that the new prime minister doesn’t inspire confidence.
During the election, Prime Minister Lee made what should have been a routine attack on multiparty democracy: “Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I’m going to spend all my time thinking what’s the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters’ votes, how can I solve this week’s problem and forget about next year’s challenges?” But of course the ominous phrases “buy votes” and “fix them” stuck out. That is the kind of mistake, Mr. Chee suggests, Lee Sr. would not make.
“He’s got a kind of intelligence that would serve you very well when you put a problem in front of him,” he says of the prime minister. “But when it comes to administration or political leadership, when you really need to be media savvy and motivate people, I think he is very lacking in that area. And his father senses it as well.”
However, the elder Mr. Lee’s death—he is now 82—is a necessary but not sufficient condition for change. Another big factor is how civil society is able to use new technologies to bypass PAP control over information and free speech. The government has tried to stifle political filmmaking, blogging and podcasting. Singapore Rebel, a 2004 film about Mr. Chee by independent artist Martyn See, was banned but is widely available on the Internet.
Meanwhile, pressure for Singapore to remain competitive in the region has sparked debate about the government’s dominant role in the economy. Can a top-down approach promote creativity and independent thinking? The need for transparency and accountability also means that Singapore will have to change. That is the source of Mr. Chee’s optimism in the face of all his setbacks: “I realize that Singapore is not at that level yet. But we’ve got to start somewhere. And I’m prepared to see this out, in the sense that in the next five, 10, 15 years, time is on our side. We need to continue to organize and educate and encourage. And it will come.”
He doesn’t dwell on his personal tribulations, but mentions in passing selling his self-published books on the street. That is his primary source of income to feed his family, along with the occasional grant. As to the charge of wanting to be a martyr, once he started dissenting, he found it impossible to stop in good conscience. “The more you got involved, the more you found out what they’re capable of, it steels you, so you say, ‘No, I will not back down.’ It makes you more determined.”
Perhaps it’s in his genes. One of Mr. Chee’s daughters is old enough that she had to be told that her father was going to prison. She stood up before her class and announced, “My papa is in jail, but he didn’t do anything wrong. People have just been unfair to him.”
Mr. Restall is editor of the REVIEW.
Elections over, PAP starts
I can't believe the relentless hikes just keep coming and coming. First, its the electricity bill, then taxi, then buses & mrt(though its not confirmed yet offically but I confirm it for you here lah) and now even
ERP also going up yet again. Sickening. Its really
Paying
And
Paying.
What is more sickening of this raise, is that once again, residents living in the north, those that lan lan have to use CTE only as this is the only expressway to town from our world class infrastructure, those that is paying the highest rate of gantry charges, those that have to pay BOTH WAYS to and fro work, now have to pay even more.
Personally, I had been 'lucky' so far. Despite living and driving in the north for quite a few years now, I had never had to pay much ERP mainly because I don't work normal office hours. I have a friend that is not so lucky though, he lives in amk and due to his job nature, have to drive. His office is in Chinatown area, and even discounting the gantry fee into Chinatown itself, pure travelling along sets him back an average of $4-5 daily. (2x gantry on the way to work, 1x back). Sucks big time.
Why CTE always kena? Why all the people living in the north always being penalised? Reason is that this is where the majority of the people live. Though I don't have the figures on hand, I assume that mature estates such as AMK and Toa Payoh alone has a whole lot more residents than any other estates, and therefore more cars too. But its not the fault of these people that some 30-40 years ago, some guys come along and tell them to abandon their own 'unsanitary and unsafe' homes and move into these clean, cheap and safe housings. They were all told to gather there, to live there, and now that there is too many, just penalise them lor.
But is this constant raising of ERP prices really going to change things? I honestly do not think so. People that can avoid driving would have already done so, giving the already exhorbinate rates, is that $0.50 increase going to really going to make a driver say "Ok, thats it, I'm not paying that extra $0.50, I'm going to stop driving to work!" I don't think so. Most would simply shake their heads, sigh, and resigned themselves to their fate. Thats what I would do too.
So why the raise in ERP? Or the raise in everything in fact? Did the last election campaign used up too much resources? Or is it simply that it is believed that people would forget all the bad things that another few years down the road?
On Smoking
Its been a month since the smoking ban is enforced in coffee shops etc, and to tell the truth, I have not seen much difference, i.e tables are not clearly marked smoking or non-smoking, and there are people that are still obviously smoking at the non-smoking area. However, there is significantly less number of smokers, and incidently I noticed at the coffee shop near my place, significantly less people drinking as well.
As a 'recovering' drinker and smoke-aholic, I seriously would feel 'incomplete' if I drink and not smoke. At least 90% of the people I know feel the same way, its like they come hand in hand. The coffeeshop's business sure is affected, and I shudder to think what will happen to the nightscene when the ban is extended to pubs and nightspots next year. I'm definately getting out of my pub venture before that happens. Sure, the govt and all the papers will tell you that it will attract more non-smokers to the club etc and in the LONG RUN, business will be better etc, but how are small businesses like ours, already scrapping to get by, see out the long run? If business goes down for more than a couple of months in tandem, cash flow is going to be a serious problem. Rents, payments to suppliers etc still have to be paid, and who is going to help us out? I don't need more non-smokers customers, I just want to keep my regular smokers customers. Can I implement a smoking only club instead? I'm sure I'll be making a ton more money than the ones that don't allow smoking. Just look at all the heavy drinkers and big spenders around you. How many of them are smokers compared to non smokers? I rest my case.
And to rub salt to the wound, I have enough of non-smokers complaining and complaining and urging for a ban on smoking in ALL public places. Give me a break. Give you an inch and you want a yard. Fuck you all. Although I don't really smoke now anymore, it still gets on my nerves how narrow minded some people are, touting their 'rights' to clean air or what ever fuck and attempt to exorcise all smokers. Knn, then don't come out lah, don't drive or stand near road because cars also pollute the air. And make sure you don't fucking fart in public places also else must ban farting liao. Stay in your sterile home.
As if Singapore is not restrictive enough as it is, and in case people tend to forget, smokers are human too and they have their feelings and rights too.
