life in melbourne

You know a place is inspiring when you start browsing in bookstores again, buying books, thinking about books, getting a large bookshelf, and you write to a dear friend who has in possession all your books to ship over the treasure. And that there is always a cafe round the corner a stroll away, in where you shall sit, finished coffee with unfinished book from afternoon till sundown. You're even inspired enough to walk a little further to the open market every weekend to get your groceries, and to cook your own meals, and actually enjoy them all, the buying, the cooking, and the eating. And you know you're inspired when you are in love with this life and never want it to end.

Kan Seng can sing or cannot sing?

Minister Wong Kan Seng warned that he would be 'very firm' in dealing with those who engage in violence or cause law and order problems during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit to be held in Singapore later this year. 

He says:

'As many important heads of state and government will be here for the Apec Summit, we have to anticipate that it may attract terrorist interest. This is why we have to be very firm with protesters and anarchists who may engage in acts of violence, or deliberately cause law and order problems,' 

Sometimes I'm simply stupefied by the kind of things coming out of my million-dollar ministers' mouths. Put the two sentences together and he actually means: 

1) protesters ARE terrorists; or 

2) because of the terrorist threat, protesters will be firmly dealt with in order to protect them. 

WTF?!? 

Can someone kindly send this millionaire politician for logical reasoning classes? Or better still, VOTE THESE IDIOTS OUT! Friggin hell! 

And while you're at it, kindly ask him where Mr Mas Selamat is, because:

1) he said Mas Selamat is a terrorist: therefore he detained Mas without trial.

2) Mas Selamat escaped under his charge. Therefore:

3) he who let danger escape is the biggest danger of all! 

4) (therefore detain Wong Kan Seng!)

How's that for logical reasoning. HAH.

___

And a fantastic clip:

Heil Hitler! Heil PAP!

Revision for letter-writing

There is another excellent letter in the Straits Times Forum today!

More than 40-min wait for bus

I WAS going to church for Good Friday service at 3pm. The church was a 20-minute bus ride away.

When I was about 150m from the bus stop, I saw bus service 14 whizz by. It was 2.17pm. I didn't expect to wait long for the next bus. At 3pm, I sent an SMS to Iris (Intelligent Route Information System).

I got a reply saying that the next bus was due to arrive in three minutes.

The bus arrived on time at 3.03pm, but it was unusually crowded because of the delay. I was late for the service by more than 25 minutes despite leaving home before 2.15pm. Waiting time: 40 minutes. Total waiting plus journey time: Slightly more than an hour. Is this an acceptable standard?

Corry Sutandi

__

Students should learn from Mr Corry about the finer points of elaboration. Many times, students don't elaborate enough when writing their compositions (or when attempting polite conversation), often causing them to be marked down.

Mr Corry's point is a very simple one: He does not know whether or not waiting 40 minutes for a bus is an acceptable standard. In attempting to seek an answer, however, Mr Corry, being the concerned and diligent citizen that he is, managed to put his talent for elaboration to good use, and, along the way offered us a glimpse of 1) his religion, 2) his programme for Good Friday, 3) his ability to use IRIS [and 4) his ability to receive a reply from IRIS], right down to 5) the time and distance he saw bus number 14 'whizz' by. It is all very useful, informative, even enlightening!

If only students can elaborate like Mr Corry, they might also get to see their utterly insignificant queries published in the prestigious Straits Times, and achieve national fame! Not sure if waiting for 15 minutes for a cab/boyfriend/plate of char kway teow is acceptable standard? Write to the Straits Times! Is Economics or Literature a better choice? No idea? Write to the Straits Times! Should you continue to read crap like the Straits Times? I bet you don't know, so write to the Straits Times! If a delayed bus is such a serious matter that evidently threatens the survival of Singapore, it seems everything can potentially be a matter of grave importance! Just don't forget to include as many details, and elaborate as much as you can!

*whizz!!!*

moved to Melbourne

-- journal, April 09

It's been almost a month since I moved to Melbourne. Packed everything into a rented car and drove across, staying overnight at the coastal towns, had a little whirl around Canberra, and then savouring that long-awaited moment of seeing the Melbourne skyline rising in front of my eyes, beneath its rusted southern sky.

That's the way with Melbourne, the city will change, but its light will remain. That's the way with old friends you first met right here, and whom you meet again after all these years. That's the way with memories, that once lived in time and were real, and that come alive once more, but are never quite the same again.

Never quite the same again indeed, that time then has now gone. But it's still Melbourne, the laneways, the cafes. The coffee, the bookshops. The university, the trams, St. Kilda, the Melburnian air. I cannot even begin to describe how much I love this city, and how absolutely happy I am to be back. Everyday I walk the streets I collect myself with this city before me and that I am walking these streets that I've always dreamt about since I first left it, since then.

__

the cold and grey of this morning were unexpected, this being april. it reminded me very much of those shivering and wet melbourne mornings i used to trot through to get to class, snug in my trusty levis and woollen jumper, invigorated by the wintry air. i had lived behind lygon street, the italian alcove famous for its cafes and restaurants. very few things change at lygon, though the crass and the vulgar (e.g. starbucks) have lately begun their invasion. but most of the cafes that had sprouted along it after the war still stands, run by the same quibbling italian families dashing around with pasta and pizza and shots of expresso. and then of course, there are the students and artists - keeping alive the spirits of generations of impoverished melbourne university students, ex-students, faux-students, angry-students, refuse-to-graduate students, struggling writers, dishevelled poets, apprentice philosophers. all who have, over the decades, indelibly left their artistic and intellectual marks - along the sidewalks, by the shopwindows, in the coffee cups. one could almost still hear echoes of their debates, conversations, commiserations. echoes, because like the invasion of fastfood and fastcoffee, so too the harlequin yuppies have begun their intrusions. but it is of course, always easy to pick out these philistine poseurs. the genuine lygon intelligentsia and literati are somehow invariably unkempt and beggared - there they would sit, swigging strong coffee, scribbling into unintelligible notebooks, peering furrowed brows into tattered copies of camus, kerouac and kafka, exhaling cigarette smoke and discarded thoughts, cogitating with the auburn evening as it tanned into the night.

-- journal, April 06