I'd eat humans if I had to

Eh, don't lie. If you were in a situation where the only way the group could survive is to eat their own, you would. It's ridiculous to say otherwise. Obviously this is only in situations where food is exhausted or simply cannot be found. I think the question we should really ask ourselves here is why do we even think that way in the first place?

Why do we think that it is wrong to kill a fellow human being? Spare me the whole religious, amoral good and bad crap. Why is it honestly wrong to kill a fellow human being? I know that it is "wrong" but why is it wrong? Obviously I do not want it to happen to me, neither do most animals but why is it wrong for me to kill someone else? Is it purely because we do not want it to happen to ourselves that we do not inflict injury on others? Is it because we have been programmed to think that way? Is it because of the consequences of our actions to other people? If so, why should we care. If not, is it because we may be killed or lose our freedom?

Am I a sociopath for thinking this way, or is it because I am purely just curious as to why we are wired the way we are?

The final question for this post... Does my topic make you uncomfortable? I'll do a rewrite of this post, it's a poor expansion on an interesting topic but my sleeping pills are kicking in.

So many perverts...

What is with all these people coming onto my blog for the kiddy sex industry post? Fuck you people, it better be for research and not looking for kiddy porn! At the risk of sounding ignorant, kiddy porn is BAD! BAAAAAAD! Stop it! Bad people, bad!

Repercussions of pursuing a degree away from home

Don't get me wrong, I love Australia and wouldn't trade living here for anything else in the world. I've spent the best few years of my life here and have met the coolest and most fascinating people from here and abroad. The reason why I'm feeling a little glum about being here? Well, my best friend from high school's father passed away and I'm not going to be there to help out in any way that I can. It really sucks balls that I can't just hop onto a plane and be more than just a voice on the phone or a few words on a computer.

That's the price you pay for going overseas. Even though I didn't really feel at home in Singapore, I still had a wonderful bunch of friends that have helped me through a lot of my problems and have shared the experiences of growing up together. This loss on my friend's part has made me feel very aware of the connection that still binds us.

I hope she's doing better, I will continue to try to do all I can even though I'm so far away. I just hope she realises that she still has friends like us (all of us who've left home), even though we're not physically in the same country but still mourn for her loss and love her to death.

Horror Stories from School Part II

I grew up in Singapore. *Takes a deep breath

Yes, I did, and it wasn't really that bad, I guess. I was kind of safer there and more sheltered? Anyway, my main point of contention is the age hierarchy that is well abound in asian cultures. It's not that I do not recognise that older people should be treated with respect or special care, I do mind if we have to pretend that the older generation can do no wrong.

I can honestly say this was one of the major things that infuriated me while growing up. Teachers were considered to have deity-like powers. They were always right and could make your life a living hell at the drop of a hat. You always had to find some way to remain unnoticed or risk getting singled out and picked on. They could claim anything they wanted of you such as insisting that you had to sit up straight, not take down any notes, do not fidget, hold your piss in or even drop the subject altogether. Most students just accepted it or silently rebelled. I don't really remember anyone who actively fought against the God complexes some teachers had.

I remember though, and this happened a few times, where the teachers would go ape shit at the students. One incident in particular happened when I was 12 in the next class. This young teacher was a major prick, made the whole class stand and individually told each of the students why they would fail in life and not amount to anything. He made all 40 girls cry, he belittled and demeaned all of them but nothing happened. The children were too afraid to tell their parents because the teacher was the principal's nephew and so, no parents were informed. He's had other cases where he's assaulted students but they were too afraid to report him. In fact, I've been smacked on the head by a teacher but nobody dared to testify to it.

I even had this one teacher in primary school who used to pick on the silliest things and then be proud of it. Of course she was a miserable old fart. She screamed at me for the better part of the day because I didn't leave a spacing between the margin of the page and the sums I did. God forbid the sums were just a tad bit untidy.

I think at some point there was a porn star from Singapore who held claim to the title of "Most number of men fucked in a certain period of time or whatever". In an interview, she talked about how she questioned Christianity in her Christian school, and was dragged kicking and screaming into a church and then spent various hours having the demons exorcised from her. Yes, I would turn out fucked up too if that happened to me.

Of course not all teachers were from hell, even though most participated in the whole "If you get expelled, we'll make sure the only schools that you can enter are in the bottom 10" thing. Yeah, pretty much even though that was just a scare tactic, really. I had a brilliant biology teacher that I'm still looking for. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't even be in uni now. She's the only one who supported me and treated me as an intellectual equal.

Ah, there is nothing worse than being taught by someone who you know is more stupid than you are. Can you believe one teacher tried convincing us that outer space had air and the whole concept of screaming being inaudible in space is wrong? (She was a language teacher) Another confused the spleen for the pancreas and most spoke worse English than I did. Sigh, I'll write a post about Singlish soon.

How I Play God

Cloning, what most laymen do not know is that we molecular biologists and biochemists do this all the time. No, we do not clone humans but we have successfully cloned a lot of other animals such as cows, sheep, mice, various strains of bacteria and viruses, etc. I like to think that I've had a hand in the development and welfare of millions of little microorganism children in experiments that I've been doing since the start of my degree. I suppose all I can do is thank the stars that nobody has enough free time to worry about the welfare of microorganisms enough to start PETA-like groups about it.

Why do we do it? Now, I went into science because I wanted to pursue knowledge but that is obviously what doesn't drive most scientific research. In a bid to save my humanity I will not specify exactly what it is, but I suspect we all know.

*Cough $$$ *Cough
Oh shut up, pharmacists.

It's really simple, just isolate animals with the desired traits which is done through a variety of ways. Let's say for example, we wish to isolate insulin for diabetics. Now, we all know that you are able to create proteins from scratch but it is far more economical to use bacteria to produce the desired insulin. So you isolate the animal with the desired gene and then extract it. Then you infect a bacterium or virus with it through a variety of ways, they produce it as a by-product and voila! Insulin fresh from the oven.

It's so simple that eventually children in primary schools will learn how to do it. They were already teaching us simple DNA extraction techniques in 1998 when I was 12.

Personally I'm more interested in the implications that will arise from the first human baby. Would a person with identical DNA structure result in the same personality? I don't think it would be, seeing as how memory input is transcribed into proteins causing the brain to develop differently even with the same genes. (Reference ME, I'll sue anyone who steals this) It would still be interesting to study and observe, theoretical and practical science usually differs.

Is DNA the organism and not the external body? I've read this somewhere on some facebook post and the concept is interesting yet seems a little... Off. DNA is just an arrangement of a sugar, a base and a phosphate. There are many, many checks in place to ensure there are no mistakes made but sometimes these slip. Sometimes these aren't a bad thing where the mutation causes a bigger resistance to a disease, etc. Still, there are viruses that infect DNA, there are DNA fragments that are able to "cut or copy" itself into other areas of DNA. We won't know for awhile, but we will soon.

The reason why I've littered a few pictures of children and animals with genetic disorders around this post are examples of what molecular biology and biochemistry are trying to find a cure for. Think about these kids (they happen naturally) when the church says "playing god" is against god's will. They're not freaks of nature, they're human beings just like us with no chance of a normal life because of a variety of reasons. We should fund more research companies.

I is anorexia nervosa

HAH! Nah, not really. However that is the only way I will ever be the skinny asian girl that I am expected to be. I was racking my brains wondering how so many of my friends and their friends are stick thin and I realised something, most of them are bloody anorexic. They just think that if they have a little bit of food, that would qualify them as normal but it clearly isn't. Here's an example of just a few diet regimes I found out.

1) One cup of tea in the afternoon and a bowl of fruit for dinner
2) One slice of bread for lunch and one small apple for dinner
3) Salad with shaved meats(?) for lunch, two fruits for dinner
4) 50g chicken breast for lunch, one small cup of salad for dinner
5) Big breakfast (Eggs and a slice of bread + orange juice)
6) Fruit diet
7) Vegetarian void of pulses/grains/anything with protein or carbs

No, I'm not kidding. Obviously there are also heaps of people that either have tapeworms or a ridiculously high metabolic rate that are able to eat as much as they want and remain stick thin but the truth of the matter is, there are a lot more that aren't. This is DEFINITELY not enough food for you for the day but a lot of women out there continue to starve themselves in the hope of looking beautiful. It really is unhealthy and dangerous, you could lose the use of your uterus or even die. You don't need to be stick thin to be beautiful but you really should be healthy or toned at least. Stockier built girls like myself can always become more muscly and healthy looking rather than stick thin.

I'm not without my own story of battling the kilos. I too went through a period where I refused to eat, threw up for awhile, diet pills, etc. Yeah short term fast shit and I wasn't even that fat at the time. Now, I'm not that slim but I will be. There's a change in attitude that struggling girls like me should take in order to secure permanent weight loss.

Harden the fuck up! Stop whining about it and get off your ass. There's only a minute percentage of people who have genetic disorders that cause their particular fat problems and you're probably just lazy. Like me, I'm a lazy bitch. I can safely say that most of my friends have heard be whinge about my weight loss problem but if you sincerely have a weight loss problem and want to lose weight, you really should see your local doctor. You might have a hormonal imbalance, diabetes, thyroid problems, etc. A lot of these conditions are exacerbated by high fat body content anyway.

Weight loss is a slow, shitty process that will involve a lot of tears especially since it takes quite awhile to see any significant results. I've been on this healthy regime since freaking January and have only just noticed any changes. That's cool too, you've got to realise that even though you're not perfect now, you can be if you work on it. Screw this exaltation of mediocrity. You should always work hard to improve yourself.

Nuke the whales

Bravely, I wore this shirt to uni today amidst many hippies, PETA members (probably the same people) and other environmental youth groups who gave me endless dirties all day long. Yes, I'm an asshole but it's so amusing that freedom of speech is only all right when it meets the popular criteria of morally upright bullshit. You know, like the whole global warming thing is so in right now whereas before it used to be fur. Yeah. I know SOMEBODY is going to bring up the whole religious debate but they just aren't the same things.

Anyway, screw the whales. I don't understand why people are so upset about extinction and all that shite. It's not as if extinction is a man made phenomenon. Species become extinct all the time, that is nature hence the phrase "survival of the fittest". Obviously more dominant species will inevitably cause the extinction of another, it happens. If it didn't, there would be overcrowding and a lack of resources resulting in death and complete destruction of any life at all. It happens ALL THE TIME in nature, if it didn't life wouldn't exist in the first place.

How do you think life was created? Obviously whatever survived stuck, whatever protozoic organism managed to maintain itself, somehow by fluke found a way to replicate and survive. The ocean became overcrowded and fish started walking on land, they survived and eventually mutated with traits that allowed them to survive. Eventually organisms like us started crawling all over the place. We are the most genetically superior animal on this planet, we survived all the harsh conditions on earth and found ingenious ways to protect ourselves. Even in nature, the more dominant species will expand until their resources are diminished. Do you really think lions or wolves hunt the young or old because they feel sorry for the good of the species? NO! They do so because they're the easiest to catch. We, on the other hand, raise our own meat so there is no need for us to "thin the herds". Animals would definitely eat better meat if it wasn't so hard to catch. This whole animals live in balance because god made them so or whatever non-scientific humanising bullshit is ridiculous. We're just like them but a lot smarter.

AND ANOTHER THING! We are always mutating, organisms are ALWAYS evolving, they evolve after each generation. Just because it's a slow process and we probably will not see the effects within our lifetimes doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. Curse X men and other comics for making people think that mutation is a bad thing or changes happen immediately.

I'm so irritated with people saying we are becoming the destroyers of earth. No, we are bloody not. The earth was here before our narcissistic species was around and will be here for billions of years after we are gone. Who cares about the whales? If they were faster or hid as well as the giant squids we wouldn't have been able to find them or kill them for so long.

Now we have these annoying greenpeace idiots who have no concept of international diplomacy annoying the fuck out of the Japanese when only a handful of countries recognise Australian sovereignty (proper word?) of the South Pole region... Thing. Is there really a difference between eating an intelligent or stupid animal? Are whales really intelligent? No, after years and years of whaling you'd think they'd learn their lesson now. They're the obese, retarded children of the whale world being laughed at by their little cousins.




Yeah, I'm horrible. If it makes anyone feel better, I was going to do marine biology before I realised how little it paid?

Chin's virgin post - A rant

Hi, my name is Chin, and i shall be your ranter for this post. I am 21 years of age, living in a south-east asian nation which I do not call home nor do i wish to. I am currently an undergrad who enjoys contact sports and thinks that this sounds remarkably like a personnals ad. I am someone who aspires to be a chef and I personally think this is the perfect time, as there is currently a boom in the industry. However, recently there has been a trend that worries me. The trend of the pretentious-know-nothing restauranteur. Now, i understand that some people love to cook; i do myself! However, there really is no need for you to set up a restaurant/cafe/bistro/whatever really, just cook for some friends at home, friends who wouldn't tell you how crappy the food is and how pretentious you are cooking things you do not understand. You get all the compliments you want, your friends learn not to accept an invitation to a dinner party at your place anymore. Everybody wins! I know i sound angry, arrogant, etc etc, but i have my own little reasons for it.

You see, the current boom in the restaurant business has due to the work of many hardworking chefs and restauranteurs who slaved their entire lives away. Wolfgang Puck for example. There's an interview where he talks about how when he first went to america and went to a club, he was
dancing with this girl and they were having fun and all that. The girl then asked him what he did for a living, and he replied that he was a cook. The girl promptly disappeared. Nowadays, girls throw themselves at anyone who call themselves chefs. Gordon Ramsay's a sex symbol for god's sake! Chefs get major media attention, earn big bucks; it's good to be a chef, and as such, everyone and their uncles are jumping on the bandwagon. New restaurants are popping up faster than an erection of a hormonal teen in the girls' showers .Therein lies the problem. Not everyone can cook well. They set up restaurants with amazing decor but with crappy food. However, people will go there because the amazing decor leads to major media write ups and people will go to that restaurant and end up paying for overpriced food because said restaurant needs to recoup money spent on decor. People will eventually get jaded and stop going out to new restaurants and the boom will come to a halting stop with people like Thomas Keller and
Gordon Ramsay surviving, while 200,000 culinary school graduates from the states alone(if memory serves me right) will be stuck without jobs. Also, why the fuck do people need to be so goddamn pretentious (I probably have the spelling wrong, irony)?

Let me tell you what set off this rant. I recently went to this cafe which also deals with books
dealing with all things culinary. This place is in one of those shabby chic neighbourhoods, much like the meatpacking district in new york. However rental there is relatively cheap(i think) due to the fact that the area isn't the most accessible as well as it being in an area relatively unheard of. If i don't make sense to you, don't worry, it's a local thing, just trust me on the cheap rental. Well, i went down to the place in the pouring rain, hoping for a little chicken soup for my tired soul, hoping to find someone who genuinely loves food, to prepare food, to feed people, to create dishes for others to enjoy. Maybe i'm a sadist, but i geniuinely had high hopes for this place, much like how i genuinely had hopes for other places which let me down with lacklustre food,
service and honestly, not much love if you ask me; if you don't love what you're doing, if you don't love food, i don't think you can make food that's worth eating.

Anyways, i stepped into the place to find a place that was wonderfully done up. The decor was beautiful, white everyone, minimalist. How nice is it you ask? Halfway through my snack there, a couple came in to take their wedding photos. Well, i struck up a conversation with the chef-owner and what i heard from her was a whole lot of whining about how tough the hours were, how tough the work was, and how it wasn't as fun as she though it would be. WHAT. THE. FUCK. First of all, why are you telling a customer that? Want to whine? Go look for your mother, she's much more likely to lend a sympathetic ear. Or maybe a bartender.

And what the hell is so tough about working in that place? There's like a total of 8 dishes that need to be cooked to order?(again, i think) The rest being salads, sandwiches, soups and desserts that can and most likely are cooked beforehand. This being an open concept kitchen, i could observe the badly designed kitchen which must have been a bitch to work in. There was no plating area inside the kitchen so that had to be done outside the kitchen, there were only 2 stovetops so I'm assuming they planned for light workloads. 2 frying machines. That alone doesn't really fill me with confidence. I could go on and on but I'll just take it that you get the message, that it was a very poorly designed kitchen.

The menu? I could go on for days about the menu., but i shall not. Just let me say that using pasta to cook a chinese noodle dish isn't exactly a fresh idea anymore, it's bloody boring. Anyways, has anyone ever tried sticky date pudding? PUDDING! MOIST NO? FUCK NO! Not at this place at least. Dry as hell. Hey, look at the bright side, at least it was freshly baked. Oh, wait, it wasn't? It was heated up in a microwave? Oh. Ok. My bad. You'd also expect a date pudding to taste of dates no? Well, i honestly don't consider a cupcake with a few pieces of chopped up dates and a sticky caramel sauce a sticky date pudding. Oh wells, at least it's
cheap right? Noooooo. 11 bucks for a dry cupcake, a small scoop of decentish vanilla ice cream, 2 slices of unripe strawberries and a gooseberry for garnish. What a bargain.

If this seems to be a very very long and angry rant for a crappy pudding, I'm sorry. I'm angry, I've had way too many crappy meals that I've paid over the top prices for. And too many cases of stomach upsets. Dodgy scallops. Mushrooms sauce that had the flavour of durians due to improper refrigeration of the durian cheesecake that the place also sells. (which also leads to a bad case of the runs btw). Rissotos that had split. Lamb cooked to charry rubbery "goodness" regardless of me assuring them that i wanted it medium rare and that I would take all responsibility should I die eating food that is flavourful and tender.

I'm sick and tired of places that serve me crappy food artfully presented. Anyways, as I paid my bills and was about to leave, I eavesdropped on this interview that was taking place of the chef-owner of said cafe/bookshop. She was going on about molecular gastronomy and talking about how interesting the things that this local place was doing. Yeah, things that el bulli was doing ages ago and this place stole wholesale, right down to presentation. She doesn't know what's going on, she doesn't understand why most chefs are getting excited about molecular
gastronomy. The new textures that are possible, it's now possible to make pineapple mash with xantham gum. It's now possible to make hot ice cream. It's not about the foams, the caviars, the techniques for techniques sake, it's about making a new things possible.

I know this thing is a chore to read, but bear with me, let me get the anger out and I am sure the next post will be better. We now have people who don't love cooking, don't understand cooking,
have no love for ingredients, don't understand the ingredients, and are wasting them cooking and gaining media attention which they frankly don't deserve because they're doing something new, because they're quitting their day jobs to set up a restaurant/cafe.They're ruining things for people who paid their dues in restaurants learning the ropes, putting up with crap pay,long hours, abuse and all that simply to learn a craft. A craft they love. If you don't love it, you wouldn't make the sacrifices.

Tolerance, Acceptance, Question, Respect

I'm all for religion bashing, I could spend hours telling anyone how stupid religion is and how brainwashed I feel. How I believe that religion is child abuse, breeds a whole race of weaklings/crazy and hysterical people who kill others for merely questioning their belief. There is no limit to how much irritation I feel at people who walk around glassy eyed, looking at the sky and expecting giant sky daddy up there to take care of them in a very selfish and narcissistic manner. Yes yes, shut up, me, we've heard enough about that from you.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because I stumbled across a bunch of facebook groups titled "Fuck Islam", "Fuck Christianity", "Fuck Buddhism", etc. I know any comments I post will just be ignored so I decided to write a blog post about it. How ridiculous is that? I know and understand exactly where this person is coming from and in a way, I do respect that. He openly declares his hatred for religion, that's fine. I do too, however to blatantly say Fuck a particular religion?

Instead of opening up debates and forums for intellectual discussion, he has made a few websites that give the impression of religion-bashing. Meh, okay, I enjoy the lengthy debate and destroying someone's belief system but the only time I ever do that is when the particular religious person engages me first. I do not seek out religious people and go, hey, you're stupid.

I think earlier readers may remember a debate I had with Lance when this blog was still in its infancy about how one should be able to challenge another person's belief system. I really agree with this, I really do however I recognise that it is nearly impossible for anyone to do this without having their head blown off, or death threats. In an ideal world, anyone should be able to question anything but this is definitely not the case. You can't go up to a mosque and bash Islam, just like you shouldn't do that at a synagogue, temple or church.

I believe that what we should be teaching is respect which is a very, very tricky thing to achieve. Let's say, I am fully aware of my religion-bashing blog. I respect that some people may be offended by it however they should recognise my freedom of speech. I will definitely respect their wishes should they decide to boycott my blog. It is a silly thing to expect the internet to be policed to the point where I am not allowed to mention my views on religion. Of course, at the same time, I do not go out and make hate groups about religion. I think that goes a bit far. If we seek to integrate everyone, we might find the world a lot more peaceful. Unless of course, the group we are trying to integrate has a bloody attitude problem however, there will always be people who will try to take over the world, destroy the meek, capitalize on other people's misery, etc. What should we do then?

Welcome New Author

Ok, so I know I haven't been writing as many posts as before but I've kind of hit a brick wall. I don't have that many new ideas as what to rant upon. I'm sorry my readers, anyhow, my best friend, Chin, has expressed that he needs an outlet to vent so I've offered my blog for him to guest write. He's an upcoming chef and food critic, so I'm sure those among you who enjoy the gastronomical aspect of life may enjoy his work.

I hope you readers will give him a warm welcome, he definitely has a lot of awesome cooking tips for everyone. I'd also like to say that I will continue writing on this blog as well, he'll just post things when he finds something new to bitch about.

So glad uni's back

Thank god, that's all I have to say. I spent most of the holidays being ridiculously bored because I was broke AND was working just as a bartender. Yeah whatever I said it, just a bartender, just a construction worker and yes, JUST A NURSE. That's right, why do they think it's so easy for people with higher paying jobs. Anyone can pour drinks and clear bedpans, not everyone can perform brain surgery, practice law or work in a multinational corporation, etc. You know, you could be whatever you want to be, as long as you don't expect me to feel sorry for you.

Whatever you do defines you. Previously, I was a bummy uni student who was sucking her parents dry now, I'm a bummy uni student who works nights as a bartender but during the holidays, I was a just scummy bartender. That's fine with me, I do not have the skills yet to do what I want to do, but I will eventually. I'm not saying that you shouldn't treat everyone with respect, I'm just saying that you shouldn't have to treat people that have shitty jobs with extra care. Beyond the glamour, all jobs are shit and I shouldn't have to feel sorry for somebody else just because they're in the wrong profession.

Someone was telling me about how he has to get up at 3am in the morning and fly all around Australia for his job as some machine techie, blah blah. What the fuck am I supposed to say? I'm sorry that you're too stupid, can't commit to three years at uni or start your own business to make you more money so that you're not miserable? Then he goes on and tells me that uni graduates are useless. Yeah, fine. We're useless. I hope you never come to me with a brain tumour, mother fucker. We'll see how useless I am then, huh?

That really irritates me. Sure I'll be irritated that somebody has more money than me but I'd work to get to the point where I'd earn more. I don't see why people don't have this perspective and instead, expect to be given the same amount of income as people with higher level skills.

After that, I fucking hate bums. I hate bums so much, I know it wouldn't really matter if I gave them some of my change but fuck them. I work for my money, if they get beyond their fucking heroin habits or realise that they were going broke in the first place I'm sure there's SOME way for this whole bum thing to be prevented. In Singapore where there is no welfare, there is but a handful of baskers compared to the freaking heaps you see just walking around expecting you to give them cigarettes and change.

Trying a positive post

Most of my blog posts tend to be quite critical. It's not so much the fact that I do not recognise the beauty of things, I am just better at writing long rants about how pissed off I am compared to how happy I am. When I'm happy, I normally just take it in and shut up so you won't really hear me say oh wow, blah. Well, sometimes. I've gotten a camera recently so I might take more pretty pictures of things. I have to say how beautiful Australia really is, the sky is such a deep shade of blue and the foliage is amazing. Yeah, that's all I have to say about that.

Anyway, for all the things I say about Singapore, there has to be a few good things I can say about my home country. I'm proud to be Singaporean, sometimes, where I can freely admit that it takes a few hours to get anything done, at the most. Ever. You have problems with internet? Fixed within the day. Water problems? The day. Electricity? As long as you pay your bills, you're fine. Phone calls are relatively cheap, cab fares are still cheap compared to Australia. You want to check something? Just call some customer service centre, it will be sorted for you within the day. In Australia, it took a full 30 days to get my internet connected. My electricity got cut off for no apparent reason, I had to convince them that I yes, I do live here which is probably how I know that it got cut off in the first place?

It's ridiculously efficient in Singapore which is what makes us Singaporeans really spoilt. You want to wait for public transport for more than 15 minutes? Yeah right, just doesn't happen. A train comes every 3-4 minutes during rush hour and at a maximum of 10 minutes during off peak times. 10 minutes? Yeah, that's too long for the average Singaporean, we have to get there NOW! Even cabs, there are times when finding a cab is near impossible but we have taxi stands almost everywhere and a large force of retrenched businessmen driving them. That always makes for good conversation, hey, at least I'm entertained?

Technology moves at a ridiculously fast rate in Singapore as well. We scoff at Australia's pretentious lcd tv placements in cafes. So what, we say. We have touch screen tvs in taxis, lcd tvs with their own channel in our buses and tvs in our trains. Yeah, that's right, televisions everywhere. Even so, we have major shopping centres dedicated to hardware with little shops competing with each other in price, warranty promises and performance. Yeah lah, I know I talk big one, for all Singaporeans reading this but they don't have this kind of thing overseas.

We also have the multi-purpose student card, which is an absolute favourite of mine. Use the same card for student identification, student discounts, bus fare, train fare and even McDonalds. Yes, it's called the Ezylink system, adults have a version without the identification card bit which is fine. All you have to do is swipe the card when you get on or off buses and trains and even McDs. We also have coke machines that we can send smses to and get drinks.

We have other things in Singapore to be proud of, like the fact that it takes an hour to get from one end of the island to the other. Before anyone bitches about how Singapore's really small therefore we can, not true. It is due to the fact that we have super efficient infrastructure that is able to support 6 million people on a tiny island and cope with that much human traffic whether by bus, train or car. The food's also really great although quite as good as the other South East Asian countries.

We all know how much I hate the education system in Singapore. It's true, it did not cater to my genius. HAH, nah although I do have a LOT of qualms with the education system, I have to admit that for a person of AVERAGE or lower intelligence the education system gives you fair go. The problem in Australia's education system is that it seems to push for mediocrity, more people passing. They learn things when they're 16 that we learn when we're 13. This is good and bad, we learn at a faster pace but with minimal understanding whereas they learn at a slower pace with a firmer grasp on the concepts and are able to apply it more readily than we are.

Health care? Well, public polyclinics are 3 bucks a visit if you're a student. It's still really cheap and although they won't give you leave unless you've got a really high fever anyway, who cares? Even private gps are 10 bucks a consult, how awesome is that? Where else can they say that?

Last of all, the safety. I normally walk home at 4am at night without a single care in my mind. It's a whole lot more safe in Singapore than most other countries in the world and I really appreciate that. Of course throughout the course of my life I have focused on the negative aspects but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate what Singapore has given me. Will I continue to harp on the negative? Definitely, they're the things that need changing the most and that's exactly what people should focus on. We'd still be in caves if people like me didn't go, this is shit, let's make it better.