it was all going so well, until 10pm last night when all hell broke loose in my stomach and i visibly paled (an achievement, if you’ve met me and know how not-pale i am) and had to abandon the dinner halfway through discussing something quite important but i can’t remember what now. but, i guess, 10pm on a sunday night probably qualifies as ‘no longer the weekend’. so, perhaps, the weekend was fab! fab! fab! all the way through.

especially when the best laid plans for doing homework over the weekend (i know, so boring, how geeky, etc) are scuppered by text messages saying ‘i’m in east london, come for a drink or something’. and so, dutifully, we go for drinks and find out about art festival/exhibition in sweden in the summer, and then obviously i went ‘i’ve never been to sweden! let’s go and eat roll mops and meatballs and look at ikea hq! oh, and look at art too, of course.’

but that was sunday.

friday was results day. everyone was pleased with what they got, so celebrations were in order post lecture. after that, there was crtiical mass, cycling around london with police escorts. i got tired of it somewhere around hyde park corner and so we headed down to town for a drink, but really just to use the pub’s toilet. fish and chips at the fryer’s delight was weird. the food was good, but it was like being in a time warp, all 70s wood panelling walls and formica tabletops, cabbies talking politics.

saturday we went to the kinetica museum in spitalfields market, then looked around the other galleries on vyner street. the show at the kinetica museum was alright, but not great. i think there were just too many small displays that made it seem more like a toyshop than a curated show. they were all very intricate and interesting, but i would have much rather preferred fewer pieces, but each piece able to sustain my attention for a longer time. there was great embroidered art at one and another, and very funny portraits that made you look twice and stare hard at the david risley gallery.

so, i guess it was all pretty good going. weekends, i can see how much i’m going to love them when i start work. food poisoning i probably never will, by the way.

fascist america in ten easy steps.

in summary:

1. invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2. create a prison system outside the rule of law

3. maintain a body of spies/thugs/mercenaries to terrify the population

4. set up an internal surveillance system

5. harass citizen’s groups

6. engage in arbitrary detention and release

7. target key individuals, threatening civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don’t toe the line

8. control the press

9. dissent equals treason

10. suspend the rule of law

whilst the article is discussing the state of America, what flashed through my mind while reading it was how much it applied to singapore as well.

just a few examples.

dissent equals treason. obviously, since if you’re not with them you’re against them. i mean, no one in their right mind could ever possibly think that the PAP is wrong, and if you do, then you must be a traitor. because PAP is singapore, and if you’re not in complete support of the PAP, then ergo you are not in complete support of singapore, and consequentially, must be annihilated, humiliated, exiled, jailed, etc. because there cannot be more than one way of doing things, and the PAP way is the only way. capisce?

our terrifying internal and external enemy? internally –> terrorists, racial/religious riots, economic slowdown/crash, non-PAP government. externally –> just about every neighbouring country that singapore has the (mis)fortune of sharing the seabed/airspace/waterpipes with.

control of the press? enough said.

harass citizens’ groups, and threatening key individuals. well. to fully explore this would require a week-long exposition, and there’s enough out there to google. let’s just say that it’s clear these things happen in singapore, and no one could dare deny it. if in doubt, please remove the wool over your eyes and take a look around the real world. i bet THE MAN himself would probably gleefully admit it to the public, and probably say something like ‘of course we do, how else do you think we have been able to stay in power for so long?'’

so, is singapore a fascist state? or about to be a fascist state?

i would say that it might have been, but currently it isn’t and it probably won’t descend into a fascist state in the near future. i think, deficient as it is, there is still some substance (however lip-service only it may be) to the democratic processes in singapore. on the other hand, it is obvious that there is still a very long way to go before singapore enjoys the open and civil society that it ought to be aiming for.

it’s already got the skeleton of a democracy in place, now all it needs is the fleshing out of the body.

the landlord’s dropping by tomorrow with someone who wants to view the flat.

i kinda like it that this guy is probably as crazy on the ball as i am, and is looking for a flat for june/july two-three months ahead of schedule. because that’s exactly what i was doing when i scored this place, and sadly enough what i’m already doing for the next round of flat-hunting in january. i know, who the hell looks for a flat 8 months in advance?! i’m just scoping, i’m just scoping…. as i like to tell myself.

so, anyway, landlord says he’s coming over. mad rush to put dirty clothes into a dirty clothes pile, clean the stovetop, pick up 2 weeks worth of newspapers from their scatter-drop positions around the sofa, etc. and also buy a trashy plastic dinky camera. for £7. yay! plus one to my steadily growing collection of cameras that don’t have any functions above basic. i perhaps need to stop buying all these little toys and save up for a BIG ONE. like a digital slr or something. but, aiyah… it’s so cheap!!!

ok so, landlord’s coming over around 7 tomorrow. i have class till about 6. which means i’ll have to cycle to school tomorrow, so that i can cycle back. because the bus takes AGES during rush hour, and because it’ll probably help to get the adrenaline already running when i shove through the door and clean up like a whirlwind.

right then. that’s settled.

i wonder if i’ll like this potential renter-after-me. and i wonder if he’ll like what we’ve done to this place.

let me just say that beef, carrots, celery, coconut milk, thai red curry paste and ang zhao (fermented red wine lees, or something equally unromantic-sounding - english is such a butchery at times) is an awesome combination.

the only thing more awesome than that right now would be beef satay and ketupat hot off the satay grill.

also, song que on kingsland road is THE PLACE for vietnamese food. mmmmm

everyone’s talking about buying flats and houses. everyone.

my friends are doing it, my classmates are doing it, the newspapers are doing it. apparently, for every 1 property that goes on the market in london, there are up to 8 people vying to put down a deposit. and, apparently, prices are rising at about £40 a day or something stupid like that.

so what am i doing about this?

am i jumping onto this flat-buying bandwagon, considering that i can get a 100% mortgage because i’m a graduate and/or a professional mortgage because i’m going to be a solicitor? am i saving up money now to put a downpayment on a nice 1/2-bedroom flat in east/south london? am i?

well, i’m paying rent to my landlord who owns at least 3 properties around east london, that’s what. and i’ve decided that it’s not that bad a thing to be doing right now.

see, i refuse to jointly own a property, so i’ll have to buy a 2-bed property to rent out one room to collect half the mortgage payment. and until what i have to pay on my mortgage is less than what i pay for rent on a similar property, i’m not going to drown myself in all this mortgage/housebuying/debt malarkey. and i’d only buy in london (i don’t believe in commuting), so my market is already very small. and the choices aren’t exactly great for my price range. unless, of course, i win the lottery and have a quarter of a million pounds to spare.

and anyway, there’s nothing bad about renting. sure, you can view it as me paying someone else’s mortgage for them… but i’m living here not them, so it really amounts to the same thing. who cares whose name is on the property deed as long as i’m the legal occupier. the only difference is that the landlord is in debt and i’m not.

the other thing is, since everyone is mortgaged up to the hilt, one day everything is going to come tumbling down. not by loads, but enough. and when that happens, and if it happens in the next 5 years, i’ll go in for the kill. otherwise, i’m quite happy to remain debt-free thank you very much.

after all, i’m still rather young, and my benchmark age is 30 to be property-owning. i think this is related to my mother - we had a conversation once in the car and she said that if i couldn’t afford a HDB-flat by the time i’m 30 i ought to be reconsidering what i’ve been doing with my career. so, somehow this has translated into my belief that if i don’t own a property by the time i’m 30, i’m a failure. no, not really, i don’t believe that at all. it’s just a random milestone that i’ve decided upon. if all goes well career-wise, 30 is the age to be signing away a significant portion of my income to the bloodthirsty institutions we call banks. it’s like those population control campaigns: stop at two, but have 3 if you can afford it. my mantra is: carry on renting, but buy if i can afford it.

but even if i don’t end up owning anything for the next few decades, there’s no significant drawbacks i can think of at the moment. the lack of debt and the liquidity of my finances just mean that when the time comes, it’ll be much easier for me to ditch my career and become a world traveller instead.

i’ve just watched Martyn See’s film Zahari’s 17 Years, and i had/have so many things to say about it and Said Zahari and Martyn See. but then again, the whole thing makes me very sad and very angry, and more than a bit empty inside.

Said Zahari says of Lee Kuan Yew, that whoever is not with him is his enemy.

and somewhere in the middle of the film, Said Zahari says “i’m still a singapore citizen. i was born in singapore, i grew up in singapore. i love singapore, singapore is my country“.

and perhaps that is what the government has to understand. i might not agree with everything that they do, and i will continue to critically assess their actions. but this is not because i’m communist or i’m anti-singapore. in fact, it’s because i love singapore so damn bloody much that i’m doing it. who else, if not singaporeans, have a right to question the way in which we are governed? who else, if not singaporeans, have a vested interest in the governance of singapore? who else, if not singaporeans, should speak up?

it’s not about the government, it’s about singaporeans.

but y’know, i don’t think they care. they’re in power, and they’ll do whatever it takes to stay in power, and reap all the benefits that come with it.

the other day kim and i were talking, and we were saying what makes a successful politician: is it one who does what he/she says in his/her mandate that got he/she elected, or one who is in power term after term. obviously, if you ask the electorate they’d say the former, but if you ask a politician, it’s the latter. and never the twain shall meet.

anyway, it all makes me feel so very pathetic and wishing that i had the guts to do something. really really do something. but instead, here are pictures of pretty things.