I’ve been learning to cook nowadays, in part due to inspiration from the recent animated film Ratatouille, in part because I need to learn so that I can cook for myself when I go for exchange in Canada next year. With the Canadian dollar at a historical high now, I’m sure it’s a wise choice to cook for myself.

I just made some pasta (using beehoon) with sausages, carrot and broccoli today. The other day I made Laksa. Hehe, actually I cheat. I used Prego’s pasta sauce and Prima Taste Laksa premix. I’ll be bringing some of the Laksa mix pouches to Canada for cold winter nights when I miss spicy foods and sambal sauce. I’ve also been experimenting with homemade yogurt, making yogurt smoothies, etc.

With the Internet, cooking has become relatively easier today. Instead of relying on some recipe books that somehow no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to make good dishes out of, one can find simple and delicious recipes on websites like AllRecipesand Epicurious

Cooking is quite fun, but unfortunately it can be pretty time consuming just to come up with something simple. Got to take ingredients out of the fridge, cut meat and vegetables, prepare the condiments and cook. Then after eating got to wash everything. Quite a hassle, compared to getting packed food in disposable packaging and plastic cutlery.

Sometimes I wonder to myself - why do I make myself suffer so much, being so troubled over schoolwork and trying so hard to score well?

I do understand that grades aren’t proof of anything other than the fact that I mug a lot, and I know that grades aren’t everything one needs to have a successful career. If anything, for someone like myself who really wants to start a business after graduation, grades are kind of irrelevant.

So then, why am I still so stressed over these things? I think it might be habitual. Since my O Levels I have consistently been placed near the top in every course that I’ve taken, won something in competitions I’ve taken part in and gotten awards that I applied for. The pressure to perform is there. Above average is not quite enough. I always need to be somewhere up there, otherwise I’d be uncomfortable.

Polytechnic courses were a breeze. I never had to mug as much as I do now at NUS. It makes me wonder whether I’ve become less intelligent since graduating from poly, since I got to work so hard now to maintain the same level of performance. This just adds on to the stress.

Somehow, I cannot convince myself not to work hard even though I know eventually the grades won’t mean a lot to my career plans. Some people might argue its a good quality to have, diligence… but its making my life really terrible. I’m forcing myself to do what I dislike, just so that I can get some nice looking grades… Thinking of all the project deadlines and classes I have to attend makes me feel depressed.

I know I’m lucky to be able to get a good education and all… but I’m really not finding it enjoyable.

Sigh.

From now onwards, freeloaders in my project teams will be reported to lecturers at the end of term. I will not practice confrontation, because I believe freeloaders understand the likely consequences of their actions. I’ve always tried to be kind and understanding since everyone has lots of projects to do, but time management is each individual’s personal responsibility. “Busy” is really not an excuse. One chooses what to sacrifice over other things if he believes there isn’t enough time. It’s all about priorities.

I never knew dying at home was really an issue worth studying about until I read in the news recently that the Ministry of Health would be studying into how to let more people die in the comfort of their own homes.

Indeed, it is very sad that only 3 in 10 people die at home. I was astounded when I knew about that statistic. I’ve always thought that a majority of people die at home, not in the hospital.

When my father was terminally ill in 2005, he had to go in and out of the hospital very often. Every other day or so, there would be someone on the same level (where all the cancer patients were warded) who would pass away. It was very discouraging for fellow patients as well as their caregivers to see and hear the grief of family and friends of the dead patients, who all fear the day when their turn would come.

There is very little privacy when dying in a hospital. The nurses just pull the curtains up around the beds, and there is little else that can be done. It’s certainly not the best environment to die in.

Given that the last days of terminally ill patients can more or less be estimated based on their conditions, it would certainly be good if patients and their caregivers can be encouraged and empowered - in terms of medical and logistical needs - to let them spend their last days at home where it can be more comfortable than a 6 or 8-bed hospital ward where a patient is faced with many other scenes of suffering besides his own.

As for my father, I am glad that he made a decision back then, to not go to the hospital anymore. He was feeling very tired of having to go in and out for treatments that didn’t seemed to work, and one day during his medical appointment, he asked his doctor whether he could schedule less frequent appointments for him. The doctor simply nodded and said sorry.

Although two weeks before his death he had to be admitted via the emergency department, he spent his final days at home with family around him, and just 2 or 3 days before he left, he was visibly happy when friends and relatives visited him.

He decided to give up one evening when he called the family to gather around and told us that he wasn’t afraid of dying… that he was feeling very tired of the fight, and wanted to go to nirvana and that he would miss us. We then agreed to call in the religious people to pray for him the next day, but just slightly before dawn he began his last journey.

I hope MOH would provide more help, education and support for the terminally ill to allow them to die at home. It is the very least comfort that can be given to these people and their families.

I tend to think that NUS is full of selfish people, because ever since I started doing projects here I’ve been plagued with all sorts of horrible project group mates.

My first term in NUS I had to do a project with an exchange student who went on trips to SEA countries every weekend… I think he visited more of SEA in his 4 months here than I ever did in my entire life). And during my second term, I had a Mexican exchange student who did just about the same thing, and we could never really get hold of her so the rest of the group just did everything ourselves.

There is also the type with lots of CCA and business commitments who don’t care much about getting good grades more than they care about their other commitments. I had one last term who practically ‘forgot’ to turn up for 3/4 of our group meetings. And this sem I am stuck with a number of them. I now have at least one such person in most of my ongoing project groups.

This is terrible for me, because I am on a scholarship and am expected to score at least a certain grade to keep it. Projects usually constitute a good portion of the grades, and uncommitted group members usually pose as a serious threat to project marks. So these people are driving me up the wall with their antics and excuses of all sorts.

Sigh. I’m really frustrated.

I suddenly thought about this issue. Why are undergraduates and poly students in Singapore not considered as students when we take public transport?

Isn’t it discriminatory to collect adult fares from us, since undergraduates and poly students are still full-time students with little to no income? In fact, I suspect many secondary school and JC students get more pocket money than their tertiary counterparts.

I feel that it’s about time such a policy is changed. This is basic welfare for tertiary students, many who need to scrimp and save for their living expenses and constantly increasing tuition fees…

Lately there’s been much unhappiness among NUS students over a proposed amendment to a policy of allowing students to choose whether to declare certain modules they take on an S/U basis, meaning that the student will be graded on a pass/fail basis rather than letter grade. This effectively means that the S/U grade will not affect a student’s Culmulative Average Point (CAP).

Previously, students have to declare whatever modules they wish to take on an S/U basis by the 7th week of each semester. This year however, the NUS undergraduate studies board came up with a new policy - new students (matriculating this year) will be able to declare their S/U options after exam results have been released, while existing students are excluded from this privilege.

The introduction of this new policy immediately caused an uproar among senior students, many questioning the rationale behind implementing such a policy. The most pertinent question was - why were senior students excluded from the new policy? This concern is not unfounded, because new students often take the same modules as their seniors and it would be unfair if they were allowed to choose to have their letter grades ignored at the end of the semester, compared to their senior counterparts who would have to declare earlier and thus be taking a risk on the declaration.

In the initial annoucement released by the school, no reasons were given as to why seniors were excluded from the new policy. Subsequently, the students’ union started an online survey and forum for students to voice their views on this matter. From the hundreds of messages posted on the forum denouncing the new policy, it was quite apparent that NUS’s management had implemented the policy without considering students’ opinions. This is very insensitive and inappropriate, but unfortunately, this is the way that NUS’s policies usually work - for example, the policy that exam papers cannot be reviewed by students (except for tallying of marks).

I have heard much from my friends who went to overseas universities that at those institutions, student opinions are taken seriously, and students are given much more respect than here in NUS. For example in a certain university (maybe in many of them, I don’t know), post-exam review sessions are held by lecturers to allow students to learn from their mistakes as well as for them to talk to the lecturers if they feel they deserved higher marks. Here in NUS, exam results are strictly non-negotiatable, and we never know where we done well/badly in… so we don’t really learn anything from exams.

From time to time, the news also carries reports on how at some university, students’ protests or unhappiness over tuition fee increments eventually lead to the universities’ managements backing down. Not in NUS though.

Anyway, back to the S/U policy incident. It appears that NUSSU compiled students’ opinions over this policy and tabled them to the school management, and the latest update says that the new policy will now be extended to the entire student body (hooray!) and senior students will also be able to find out how they were graded for those modules they had previously declared as S/U.

I’m glad things have turned out positively for us NUS students. I hope this will set an example to NUS management in future when they consider implementing policies that will affect students, to seek students’ opinions first. This is very basic respect (when we are actually paying fees to the school, shouldn’t we be treated as customers?), and as an educational institution; particularly as a “world-class” one, NUS management should potray themselves as a positive example of good corporate governance. Speaking of which, although the matter has already been resolved now, I still like to point out that the proposed new S/U policy favouring new students did not seem to go well with NUS’s policy of non-discrimination anyway.

Well, the news is out that bus fares will go up marginally again next month. I’m not surprised at all, given that in recent times the prices of so many things have gone north.

The real cost of the 2% GST hike was not just 2% - factoring in the little bit of extra price increases and round-ups here and there, the real cost is actually significantly higher.

The usual excuses for raising bus fares were given - increased operating costs, blah blah. However, the bus operators always seem to be earning higher year-on-year profits - so some questions are:

• Are the operating costs really going up?
• Are the impacts of previous price increases more than enough to cover ‘rising costs’? if so, is the current round of fare increase justified?
• Are we getting bang for our bucks? For example, in China where everything is cheap (including bus fares), bus operators can still offer the value-added service of having automated announcements at every bus stop - making it very easy for travelers, especially tourists or those illiterate/people who are poor at identifying locations

Also, I have noticed that SBS transit recently launched a loyalty program to reward commuters who use its services. Is this necessary? Bus services are basic, essential services for people to get around - commuters don’t want anything more than getting to their destinations safely and in reasonable comfort. How many people really appreciate the loyalty program… and seriously speaking - how many people give a hoot at all about taking more buses than they need just to earn some extra points?

If SBS Transit saved the hundreds of thousands of dollars or whatever amount of money it spent on implementing this useless program, it’d have saved enough money. So why cite rising operating costs on one hand when on the other hand it is throwing money away like that?

Another example - free shuttle services are provided by SMRT at Outram Park and Dhoby Ghaut for commuters wanting to go to Chinatown and Little India respectively. While the rationale for this move is understandable (so as not to share the MRT fare revenue with SBS Transit’s North-east Line), it also presents extra operating costs. I wonder whether they done their math correctly, because I believe many commuters don’t give a hoot about getting off at Dhoby Ghaut and then waiting for a scheduled shuttle bus (which might not even have enough seats) to take them to Little India, when they could have just as well gotten onto another train at NEL. At least, I think it’s a dumb program.

Yet another point - There are other ways for these bus operators to earn revenue - through advertising services. Rather than increasing bus fares, they can just increase the advertisement rates marginally - say a $1,000 increase per bus ad… would mean nothing much to a big budgeted firm who can afford to advertise on buses in the first place - but would mean 50,000 times of a 2-cents fare hike.

One last point to make - Bus operators make it a habit to cite rising fuel costs as the main reasons for fare hikes - its almost like their favourite gripe. However, fuel costs fluctuate frequently - sometimes they do drop by perhaps 10% or whatever… then when they do drop, do we see bus fares adjusting to reflect lower costs? No! Here in Singapore, fares only go in one direction - up.

So in my opinion (and I know in many other people’s opinions) - this fare hike is totally ridiculous (and to convince us otherwise would be undermining Singaporeans’ intelligence levels).

So what’s gonna be up next?

Alas, there are no more vacancies left…