Daily Alerts

Finally get a time to breath today or rather this whole week. Haven't been able to sleep properly cos it's just one project another without any proper time to plan or think. Back to old sleeping habits of resisting sleep, think this always happens when there are too many things to do and my brain is secretly hoping that tomorrow will never come.

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I'm one of those that am obsessive (what's new) about checking email. I love receiving mail, whether its electronic or snail, it just gets me excited and itching to reply almost immediately (except work mail, of course). Recently in my school email there's been many many many erection ahem...enhancement related mailers, well not that I need any. Then, being the news whore I was glancing through the SMU Daily Alerts where they inserted a link to a future SMU student. Her well..letter. Sortof.

I do not think Singapore will see a repeat of the Maria Hertogh incident - just ask the rac-ist bloggers who were jailed. Race-specific socio-economic problems, usually the root of racial distrust, are also long gone as equal opportunities abound for all races.

The diverse backgrounds of most schools also inculcate inter-cultural awareness in our school-children. Nevertheless, we should never take racial harmony for granted.

The education authorities may disagree but I feel that placing too much emphasis on one's Mother Tongue will create ethnic enclaves. Having studied in a Special Assistance Plan secondary school, I had few, if any, schoolmates of other ethnicities. It thus becomes easy to develop wrong and stereotypical views of other races in this homogeneous environment.

A quick check on the world wide web revealed that Special Assistance Schools were formed as a measure to ensure biculturalism as well as ensure certain amount of Chinese-ness (language, culture etc.) was not lost. Guess I just felt a little sad by what she said. I used to be from a school with quite alot of Malays and Indian classmates and I don't think my teenage years would be the same without their crazy and wacky antics. I try to keep in touch with some of them but sometimes it just so hard. Despite that, there are always always many fond memories when we do bump into the street. For many Hari Rayas even in university I would invite myself to a malay friend's house for a yummilicious meal and hang out with her funny, eogistic second brother. Till now, even when we meet, there's no distance between us (though she is in Phuket :P). Even at my old workplace I would enjoy hanging out during lunch with a malay tudung wearing lady who was just so chilled and packed with a mean sense of humour. Eating malay food everyday was not a problem *salivating* But I'm still very chinesey (ok lah maybe not very chinesey, but not others either) in many of the things I like. KTV must sing chinese soppy love songs, speaking in broken mixture of dialects, zi char, pork lard (only if I don't see it), overall very proud to be chinese. I am this and I can be that. Sometimes it's just difficult to not see myself as a consistent, unidimensional person. Life is much simpler and easier to see people and ourselves in one plane. I like this, I don't like that, that gives me the creeps, that bloody bitch. At times, I'll just fall into the trap of not thinking deeper, but I'll quickly catch myself. Heuristics and stereotypes are for the lazy and unmotivated. There's no melange of colours or shades to differentiate life if we hold on to stereotypes. Heuristics I still need, he helps me to decide what to eat for lunch and what to wear hahaha...and to tell me oei, stop personifying words, you're sounding too much like a stressed up-workaholic researcher.