tsewei’s blog

Saturday morning, and I wanted to sleep till noon, but instead I woke up a little earlier to put myself to some productive use.

I finally went and opened myself the UOB Campus account. Countless friends have told me about it, and I thought it’s all pretty cool. Free chequeing account, plus debit card that I can use for online shopping as well. So yes, I woke up earlier just so I can go conduct mundane matters at the bank and bore myself out.

Found that the Clementi branch is the nearest to NTU in terms of transport time, but unfortunately, I didn’t know that branch is soo0o small, that there were only 2 counters for account opening. And there was hardly any waiting space. People were standing and waiting for their turns. But I thought, Oh well, just gotta quicky get a number and join their queue and it’ll be my turn in no time.

Boy, was I wrong. I pressed the machine for my number: 1059.

I looked up at the screen: “Now serving: 1030″.
I was like: wtf?!?! the bank is closing in an hour and they have 30 clients to serve?!

I stood there like a deflated balloon, almost wanting to run off to the MRT and head to the bigger Orchard main branch. Hating that I’m standing there and watching the seconds tick away while the “Now Serving” numbers stagnate eternally, I went to ask a bank officer there for the application form to fill and clarify some questions.

So there we were, me asking questions and him answering them, and at one point I asked if there were any documents I need to present or special fineprints to owning the account since I am a foreign student here. Then the guy was like, “Oh, you’re foreign student? I thought you’re local. You sound local.”

I dunno lah, but what’s with the sounding local thing? (not the first time already.) I mean, seriously, I speak English in Singapore just the way I speak English in KL. No put-up accent, no difference, except of course I cancel out the Manglish words when I’m in Singapore coz no one would get it. And I do put up my “lets-talk-business” voice when I deal with ppl in banks, customer service, and other important stuff (just so they’ll take me seriously and give me what I want. ). But really, I don’t see the need for the surprise. Undeniably a lot of Malaysians and foreigners speak with a certain accent that sometimes make them stick out, but I find it a bit insulting sometimes when some people assume that foreigners in the S.E.A. don’t speak English fluently. Come to think of it, I even got a “your English is pretty good for a Malaysian” before.

Maybe there’s an ounce of truth in there, but I guess that reflects another painful issue, which is that of the failures of the education system in Malaysia. I have met peers who had a hard time handling their first sem in uni, not because they are not brilliant (I respect these ppl for taking the STPM exams in M’sia. I chickened out, escaped that & did A levels here instead) but because they have problems trying to cope with doing everything in English for the first time. It’s a steep uphill climb for them, but they diligently persevered on.

Well, the government has finally realised that speaking Malay will only get you business from Indonesia, and introduced the core Science and Math curriculum in English. But I don’t see how it’s even effectively doing anything. Stories of teachers who teach kids the wrong pronunciations in primary school, and friends in 6th form tell me they have to study everythg in English on their own coz the teachers don’t know nuts.

It’s so screwed up ‘coz the government doesn’t have any proper implementation plans and not enough funds (coz x% of the funds are probably siphoned off into someone else’s pockets), and that’s not even the biggest problem yet. The divide between the city and the kampungs is just too big. Some luckier kids have the environment to be exposed to the English language, and English classes in school bore them. While some in the rural areas cannot even put a proper essay together. Some get the chance to get out of the system, while others are stuck, and left out of it.

I used to always think, one day I’ll go back and live + work in KL again once I’ve finished my 3-year commitment here. I like the place, because my family is there, and it’s a big chunk of my past (well, as big a chunk as it can get in a 22-year life) + great food. But of late, I’m loosing that ‘want’ to go back. Having lived in Singapore for so long (and NY for a short stint), I realise there can be so much more out there. Things are getting from bad to worse in KL. Robberies happen everywhere, ladies have to act all paranoid about locking their cars, and not drive alone at night. Police tells me “apa boleh buat?” (what can we do?) when i reported my snatch thief case. They conned my Singaporean friends for exhorbitant bribes on the highway. How bad can everything get?

Some old friends ask me, “isn’t it very expensive to live in Singapore?” And I’m telling you it’s not. For the salary you earn here, you don’t have to pay as much for food. In KL, food prices go up so fast I can’t keep track everytime I’m back, but salaries stay stagnant there. Yeah sure, cars and real estate is costly in Singapore, but with the excellent public transport system, who needs cars except the rich? Better than KL where everyone thinks they can afford a car (coz it sounds so cheap), when in the end they’ll end up spending years and years paying off their loans for a lousy car to get stuck daily on the traffic jams.

I know this is a whole lot of negativity here, but it’s just thoughts that I’ve gone through from time to time. It gets depressing when you see that things have the potential to be a whole lot better, but things are just bogged down by too many factors from bad politicians, to apathy, to historical inheritance of a bad system that snow-balled to something this ugly. It’s hard not to feel sad about the whole thing. I’m not saying Singapore is wonderful-hurray-wheee-excellent, but at least for now, it offers me the basic needs of comfort and security.

Some people might label people like me who have gone away ” unpatriotic” and etc, but who gives a fuck really? If I had stayed in government schooling, I’ll probably be languishing in some pathetic unprofessional uni and taking a course that’s my 7th choice because of a screwed up system. No one in their right mind would choose that if they had another option out of it. Talks of patriotism is bull when you cannot even save your own skin. Want to talk about going back and help change the situation? I don’t know how that’s possible when half the society is apathetic, and the other half forgetful (yeah, voting the ppl u complain about back into power. smart move.) But seriously, I don’t even know how I’d vote because I don’t have faith in either the ruling or opposition to do any concrete changes.

Ok enough rants. This topic gets me going and going so I’d better stop. phew.

Maybe one day I would go back to live in KL, but that’ll only be because of my family. For now, I’m alright at where I am.

i hate it when project screws up.
I spent my effort trying to secure an interview with a company for a project case study. When I finally got the interview date, I realised I would be back home. So fine, I even took the effort to prepare out a list of things to ask and a focus list on things we absolutely need to find out and learn from the interview. And emailed it to my group so whoever that’s going for the interview has something to work on.

And in the end, the interview turned out to be pretty much useless. The company refused to give too much details, glossing over all our questions. Fine, I’m pissed already coz that’s leaving us hanging with nothing when they say they could help us at first. But I’m also pissed that nobody bothered to press further for more details, ask more questions to get more info, or even any supporting documents that they can give us. At the end of the interview, we still don’t know how the company structure looks like! We just know it’s a flat structure with the CEO doing a lot of work! Gee, that’s gonna be damn useful in writing a 5000 word submission in two bloody weeks’ time. AND the telephone call or e-mail that was supposed to be placed to the MDA for some additional background info on our case study hasn’t even been made!! And I provided the contacts and press release info to the one who volunteered to make the call like 2 weeks ago!

grrrr…. am I the only person who feels the urgency of the stupid project?

And it’s not like this is the only thing I have to do. I still have my script to write, a 3page paper to submit next week and a midterms test. I don’t mind working on those, but I don’t need more rubbish to worry coz interviews aren’t carried out properly and calls that we supposed to be made weren’t done and no one seems to give a damn but now only come and ask, ’so how ah?’

argh. *fuming*

I placed a call to the scholarship office and found out what happened to my money.

Apparently, due to “an oversight” on some person in the office, my result conversion letter was not circulated to the Office of Admissions for the disbursement to be processed. Acks! Your “oversight” is causing me to sit here sweating over my rapidly declining bank account, and counting down to the next bill deduction from it. Grrr…

Why must all these admin stuff take so0o long to process, I wonder? My results were mailed from Ithaca ages ago, wayyy before semester even started. First my school’s system still thinks I’m in Year 2 instead of Year 3 and kept spamming me with Year2-related e-mails (they’re asking me to go for student exchange program again. hah). Damn it. But that’s OK. At least they made an effort to make sure that I can still access vital information (such as the internship stuff) and they have already updated their system recently. Now my money isn’t here ‘coz someone forgot to pass a piece of paper to the appropriate office.

Bah.

gargh!! so pissed, so stressed.

I just got back to Singapore two days ago. I found out that my old mobile phone line will expire, um, TOMORROW! yeah, I need a new mobile line, fast.

I didn’t want to have to rely on my cousin or friends who are PR or Singaporeans to help me sign up for an 8-digit number for me to yak on. Fine if I have to pay S$200 as deposit, AND have the access to International Direct Dialing (IDD) and international roaming blocked, just because I’m a foreign student here. I can live with that. No big deal.

But it’s totally something else when Starhub made it so difficult for me to apply for a new mobile line by being rigid, inflexible, and unconcerned. First, I cannot just sign up with any of their authorised dealers, so I had travel for an hour to Orchard Road to get that done. I thought it’s alright, just one hour wasted. Again, no big deal.

When I got there, they tell me I’d need my passport, foreign student pass, and proof of billing. Now the problem is, I don’t have any proof of billing. I don’t actually have ‘physical’ bills to pay when I’m here. The old mobile bill is sent to my cousin but deducted from my bank directly. Hostel fees I pay online. School fees: free. AND OCBC does not issue bank statements for my passbook savings account!! But I DO have my bank account, with money in there and etc, and by agreeing to pay electronically by GIRO system, they don’t even need to mail me my bill since it’ll be paid directly from my bank to them automatically each month!!

Sure, a proof of billing is just something to show that yes you do exist and live in this country and therefore can be tracked down if bills aren’t paid. I just cannot understand why they have to be so rigid and insist on having bank statements or my old bills (all of which do not exist) just so they can have my name, address, and some signs of money on the same piece of paper.

I offered to get my hall officer to certify that I am a resident here and my mailing address is blablabla, AND to get the bank personel to tell them that yes I do hold this account with an address that matches exactly the one on my foreign student pass, AND to get back to them asap when the bank can issue me a consolidated statement (problem is also my bank account hasn’t been active in the past 6 months coz I’ve been away!) Plus, I’m signing the contract to bill me electronically via GIRO, of which bills will certainly get paid automatically without me moving a single muscle! SO, why so persistent on the one single bit of paper??

I don’t get it. There ARE ways to confirm that I can be safely billed to such-and-such address, and I can always back this up by requesting the bank to issue a consolidated statement (after 20 transactions have been made) as soon as I can. Geez, it’s not like I’m even running away with their service without paying! They just refuse to budge from the fixed procedures without even first considering that there are other ways to verify the info and help me as their customer get what I came here today to purchase.

After all, this is suppose to be a commercially driven company, and getting businesses from customers should be of priority and thus follows the importance of helping customers as far as they can. But all I got was people who stick to bereaucracy and stick to one and only way of doing things without even wanting to help and consider other ways around it. In the end, they caused such frustration and hassle which could have been reduced if people were just a little more flexible. There is, after all, more than one way to reach to a final point.

Gargh!

I’m finally back home in PJ, after over TWO days of flying. Yes, TWO fucking days. I hear you asking: “Why the heck do you need two days to fly from rural upstate New York to Singapore?” Well, why don’t you sit back and let me begin my rant about US air travel. (long post ahead, so bear with me).

1. Flight delayed.
My travel route was Ithaca-Philadelphia-Chicago-Hong Kong-Singapore. As you can see, that’s pretty much of a pain on its own with FOUR bloody transits (not my fault, but some stupid travel agent. More on that later).

So there I was, sitting on the carpeted floor (hmph, not enough seats) at Gate C10 of Chicago O’Hare Airport, very much resigned to my fate of 30-hour butt-hurting flight, when the people at the gate announced that instead of flying one hour late as scheduled, we will only fly on the NEXT MORNING!! Reason: something was wrong with the plane, it’s still stuck in the hangar, and they *somehow* cannot use the other plane that’s coming in from Tokyo.

Soon, people were forming queues to get their hotel and meal vouchers for the day. I found out that there’s a plane leaving Chicago for Singapore via Tokyo in about half an hour, so obviously I wanted to know if I can get on that. But NOOOOOOOO. No one wanted to help. All those people at the counter did not even want to bother to check and just simply replied to me “it’s a full flight”.

Worse, another told me “It’s gone. Left.” I was pissed at this fella alright. 1. Does he think I’m some Chinese who can’t understand English to have to use that kind of truncated sentence as a reply?!?! 2. The plane obviously hadn’t left ‘coz it left 20 minutes later than scheduled (yes, Au Yong was on the Internet finding out about flight info for me while I tried to get some attention from the United Airlines people to help me.) Sure, you probably can’t put me on the flight since it’s leaving soon, but can’t you at least put some effort to help, or at least have better attitude?? Not even a word of sorry from the lady who was yelling instructions on hotel vouchers etc through the announcement system. Ish.

So that’s how I ended up staying at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency for the night. Well, at least it’s a nice hotel, and I had a nice bath and an even nicer dinner.

But when I reached Hong Kong, there was no other UA flight going to Singapore until 7 hours later. So again, I walked aimlessly around the HKIA, bought another novel, ate more free food “courtesy” of United Airlines, and struggle to fight off sleep while I sat at the gate and rotted my way till 7.45pm. Whee.. what *fun*.

2. Lousy cabin crew.
This is not the first time. But with every UA flight that I have taken, not a single flight attendant will help me with my carry-on luggage.

Let me lay out the facts: I’m vertically challenged. I’m not really strong either, and my laptop bag weighs 3.4kg++. The overhead luggage compartment is high up, for me at least. And imagine, when a little girl of only 1.54m tries to haul a heavy bag over her head, there’s a good chance that she might fall backwards (and hurt other passengers), or the brick-laptop might fall off.

But it seems the flight attendents never ever notice. NEVER. I either have to do that myself, or usually other nice passengers lend me a hand. I didn’t pay through my nose for my air ticket so that other nice people (who paid as much) provide the service that flight attendents should. And this never happens whenever I fly MAS. United Airlines should really think about re-evaluating their service quality, and stop boasting about being the biggest (or something) air line flying international from the US.

3. Stupid travel agent
Stupid travel agent (whose service was procurred by a friend) booked tickets for us on TWO airlines. United Airlines for the international flights and US Airways for the last stretch to/from Ithaca on board a noisy 20-seat propeller plane. Travelling from Singapore to the States early this year was no problem ‘coz they gave us all the ticket at Changi. But flying back was a problem.

Both airlines don’t issue out tickets until the day of my flight at the airport. And Ithaca airport cannot provide me with UA tickets and they can’t check me in internationally either. So they tell me I need to get off the plane, run from Terminal F to Terminal D, get out, go to ticketing counter, get PHIL-SIN tickets, queue up again to check in internationally, go through security check again, run back and wait at the gate. All these to be done in 1 half hour.

Isn’t this stupid? When I am travelling, I want my travel plans to be as smooth as possible. I don’t need more running around unfamiliar airports to entertain myself. I want to get my tickets, get my passport stamped, get my luggage tagged, and sit in the plane and wait for in-flight entertainment. Not this kind of shit.

Which could have been well avoided IF the travel agent had booked me on UA all the way, which was very possible. UA might not have their planes in Ithaca, but they do code-sharing carrier business with US Airways. It’s the same bloody plane that I’ll be on. SO what’s wrong with getting a UA ticket instead of US Airways?

And why didn’t I get that? Well, ‘coz the travel agent is dumb. As a travel agency, it is their job to know about these kind of things, and it is their job to make their clients’ travel experience a smooth and comfortable one. Instead, I get stressed. *Great* job, I’d say.

4. Irritating-as-hell phone helplines.
Those airlines phone HELPlines are totally not helpful. It seems nowadays, not only do they make you listen to long lists of options and press buttons, they also make you TALK to the monotonous machine voice. They use this voice recognition technology shit and make you answer their questions instead of hitting buttons, which in my opinion, is hell lot more irritating. If I wanna use my vocal cords, I’d like to speak to a real human being, not some stupid tape-recorded voice.

So what I do is I purposely screw up the answers, and sure enough, after a few rounds, the machine gave up and transferred me to a human being. Wahaha, and I thought the problems are over.

But it seems, everytime I contact these helplines, everyone gives me different answers to my question. No one knows for sure how/where exactly do I collect my ticket, one says I will have ample time for transit another says I don’t. What the fuck is this?!?! I want my itenary confirmed, and my questions answered, and in return I get more things to worry about ‘coz it seems no one knows anything!

What the hell is wrong with these people? It’s a helpline, so for goodness sake, provide HELP and do your work properly.

In conclusion, this is all I have to say:
Grrrrghh all you dumb idiots!!!!
Thanks for wasting my time and bringing me 39.2 minutes closer to death.

I am only glad my trip back to PJ from Singapore went without a hitch.

i’m writing my 4th paper this week already. sigh. And this one for my international relations class is by far the toughest. And it’s due tomorrow. urgh.

“Can terrorism be combatted with warfare?”

I’ve all the reasons to support why it is wrong and why it is strategically stupid to do so blablablah.

But turning it the other way round, how then should terrorism be tackled?

I don’t know. I’m stumped.

I can criticize a whole lot on the war on terror blablablablah, but I can’t come up with any decent alternative solutions to it (besides the usual lame and vague stuff about understanding others and peace through engaging nations in capitalism — which has a lot of other issues of its own too).

Is it just me, or is the situation something that is beyond solving? Is it that hopeless?

sigh. My brain hurts. Gotta stop reading (and thinking) and hop on to bed now.

Good night.

my brains must be having some problem differentiating the two.. otherwise, explain to me how did I manage to set the wrong alarm!?!

Was tired in the late afternoon after finishing one essay accusing National Geographic of brainwashing the gullible audience that we are, so I decided to nap a bit and get up by 6+pm to go have dinner. Obviously my brain was already halfway in lalaLand when I set my cellphone alarm to go off, yup, at 6+ AM. Damn smart. *whacks head*

And I only woke up at sometime close to 8pm!! Argh! just missed dinner at the dining halls. So now I’m sitting here in front of my lappietop ranting about it and eating instant noodles straight from the pot and listening to ABBA from my ittybitty laptop speakers. How sad is that? (ok, the ABBA part isn’t sad. Just the noodle n ittybitty speakers part).

sigh, I have got to stop being such a pig and quit having afternoon/evening naps.

yeah yeah, I can hear some of you snort. I can HEAR you!! But it’s ok, ‘coz I don’t believe myself either heehee.

*takes a big slurp of noodles with bits of egg* YUM!

okie, I have got to get back to reading some article about surrealism, dada, and situationists blablablah. Read one page and I am so0o not understanding this academic blabbering.

It doesn’t help that I just found out the movie I’m suppose to watch in class tomorrow, Tout Va Bien (Everything is fine), is by the same half-crazed genius director Jean Luc Godard who gave me the movie A bout du souffle (Breathless) that screwed my brains up trying to ANALyse it for my essay assignment weeks ago. Thrills. *rolls eyes*

But then again, it’s French, and that’ll be enough to keep me happy.

OKAY! Back to work you pig! *I tell myself with my imaginary voice*

gosh, I sound deranged. But I don’t really care.. lalala…
*boogies to more ABBA tunes*

will be leaving KL in about 15 hours time.. flying back to Singapore for some last minute packing and clearing my stuff there before i fly off again next week to NY. Really gonna miss KL/PJ.. Will miss the food (most yummylicious, as my tummy will affirm to), miss the shopping (1 Utama is still the best no matter wat!), miss the people (crazy drivers on the road, dvd sellers who pop up next to u at the mamak), miss my family, friends, and my darling. =)

I stopped the rental of my hostel for the next half a year so now my roomie Grace has got a new roomie. Talked to her and she’s not really having fun with the new roomie. It’s some cheena girl who likes chinese-pop. Not very sociable either. Yup, so definitely different. Poor Grace. sigh, I’d really like to keep my room too, but can’t really afford to pay rent just to keep the room without physically staying there. =( Most probably will stay at someone else’s place when I get back to Singapore for the next few days.

It seems pre-departure can get real stressful. I hate packing. But when I get back to Singapore, I’ll have to clear up and pack my stuff again. This is the Nth time that I’m packing this holidays. And I still have got to pack my luggage for the flight later. This is really starting to get on my nerves. bleah.

Yup, I guess this blog entry has just taken a turn, and will now be classified under Rants. yes, I feel bleah, and I’m gonna bleah however many times I want right here until I feel better (or tired, whichever comes first).

Bleah. Bleah. Bleah.

ok. Will not torment you further, dear reader. ;) I’m gonna go pack my stuff and bleah while I’m at it.

.. NOT! bleah…

Took the KTM night train service back to KL last night and I was suppose to arrive at KL Sentral by 6.30am. At about 6.00am, I woke up all bleary-eyed, and saw that I was passing a station. Excited that I’m finally gonna be home, I sat up and looked out of the window. To my horror, the station’s sign said “Tampin” — the station which the train was supposed to have passed by TWO hours ago!

Bloody hell, just when I thought KTM has finally bucked up and improved their service by arriving on time for the past few train rides I’ve taken.. Again, they’ve disappointed me. Ended up getting stuck on the train for another 2 plus hours, and arrived in KL Sentral at close to 9am. Damn. And all the while I was freezing away no thanks to the crazy air conditioning. What were they trying to do? Preserve us like frozen meat, izzit? bleah.

So, I got bored, and ended up yakking on the phone. Then, took a photo with my phone when the train stopped (again) at Kajang station.

Sigh. Just hate wasting my precious time freezing away on the train. It didn’t help that I didn’t have time to grab a good book with me this time round. Stupid KTMB!! bleah!

okie. This is my rant for the day. I’m done.
=)