Having been stood up by Eddie (of all people!), I was left having supper, alone.
It was not all that bad since eating alone meant that I could get really comfortable with myself. I parked the car along a pretty deserted street, wound down the window and put my favourite radio station on.
I think it might seem apparent to listeners of late night radio shows that the world is definitely not short of emo people. Nothing too surprising there if you realize that the entire world is either in love, or out of love.
How's that for lesson of the day?
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Friday, July 06, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
how weird it is that in just a year of difference, the focus has completely changed.
last time i used to be reading the flyff forums, now, i find myself reading the investments forums. a year ago i was still on flyff killing monsters, now i find myself pouring through e books, printed material, online magazines, newspapers, the straits times, the economists and all.
why is there such a large difference.
perhaps now gaming doesn't really appeal to me anymore. i've tried to go back to gaming, but after a few missions in 'command and conquer' generals, i decided to give up and quit it. it was not because i lost the missions, i just felt that there was no point carrying on playing the game.
part of growing up? or is this because i'm now working part time at a financial company and hence the influence?
maybe both are the reasons. i'm not too sure myself too.
in less than 3 months i would be embarking on another journey, and this journey would span a total of 4 years. another transition. however much said, i feel that its not as dreary as enlistment in NS as there is actually something to look forward to in this upcoming transition of mine.
about the discussion of a scholar or a doctor.
if u ask me, i would choose a doctor anytime over a scholar. it would be a joke to say its all about passion. its parts of money and prestige as well.
as MM lee response to the comment saying that civil servants should not have high pays with regarding to the recent hike in ministeral pays 'Its noble sentiments, but we all live in a real world.'
if there is no money in it? would people still do it?
if people were all treated normally without any 'prestige'? would people still be flocking to med?
no, i firmly believe not.
last time i used to be reading the flyff forums, now, i find myself reading the investments forums. a year ago i was still on flyff killing monsters, now i find myself pouring through e books, printed material, online magazines, newspapers, the straits times, the economists and all.
why is there such a large difference.
perhaps now gaming doesn't really appeal to me anymore. i've tried to go back to gaming, but after a few missions in 'command and conquer' generals, i decided to give up and quit it. it was not because i lost the missions, i just felt that there was no point carrying on playing the game.
part of growing up? or is this because i'm now working part time at a financial company and hence the influence?
maybe both are the reasons. i'm not too sure myself too.
in less than 3 months i would be embarking on another journey, and this journey would span a total of 4 years. another transition. however much said, i feel that its not as dreary as enlistment in NS as there is actually something to look forward to in this upcoming transition of mine.
about the discussion of a scholar or a doctor.
if u ask me, i would choose a doctor anytime over a scholar. it would be a joke to say its all about passion. its parts of money and prestige as well.
as MM lee response to the comment saying that civil servants should not have high pays with regarding to the recent hike in ministeral pays 'Its noble sentiments, but we all live in a real world.'
if there is no money in it? would people still do it?
if people were all treated normally without any 'prestige'? would people still be flocking to med?
no, i firmly believe not.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Tell Me Where I Belong
It's a terrible feeling, not knowing where one should head to. In this world full of choices and options, what will be the best for me?
Perhaps my friends, who each have their own passions are blissfully spared this agonizing decision. Maybe, people without any burning desires, without much of a goal or dream or ambition are destined for lives of indecisiveness.
Two years, I have thought, avoided and hid from it. With less than a month, I am still running away from deciding. I am indecisive, timid and that's the price to pay.
Tell me for what I was made, and to where I should go. Please.
Perhaps my friends, who each have their own passions are blissfully spared this agonizing decision. Maybe, people without any burning desires, without much of a goal or dream or ambition are destined for lives of indecisiveness.
Two years, I have thought, avoided and hid from it. With less than a month, I am still running away from deciding. I am indecisive, timid and that's the price to pay.
Tell me for what I was made, and to where I should go. Please.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
And So They Say ... ...
I actually had a whole lot to write, to say but nothing seems to be coming out right. Alvin has just gone to bed after a chat; Eddie's still online but I'm not sure what he is up to.
Myself, after this, I'll do some reading and hope sleep comes swiftly thereafter. For the past few nights, I have had troubles with sleep and terrible pounding headaches. And at night, when it's quiet and dark, that's when the thoughts resonate the loudest within.
During our conversation, I mentioned that being young is good. I'm by standards, still young although I feel really old at times. Maybe I would regret thinking this way when I get even older, but that's for another day. So I told Alvin that being young is good. He replied he didn't really like the ignorance of younger days.
But isn't that the whole point of being young? And so they say, ignorance is bliss.
Now if you would excuse me, I hope to drift into a dream of a world bygone.
Myself, after this, I'll do some reading and hope sleep comes swiftly thereafter. For the past few nights, I have had troubles with sleep and terrible pounding headaches. And at night, when it's quiet and dark, that's when the thoughts resonate the loudest within.
During our conversation, I mentioned that being young is good. I'm by standards, still young although I feel really old at times. Maybe I would regret thinking this way when I get even older, but that's for another day. So I told Alvin that being young is good. He replied he didn't really like the ignorance of younger days.
But isn't that the whole point of being young? And so they say, ignorance is bliss.
Now if you would excuse me, I hope to drift into a dream of a world bygone.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Anonymous said...
HI, I am a PSC Scholar and let me give my two cents worth on this issue. I apologize for any grammatical and/or spelling errors. Its getting late and I have to wake up disgustingly early tomorrow to get to camp on time.
A bit about me: I’m pretty much the typical PSC Scholar. Good A Level grades, Ivy League/Oxbridge degree, arrogant, cynical and liberal as hell. LittleSpeck's Article pretty much describes me.
I’m also quite fond of criticizing the very same scholarship system that made me (for better or worse… ok worse) into what I am. I’m simply not looking forward to working with the same people that wrote this memo: MR Brown's Scholars
Ok now that you know a bit about me, here’s what I have to say:
1. Mr Wang is spot on in his observations. It’s the first time I’ve read his articles on the Singapore scholarship system and I agree with them completely. Today’s scholars (at least those awarded scholarships in the 1990s – 2000s) are a different breed from the visionaries responsible for our growth as a nation in the early years. Back in those days, I suspect that scholars actually wanted to become civil servants and they wanted to serve the public and help the nation. My colleagues and I see our scholarships as personal trophies. It’s quite an ego booster to be seen as “god’s gift to the public service” (as we were referred to by a certain PS). By and large we come from wealthy families, stable homes and perhaps most importantly, well educated parents who saw the need to instill in us the importance of doing well in our studies. Good just wasn’t enough for most of them. We needed to crush the competition and wreck the curve. It’s not surprising that the typical scholar (yours truly included) is pretty darn selfish and self centered.
2. The most talented and able scholars leave the civil service (ie break our bonds) after 4 – 6 years. This gives us enough time to earn enough money to pay our steadily decreasing scholarship liability. Assuming that an overseas education costs $300k, and that it is straight-line depreciated over six years (ie 50k a year), in year 5 the bond will only be worth $100k. If you’ve been working in an accelerated career scheme in the civil service for 5 years you will be easily able to afford the bond and maybe business school back in the US. So what will happen is that those with the most transferable skills, the ones who are good enough to work for GS, JPM etc end up leaving the civil service, those that end up staying are the sycophants, toadies and brown-nosers who have no where else to go. At the same time, as Mr Wangmentioned the excellent non scholars (not necessarily farmers, they might have god NUS grades too but they simply aren’t on scholarship) get disgusted by what they perceive as cronyism among the scholar elite and they too leave the service. So as you can see the civil service gets systematically worse with each passing year
3. We scholars are by and large a homogeneous lot. We go to the same schools, read the same books (Roald Dahl is perhaps our favorite childhood author) have the same friends. It’s quite incestuous really. I don’t know how rampant in breeding is but we are constantly tricked into coming for tea sessions, pot luck parties, etc that they really should have the next scholar gathering in the lobby of hotel 81 and give us copious amounts of alcohol if they really are serious about getting us to hook up. Sometimes I think that the PSC has its own GEP (Genetic Engineering Program) where they secretly hope that if you cross last year’s Angus Ross prize winner with this year’s Physics Olympiad gold medalist you’ll get a kid who can read Shakespeare and Stephen Hawkins before he learns to crawl. Anyway, the point I’m trying to get at is that there is an enormous tendency for group think. We all think we are right because hey, no one is going to tell us we are wrong. And it is my opinion that over the years this has done an immeasurable amount of harm to Singapore, the most recent example being our self inflicted humiliation at this year’s IMF and WB meetings. Why our scholars don’t have the helicopter view needed to see that letting people protest (oh come on, it’s really too hot to protest in Singapore and I was rather hoping to see that KFC girl naked) is much better than having to endure billions of dollars in negative publicity.
4. The last point I’d like to make is about scholars and business. At the moment we have many scholars running GLCs, stat boards etc. It’s pretty easy to make money as the CEO of MRT or SBS but once you have to move out of your protected markets and invest in places such as China (Suzhou), India and the Middle East these scholars are going to get slaughtered. There are two reasons for this. A. Scholars are not businessmen and B. Its not their money. As a PSC scholar I’ve never once had to worry about money, although I did hear about the Stanford guy who blew his tuition in Vegas. We get all our fees, tuition, allowance etc up front so we’ve never really had to think too hard about money and when the time comes for us to allocate capital we, as a group, do a terribly poor job of it. And if were going to blow money on some investment in some developing country it’s a good thing is not our money, or our clients’.
OK that’s my first blog entry ever. I am a person of strong convictions but fortunately they are strong PERSONAL convictions so I don’t let anyone else know, family, friends, PSC etc about how I feel. If I did I think I’d get myself into a lot of trouble. Mr Wang did an excellent job analyzing the article and giving us his take and this inspired me to write this rather long diatribe.
THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.
Anonymous said...
Hi, it's the anonymous PSC scholar again. Here’s some food for thought for all of you reading this that might be interested in a PSC scholarship. If you ever get the chance to go for a tea session ask the PSC goons there what is the PSC scholar retention rate, that is to say out of every batch of PSC scholars what % stay on after their bonds. Their answer will be something like, “We do not track the number of scholars that choose to stay. A good number of them choose to serve the Singapore people in many different capacities.” Why would PSC does not track this seemingly obviously useful statistic is beyond me. The answer is probably because the number of scholars who choose to stay on is embarrassingly low. I certainly do not have official figures but I’d venture a guess that they have a retention rate of about 40% - 50%, and this number is even lower for the three ministries that will give it’s employees the most transferable skills; The MFA, MTI and MOF. They are pretty worried. MFA has started hiring people that were previously rejected by the PSC or the parent ministry. (I can’t seem to find the link, but its floating on the web somewhere) This is a huge step, because it means that the civil servants are admitting that they actually screwed up in the selection process.
I don’t know if SPH has a 0% retention rate but I wouldn’t be surprised. Journalism does have a history of attracting articulate, passionate and idealistic young people and I’m pretty sure they’d overwhelmingly reject the oppressive ever present censorship in SPH. I know one girl from Yale who’s an SPH scholar and she’s smart, beautiful and in my opinion won’t stay for more than three years there.
PSC does their best to keep the “Fishmonger son’s works hard and gets an SAF scholarship” myth alive. The truth is 90% of us are upper middle class, and about 25% of us pretty damn fucking rich. However if PSC takes in 50 scholars a year (I think it’s reduced now, not sure) the probability that at least one of them coming from a disadvantaged background is pretty high. When that happens they publicize the hell out of it. They also have the opportunity to see what your background is like when you apply for the scholarship, but to the best of my knowledge coming from a poor background gives you no statistical advantage. In fact the opposite is true; kids with good backgrounds are more likely to win such scholarships.
HI, I am a PSC Scholar and let me give my two cents worth on this issue. I apologize for any grammatical and/or spelling errors. Its getting late and I have to wake up disgustingly early tomorrow to get to camp on time.
A bit about me: I’m pretty much the typical PSC Scholar. Good A Level grades, Ivy League/Oxbridge degree, arrogant, cynical and liberal as hell. LittleSpeck's Article pretty much describes me.
I’m also quite fond of criticizing the very same scholarship system that made me (for better or worse… ok worse) into what I am. I’m simply not looking forward to working with the same people that wrote this memo: MR Brown's Scholars
Ok now that you know a bit about me, here’s what I have to say:
1. Mr Wang is spot on in his observations. It’s the first time I’ve read his articles on the Singapore scholarship system and I agree with them completely. Today’s scholars (at least those awarded scholarships in the 1990s – 2000s) are a different breed from the visionaries responsible for our growth as a nation in the early years. Back in those days, I suspect that scholars actually wanted to become civil servants and they wanted to serve the public and help the nation. My colleagues and I see our scholarships as personal trophies. It’s quite an ego booster to be seen as “god’s gift to the public service” (as we were referred to by a certain PS). By and large we come from wealthy families, stable homes and perhaps most importantly, well educated parents who saw the need to instill in us the importance of doing well in our studies. Good just wasn’t enough for most of them. We needed to crush the competition and wreck the curve. It’s not surprising that the typical scholar (yours truly included) is pretty darn selfish and self centered.
2. The most talented and able scholars leave the civil service (ie break our bonds) after 4 – 6 years. This gives us enough time to earn enough money to pay our steadily decreasing scholarship liability. Assuming that an overseas education costs $300k, and that it is straight-line depreciated over six years (ie 50k a year), in year 5 the bond will only be worth $100k. If you’ve been working in an accelerated career scheme in the civil service for 5 years you will be easily able to afford the bond and maybe business school back in the US. So what will happen is that those with the most transferable skills, the ones who are good enough to work for GS, JPM etc end up leaving the civil service, those that end up staying are the sycophants, toadies and brown-nosers who have no where else to go. At the same time, as Mr Wangmentioned the excellent non scholars (not necessarily farmers, they might have god NUS grades too but they simply aren’t on scholarship) get disgusted by what they perceive as cronyism among the scholar elite and they too leave the service. So as you can see the civil service gets systematically worse with each passing year
3. We scholars are by and large a homogeneous lot. We go to the same schools, read the same books (Roald Dahl is perhaps our favorite childhood author) have the same friends. It’s quite incestuous really. I don’t know how rampant in breeding is but we are constantly tricked into coming for tea sessions, pot luck parties, etc that they really should have the next scholar gathering in the lobby of hotel 81 and give us copious amounts of alcohol if they really are serious about getting us to hook up. Sometimes I think that the PSC has its own GEP (Genetic Engineering Program) where they secretly hope that if you cross last year’s Angus Ross prize winner with this year’s Physics Olympiad gold medalist you’ll get a kid who can read Shakespeare and Stephen Hawkins before he learns to crawl. Anyway, the point I’m trying to get at is that there is an enormous tendency for group think. We all think we are right because hey, no one is going to tell us we are wrong. And it is my opinion that over the years this has done an immeasurable amount of harm to Singapore, the most recent example being our self inflicted humiliation at this year’s IMF and WB meetings. Why our scholars don’t have the helicopter view needed to see that letting people protest (oh come on, it’s really too hot to protest in Singapore and I was rather hoping to see that KFC girl naked) is much better than having to endure billions of dollars in negative publicity.
4. The last point I’d like to make is about scholars and business. At the moment we have many scholars running GLCs, stat boards etc. It’s pretty easy to make money as the CEO of MRT or SBS but once you have to move out of your protected markets and invest in places such as China (Suzhou), India and the Middle East these scholars are going to get slaughtered. There are two reasons for this. A. Scholars are not businessmen and B. Its not their money. As a PSC scholar I’ve never once had to worry about money, although I did hear about the Stanford guy who blew his tuition in Vegas. We get all our fees, tuition, allowance etc up front so we’ve never really had to think too hard about money and when the time comes for us to allocate capital we, as a group, do a terribly poor job of it. And if were going to blow money on some investment in some developing country it’s a good thing is not our money, or our clients’.
OK that’s my first blog entry ever. I am a person of strong convictions but fortunately they are strong PERSONAL convictions so I don’t let anyone else know, family, friends, PSC etc about how I feel. If I did I think I’d get myself into a lot of trouble. Mr Wang did an excellent job analyzing the article and giving us his take and this inspired me to write this rather long diatribe.
THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.
Anonymous said...
Hi, it's the anonymous PSC scholar again. Here’s some food for thought for all of you reading this that might be interested in a PSC scholarship. If you ever get the chance to go for a tea session ask the PSC goons there what is the PSC scholar retention rate, that is to say out of every batch of PSC scholars what % stay on after their bonds. Their answer will be something like, “We do not track the number of scholars that choose to stay. A good number of them choose to serve the Singapore people in many different capacities.” Why would PSC does not track this seemingly obviously useful statistic is beyond me. The answer is probably because the number of scholars who choose to stay on is embarrassingly low. I certainly do not have official figures but I’d venture a guess that they have a retention rate of about 40% - 50%, and this number is even lower for the three ministries that will give it’s employees the most transferable skills; The MFA, MTI and MOF. They are pretty worried. MFA has started hiring people that were previously rejected by the PSC or the parent ministry. (I can’t seem to find the link, but its floating on the web somewhere) This is a huge step, because it means that the civil servants are admitting that they actually screwed up in the selection process.
I don’t know if SPH has a 0% retention rate but I wouldn’t be surprised. Journalism does have a history of attracting articulate, passionate and idealistic young people and I’m pretty sure they’d overwhelmingly reject the oppressive ever present censorship in SPH. I know one girl from Yale who’s an SPH scholar and she’s smart, beautiful and in my opinion won’t stay for more than three years there.
PSC does their best to keep the “Fishmonger son’s works hard and gets an SAF scholarship” myth alive. The truth is 90% of us are upper middle class, and about 25% of us pretty damn fucking rich. However if PSC takes in 50 scholars a year (I think it’s reduced now, not sure) the probability that at least one of them coming from a disadvantaged background is pretty high. When that happens they publicize the hell out of it. They also have the opportunity to see what your background is like when you apply for the scholarship, but to the best of my knowledge coming from a poor background gives you no statistical advantage. In fact the opposite is true; kids with good backgrounds are more likely to win such scholarships.
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