GE2011

"With great power comes great responsibility."

I think that with the upcoming GE, we should all make an informed decision on who to vote. Just attend the rally, and hear what both sides have to say, and then cast your votes rationally.

Nowadays there seem to be a loud voice coming from the supporters of the opposition parties. They complain A LOT about the PAP, make a lot of baseless accusations on certain conspiracies, and call PAP supporters pathetic cowards who do not have the guts to make a change? If anything, the attitudes of these people as well as certain members of the opposition parties do not impress me much.

I would call myself a swing vote. My vote can go either way. But looking at the behaviour of these so-called heroes who dare to make a change, and their irrational and highly emotional rebuttals, I don't think I will be joining their league any time soon. The question now is not who to vote for, but why choose the opposition over the PAP.

Some thoughts in my head:

1. Change. The opposition loves talking about change. But is change really necessary? Call it controversial, but who's to say that a 1-party government will not work? Are we as a nation failing? Have we not one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world? Are we not one of the richest countries in the world? Can these Americans and Europeans who love to meddle in our affairs and condemn our 1-party democracy say that their multi-party government is doing better? Sure our country has problems that the government isn't solving. But which country doesn't? If everybody is satisfied with their current government, there wouldn't be a need for an opposition, see? You are already eating your own ass. So, you say that a 1-party government doesn't work. And does a 2-party, 3-party, 4-party government work? No it doesn't. So, change for what?

Change so we can have more "alternative voices in parliament". REALLY. It sounds like all opposition people are ganging up to overthrow the PAP. They don't care who wins. NSP, RP, WP, SDP, whatever, as long as not PAP. Well, even a certain opposition member has said so himself. Honestly, I can't see how all these alternative voices are helping much. They can talk a lot, but can they walk the talk? If the PAP who has such strong track record and the backing of many outstanding individuals with power and/or money can't solve certain problems, can the opposition parties with not-so-fantastic credentials and mostly little experience running a country solve them? A few alternative voices is fine. But a revolution will be detrimental. Perhaps some of our friends here are eager to join the history books. I say, take it slow.


2. Singaporeans complain an awful lot. This complain, that complain. Does no one ever sit back and think about what the government has done for us as oppose to what it didn't do? The opposition and its supporters love pointing out stuff that PAP failed to do. But as the police chief in The Simpsons would say,"I hear problems and no solutions!"

Until you can offer solutions, don't talk so much. I'm sick of hearing complaints.

3. What are Singaporeans really expecting out of this GE? So you vote for PAP, they win, and nothing happens. So you vote for opposition, they win, and... do you expect confetti to roll out and there will be world peace? I'm sure there will be things the opposition does that people are pleased with. But surely there will be things they do that others won't be pleased with. Which brings me back to the point of, why even bother in the first place. I wouldn't have high hopes for either government.

4. Opposition supporters are like,"looks like so-and-so minister won't be getting his million dollar paycheck." I don't get why people are complaining about the high salary for ministers. Why compare PM's salary with Obama or whatnots? You think PM is overpaid? I think Obama is underpaid. It's all about perspective. I think it's extremely deserving seeing the shit people put them through. It's fair compensation for a lifetime of sacrifices made. Also, you do realise that the opposition ministers you are voting in will be getting the same paycheck too? Sour grapes.

5. Don't come and tell me who to vote for. It annoys the hell out of me. To each its own man. To each its own.

Wedding of the year

Welly's wedding at Raffles Town Club was a simple but quite glamorous affair. Thoroughly enjoyed the cocktail reception which includes voting how we would like her to spend the angbao money we're giving her, posing with Facebook cutouts and savouring the oh-so-yummy smoked salmon bread. Most of all, I enjoyed the creative  movie intro she and hubby Ronald made before making the grand entrance. They met on Facebook, so the whole wedding theme is on Facebook. Sweet. :) 

New Home

So Kh and I got a ballot number for the Fernvale March BTO. It's QUEUE NO.10!!! I wasn't expecting any number at all, and when I saw a '10', I was wondering what it meant. It took awhile to get into my head. I haven't heard of anyone getting such a small number. 

So anyways, we've booked a unit on the 21st floor with river view. We wanted 23rd floor, but it was taken up by queue no.4. Our second choice 22nd floor was taken up by queue no. 7/8. We were disappointed that we can't even get our first choice with such a small number. (Goes to show how popular our choices were.) But thank God anyway for the small number which still gave us a rather good unit. 

While we were at HDB hub, we also met queue no. 3 for 5-room flat and queue no. 199 for 4-room flat. They could quite possibly be our future neighbours since we had them convinced that our side of the block is the best. Heh. 

3 LRT stops away from NEL. That's really far. But considering that we'd surely get a car in the near future, we're more interested in the fact that it is close to CTE and SLE.  

Our future home, now a patch of grass and some wild trees.

River view from an existing block. Oops no more river view for them once our blocks are up.