From Queen of Caldecott to Queen of Bukit Batok?

Haha.. Perhaps this is old news to you guys.... but just found this out while surfing the net.

I realised that TCS is going to bid farewell to Caldecott and move to Bukit Batok. Thats where I live! Haha.. we the Bukit Batokians welcome TCS! Perhaps this will also boast the property prices there. Yippie Yuppie.

On second thought, Zoe has to give up her crown of Queen of Caldecott to Queen of Bukit Batok. Just doesn't sound right. Since Bukit Batok is a malay word, maybe SULTANA of BUKIT BATOK sounds better. Don't you think so?

Happy Birthday Girl!

NOV 19 : Happy Birthday Delia!

Cheers to you Birthday!
May all your dreams come true!
Have a wonderful Birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE 2 GREATEST GUYS

NOV 18 - Yes, believe it or not, Howard and My dad shares the same birthday!

Happy Birthday DADDY! Happy Birthday Darling!

I remembered when I first found out the dates, I freaked out. I remembered my dad asking me this question then " So on every 18 NOV, who will you celebrate this day with. Your boyfriend or me?" Well err..... its not an easy answer... so from then on, 18 NOV was always celebrated at home or at the restaurant with the 2 most important guys! Well this will be the first year that I can't celebrate back home. Nevertheless Happy Birthday Daddy!

恭祝你福壽與天齊
慶賀你生辰快樂
年年都有今日 歲歲都有今朝

I recalled once, I nearly wanted to play a prank on the 2 guys. First to phone Howard saying that I have made a reservation in the restaurant and asked him to meet me there. Then, I will call my dad next to say the same thing. It will be hilarious if I don't turn up and the 2 of them could have their birthday dinner together. Well, who asked them of all dates, to be born on the same day.

Just wanna take this opportunity to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY. THanks for everything guys... for making my life so complete now! Love both of you!

My thoughts - Slavery vs Poverty

I have just finished reading yet another book “TRUE STORY” by Micheal Finkel. It is a good read and highly recommended. Below is a link to the summary of the book

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/11/DDG4SD61TU1.DTL

_____________________________________

This book got me thinking of the following.

What’s the difference between Slavery and Poverty? How media can generate misunderstandings and how organizations can perpetuate these errors?

Call me ignorant, prior to this, I have never heard of the relationship between chocolate and slavery. When I heard this, I was completely appalled. As I searched through google search on “Ivory Coast Slavery”, Top on the hit list is “Chocolate and Slavery”. In this article “Chocolate and slavery” it mentioned that young boys whose ages range from 12 to 16 have been sold into slave labor and are forced to work in cocoa farms in order to harvest the beans, from which chocolate is made, under inhumane conditions and extreme abuse.

In another article, I quote a young boy “ They enjoy something I suffered to make. I worked hard for them but saw no benefit. They are eating my flesh!” – to me these words seems daunting

In yet another article “ your clothes are taken off and your hands tied. You’re thrown on the floor and then beanter – beaten really viciously – twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, Runaways who are captured are sometimes pummeled to death”

After reading these articles, I was ashamed, I ran through my mind trying to recall if I have ever eaten any chocolates manufactured from Ivory Coast. Not that I could recall. Nestle is made in Malaysia, and the rest were either Belgian (my favorite) or France. I don’t recall any labeled Ivory coast. I may be wrong as from what I read, nearly 50% of the world’s chocolate were manufactured in Ivory Coast.

Above I must say if definitely what Slavery is all about. Something has to be done about it!

However, after reading the book, I had second thoughts. The writer Micheal Finkel presented another side of the story, which I must say, sounds convincing. Micheal Finkel an ex reporter for the “Time” magazine was tasked to write a report on Slavery on Ivory Coast. However, during this mission, he falsified parts of an investigative article and had been fired. In his book “True Story” he claimed that every detail that he wrote was accurately reported. Some may find it hard to believe this man as he was fired by Times for passing off a true story that was a deceptive blend of fact and fiction. But after reading the book, I choose to believe him.

On the subject of Slavery in Ivory Coast, in his book, he voiced out his suspicions that these boys were being coached to tell such stories. It was possible that this was being done so that the journalists would have powerful material. This would entice more journalists to visit. Everyone would be asked for donations and the stories would generate further contributions. This was an efficient way to raise funds.

He too interviewed couple of the boys who claimed that they were tortured but when asked to show the injuries, none could produce. In addition, he also added that these interviews were also arranged. Its like you go to an unfamiliar country and tell the people, I will pay you XX dollar if you show me a slave. It’s all about economics. If you offer someone money for a slave, he will show u a slave. The street boys are smart. They’ll go get their cousin and say “ Look here’s a slave” They’ll get you all the slaves you want.

I did a quick search again on google to see if I could find any pictures of young men being abused. I noticed that in most websites or articles, there were no pictures. The only picture that I’ve seen, which seemed to be repetitive in most of the article showed the back of a man that was badly injured. YES, he looked like he has been under tortured. But if slavery was to manifest in Ivory, I am sure that there should have more pictures to show the world

However, Micheal noted that the people were indeed suffering from poverty. Most children, he said sees this as a dream job. “This is because they can leave their village to get something they wanted. They want what they don’t have. They boys want bicycle…… They know all the brand names….”

As such, I believe that it is poverty that attracted these young men to work in cocoa plantations in a hope of better life. I think the word slavery is exaggerated. I agree that help is needed to raise the standard of living in Ivory Coast. Using media as a tool to generate sympathy on the pretext of slavery to encourage foreign funds is something unacceptable. On the other hand, using the word “slavery” might also hurt their export. This might gain people’s attention but it could also provoke a boycott on west African cocoa, which would only increase the level of poverty. It’s a viscious cycle

With this, I let you guys decide which side to take. “Slavery or Poverty”. This is sometime yet another grey area.

The world's most "FISH" medical care!

Arghhhhhh.... This would never have happened if this was in Singapore.

Today, Howard woke up with a fever, cough, sore throat, running nose and pain in the ear. I told him to take a rest at home as he seemed to be in a very bad state. At 10.30am, we called the doctor for a medical appointment but was told to hold for >10mins over the phone. I told him to forget it and lets just drive down to the medical center that is about 10mins away (I had bad experiences in the phone before and they made be hold for over 20mins previously before cutting off my line).

At the clinic, we told the counter girl about the illness and she said that we should have called couple of days earlier. (DUh... if I could predict or fortell that he will be sick, I will be earning big bucks now!) She claimed that there were no doctors available today and told us to get an appointment for a later date. This got me boiling inside. She then directed me to the customer service center. However, we were not able to find the customer service center and had asked couple of people along the way. They just referred us everyone where and we were just ding donging for the next hour. Finally we were directed to a phone where appointments were to be made. Too bad, I don’t have a digital cam with me at that time to take a photograph of the so called "customer service center" It was just a phone with a plate that says... "call for appointment" and this was the same exact extension that I would have called back home.

We were quite pissed again as we were put on hold. By then, howard was feeling very bad and weak. On one had, we needed a medical certificate to prove that he was unwell for work and on the other, the bloody medical center had no doctor available. Finally after 2hours, with the help of a health counselor, we were told that she could get a nurse to attend to us. A NURSE! Well, better then none we thought. Just give us some medications. We got to wait for yet another 3 hours before our turn came. We were told that we were treated as walk-ins and as such we needed to wait. 3 hours just to see a nurse! I look around the medical center. Everyone looked perfectly healthy other then howard coughing away. What sort of stupid rule to book your appointment way in advance (at least 7 days)? Is this what we called planned MC since one knows that he will be sick in advance?

Finally out turn arrived. Should I say yippie yuppie.... or should I thanked them for being so generous to allow be a slot to see the nurse. After the nurse looked at howard, took his temperature and uttered " you got a fever" .. Duhh... I know that.... she handed him a MC for a day (bearing in mind that it was already about 3.30pm. We have spent the whole day there... and could have just rested at home) and said that she was not authorized to prescribe any medication. If we want any, we got to purchase over the counter........

Can anyone believe that....Not that I use this word very often, I must say this is the most F*** health care I ever seen.

and ... we were there from 10.30 to 3.30 ... WE HAVE NOT HAD OUR LUNCH YET... and poor howard... sick and hungry

5 hours of waiting .... No doctors...... A nurse with no power to prescribe medication......

Howard is Back!

Yippie yuppie.. Howard will be back tomorrow after a long 2.5 wks TDY. Time for me to clean up this little pig sty of mine. Well, believe it or not, in this 2.5wks, I had finished reading 5 books. I have been a book-eating machine lately. Howard was asking me to slow down as he is going broke soon. HAHA. Back in Singapore, to encourage me to read, we had this pact whereby he will pay be 500SGD for per book read. Well, even with this incentive, I hardly read any as by the time I am back from work, I am already so tired. Fridays were spent at PUBS, the weekends were spent playing mahjong and poker. I got better way to spend my time other then reading. Well, here, there is nothing much to do an as such, been picking up reading. Well, this little trip to Louisiana had made him 2500SGD poorer (5*500). Haha.. at this rate, I am going to wipe out his entire saving (***evil laughter ***).

Arghhhhhhh....Technical Glitch again?

I am so pissed today. I can/t even trust the bank now. I went to do some shopping today and bought myself some jackets. Total bill came up to about 70USD. I took out my debit card and passed to the cashier. However, to my surprise, the cashier told me that she was not able to process the transaction using my card. I was so utterly embarrassed. I do have not enough cash with me. Luckily my friend was around and she came to my rescue and helped pay for my clothes. We went to Applebee restaurant next for a quick drink and the same thing happened. They were not able to process the transaction. Initially I thought it was a technical glitch. I am certain that I have more then enough money in my account and hence am absolutely sure its not overdrawn. I called howard and he too experienced the same problem in Louisiana.

I called the bank immediately. Initially the lady on the other line told me that my account was overdrawn and there was insufficient cash. I was puzzled. I got her to list down every transactions made in the last one month and apparently, there was a huge withdrawal in the form of cheque of over 2k made. I am very certain we did not write this cheque as such dispute the validity of it. She came back to me 10mins later and told me that she was very sorry and apparently was a bank error and they are going to reimburse me immediately. Duh... how could they make such a big mistake? I was lucky that 1) its a big withdrawal and as such caught my attention and 2) luckily I did not have too much cash in the account and as hence it shows that my account was overdrawn which prompted me to investigate This is simply not acceptable. What sort of security is that. This reminded me of an incident that happened back home

I could still remember this clearly as this happened on my wedding March 12 2004. Back in June 2004, I received a statement from POSB. I usually disregard the statement as it just shows the debit/credit of my card. In addition, I hardly uses POSB ATM card anyway. The only time I used it is for the automatic MRT card top-up. It's really difficult to monitor when was it automatically top up as it just credit 20SGD every time it goes below 0 and as such, I hardly scrutinize the statement. Well, something caught my eyes in the June statement (POSB send me the statement semi-annually). There was a top-up on March 12. Errr... how could I be on a public transport on my wedding?????? I brought it down to the customer service counter and after 2 weeks of investigations, they too blamed it on technical error. What sort of error is this. How many people out there got caught in that error but never found that out. If not for that exact date, it would never catch my attention.

Guys... as such, call me old fashion.... call me out dated... I do not trust technology anymore especially if money is involved.....