leidenschaft's Blurty

Subject:	why money has never been a priority
Time:	2:43 am.

My ambition in life is to be like my mum. The kind of person who invests in friends when they need a bail out of their financial crisis, or assistance in their friend's children education or help a family friend out when they can't pay for their hospital bills... or buy materials for someone's home when they are trying to set up a family. And so, I will earn my keep and save, but it is so that I can do the things above and more. Money is wasted on the rich.

http://www.trueactivist.com/worlds-100-richest-could-end-global-poverty-4-times-over/

"Oxfam’s report argues that extreme wealth is unethical, economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive.

Hobbs explained that concentration of wealth in the hands of the top few minimizes economic activity, making it harder for others to participate: “From tax havens to weak employment laws, the richest benefit from a global economic system which is rigged in their favor.”

The report highlights that even politics has become controlled by the super-wealthy, which leads to policies“benefitting the richest few and not the poor majority, even in democracies.”

This pretty much sums up my contempt against brands such as Mercedez and individuals who indulge in them. Here, a local article that bears witness to such is... http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/mas-place-cap-motor-vehicle-loans-tuesday-feb-26-20130225

Rich and evil people, can easily be identified by the cars they drive. And I absolutely detest these shells they sit in because of the crass and vile that they enjoy being branded in... oh but this is much much more so in Singapore than in other countries. These are the ones who hide behind, "There is no crime in working hard for my money and spending it the way I like." Dear pompous ass, that is not the point. Are you saying the old lady in the canteen working her ass off is not working as hard as you? No, you sir... you know very well how the system works, how to manipulate it, and how it exploits others.. and you are in it too. This is the white world of corruption, destruction and exploitation. There is nothing dark about it... It is all in the open. Millions go hungry, die and get exploited everyday because these arseholes want to play stocks and shares.

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Time:	12:56 am.
Music:	Hanna OST.

I just watched a 007 movie, Quantum solace.. and after getting into that horrid car accident and injuring my knee, I know for certain that the stunt with Bond's car in the tunnel would have not at all been possible!!

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today, my 4th post since I gained freedom. Must be all the time on my hands. My thoughts need a place to go.

Today, when driving down to the Jalan Bahar... I started crying cus I started thinking about JM. She passed away exactly one week after the festival ended. She'd have been so proud of me.. but I wanted to tell her myself and see the smile on her face. I was meant to fly down to meet her in May... I was hoping the cancer would stay down until then. The news broke me..

Today I also met a Theoretical Physicist, whom I really enjoyed speaking to. We nursed our coffee as we discussed theories of matter and moving atoms that defied time and boundaries. I was fascinated by some of his stories. We somehow managed to drift into particles and sound, and the carnal experience of sound oppose to visuals. He is the second scientist I have had meetings with this week. The other one was a Chemical engineer whose stories about plasma physics and the odd rotation of Venus changing its path riddled me so much that I have started reading all about Immanuel Velkovsky and his theories too.

Art and Science have so much more in common than ... no, wait. Art is Science, and Science is Art.

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Time:

1:17 pm.

backpacking around the globe sounds like sth for the privileged. Im just gonna do two continents for now Australia and Canada... starting with the coast next month.

Just when I thought that leaving the job would open up 100% possibilities for me.. with so many offers now.. it has already gone down to 40%.

1 month ago, it felt like I had 3 x worth of lives in one body. I am still trying to adjust to the normalcy of having 1 life... and even with this ... can be overwhelming. I cannot begin to even describe what the past 8 months have been for me. Right now though, I have never felt so full of life and content.. not that I ever had so much lacking, but perhaps I am in greater realization of all that/who is in me and surrounds me, and the potential in them.

Time and spirit they are both precious. I won't use it for something/someone I don't believe in.
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I can't think of a better way to live. By giving my all to others, I gain so much more in return... and then the more I can give with what I have gained... i suppose this is the cycle. I love this life.

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Subject:	food for thought
Time:	12:57 pm.

the prime minister and his various ministries have become irrelevant. They have been for a long time and it took us the same amount of time to accept this - and of course the heightened realisation came in the past couple of years.. and it is intensifying every day ever since the release of the white paper.

Forget about waiting till 2015/6 for the next elections. People can make choice daily.

Since they are no longer of relevance to our daily lives (unable to empathize because they are so far away from the truth), we should be the people we ought to be. Do the things that are right by us, our families and society. We must be the first to start, and they can follow suit if they choose to or be pushed out of oblivion because the human spirit and body x 5 million will push back consciously or not. It is about survival after all.

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Subject:	We made it.
Time:	1:36 am.

I was right. Darkest days before the brightest ones. :)

The festival was such a success... there were moments when I wanted to break down in tears of joy. To see the community grow bigger, stronger and tighter... To see hundreds upon hundreds come to our various events during that week, and to be introduced to their friends, and family! Random strangers wanted me to meet their dad or mum who first inspired them in their interest for the arts... I didn't expect any of that. Everything that came to us was a bonus... and it was one bonus after another!

One of the biggest bonus was the media attention we caught! BBC World News!!! Taiwan News Channel! And of course our various local news stations/papers also featured us and are continuing to do so even till this month... Overwhelmed this word does not even begin to describe what I felt.

The moment the darkness started to get brighter was when my friends/artists from overseas started to arrive at Changi Airport. On the 13th of January.. as I went to pick one artist up after another.. the burden slowly lifted off my shoulders. It was then, at the very moment I saw Anton, Zoe, Erin, Isabelle, Ian, Moraig, Isobel and Janet step out of customs - reality had become better than all that I had imagined. And I was right, they understood. I had almost cried when I saw Anton... the support they have lent and shared with me when I was in Australia grew so deep inside me .. I had no idea that their mere presence would calm me and give me so much ease and confidence. I can't describe my feelings for them other than love and adoration. I do, love them.

Anyways. ... everything else is on the michellelimworks blog. Even the BBC and CNA coverage. who knew... International news and its not cus I committed an offense.

We reckon we have gotten at least 1% of Singapore for the festival aka movement/campaign ... not our words, but words of the thousands who have taken part. :)

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Subject:	darkest days before the brightest ones
Time:	1:00 pm.
Music:	Passenger: wrong direction.

I definitely do not think myself as a leader, nor ambitious .. or any of the other relating synonyms. It just scares the shit out of me when people say and expect that out of me.

Its a week away. Friends from abroad and hundreds of like-minded people will come together for this thing I started. I can't wait to see them. I just hope we will have time with each other. There are moments in the recent weeks where I just want to bury my head in their arms... I know they will understand.

Last night, I fell asleep on the wheel.. it must've been a second or two. I had the tune of the song on the radio still playing in my head. This driving business in Singapore is crazy. I really don't want the car but going to the jungle and meetings round the island everyday can be very trying. I will endure it for another week or so.

Lets make a list of things I will do once this festival ends and before the next one begins:
1. Sell my car
2. Run off to the woods for a couple of months (spend some time with my sis, and some of my fav people down under)
3. Meet profs for PhD
4. Write proposal for retirement village
5. Write proposal for singapore craft society/village

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Subject:	my now secret blog.
Time:	4:42 pm.

everyone in the community thinks I'm a hero or that I want to be one.. I don't want to be anyone's hero and I don't think I am one either. I just really care about the cause (and I loathe passiveness), and I don't care as much about myself. I know, society teaches us to do things the other way but that just turns it into a vicious cycle doesn't it?

:'/ Everyday.. even when elbow deep in my clay, all I can see are the people who don't have the privilege to do what they want... the people in the nursing home.. the exploited helpers in Singapore. I don't know how to get out of it other than to do something about it. But I don't know how much more my body can take this.

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Subject:	death-do-dum
Time:	11:48 pm.

I don't know how to mourn for my baby cousin who was only 7. The drugs that they fed him, made benjamin grow and grow in his sleep... Looked almost like a teenager in the coffin. Grandaunt said they almost had to get an adult's coffin because of how swollen he got.
Every visit I made to the ICU where he stayed for the past 2 years, all I could think of was, if he was suffering in that shell of his, or was he really just out of it. Was he suffering like grandma who is also bed-ridden? Humans, we like to compare don't we? And I could not help but compare either... coma or paralysis.

In the same way that people say time heals.. well, time also kills. You stay there lying in pain and alone long enough, you'd rather be dead too.

Its been a depressing and stressful couple of weeks. Somethings in the air. I let out a secret the other night... now only she knows... and we aren't even that close, its just that we were talking about the movie, Melancholia.

I don't know how to mourn, maybe because I kinda envy him.. And even though I cry, the tears that run down my cheeks.. they are for my family.. I think the sorrow I feel is for my uncle, aunt, grandaunt and all... because really, all I can think of is that he is saved from this world. Life is to be endured, in the same way that death is.

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Subject:	Since its dragon year, how about a little roaring...
Time:	11:35 pm.

To avoid confirmation bias with regards to the minimum wage thing i am pursuing for in singapore, I am trying to see if the law of economy can help with my conclusion. I have so far found two economists.. both from ANU.. but from completely different school of thoughts. And of course, they both believe they are and can do the world's economy justice. I shall see what they have to say and how I can word the details... For now I have this..

And why I have this? Although I am giving the whole research a fair shot, it is mostly cus I already know what is right and wrong, I just want to know what areas I have yet to cover and that I need to so as to better convince the public that there ARE alternatives! To argue a simple fact that an amazing jaw dropping number of #@$% sitting in their fancy ivory towers have made into complicated issue. Infact I think this occam's razor is somewhat paradoxical.

Last week, I pieced everything together when I spoke to one of the cleaners in the office. She is btw a very witty and rather intelligent woman. But her working conditions are shit. YOU ask and say Singaporeans don't wanna work in these lines.. and thats why we have to employ foreigners? How about YOU do this job, with no medical benefits, with no bonous, no nothing, work longer hours than any of us who sit in the office and yet earn only less than $800 a month. And by my guess, like all the others like her I have interviewed, they have to take on another job or two at least to make ends meet. Those ends? They include their children, the roof over their heads and perhaps a few other debts they have incurred over the years of poverty. No, I am not for a welfare state. I am only asking for a dollar-to-dollar fair treatment. Just fair effing treatment, something just and something that we all deserve relative to who we are, our past, our future and our burdens.

And PLEASE don't copy and paste this or put this in your report. Cus i will make this viral so much so that your supervisors will know that your incompetence has led you to copy from a rebel's blog. Thanks.

Government organizations like ITE outsources many things such as cleaning by a bidding system. The lowest bidder takes the job. With low profit margins, the company who has to pay for their admin and upper management... leaves pittance for those who do the actual hard labour. So who in Singapore would take these jobs? The desperate. who will take losses home cus it means at least something. Well that doesn't quite do it for me. I won't even go to comparing them to our multi-million dollar earning ministers. I will just compare them to myself, and there already is blinding #@#$$%&* injustice blinking its neon lights at me.

Competition is a LAME excuse for ~~civil servants~~people who can't get creative enough that they have to make others compete to get their 'winner' or answer. In other words, competition kills creativity. Google it. I am sure there are many essays about it. We are not animals. We are a society and a civil one at that, lets remain so. Don't use competition to kill each other and livelihoods of those who are already at the losing end of the game. Your idea of meritocracy only works if EVERYONE were chinese, had the same financial ability, social status and family up bringing. In other words... it is bias and flawed and I no longer believe in it cus when I look around I DO NOT SEE the fair distribution, the fair play and definitely not the level playing field you constantly draw up in your bed time stories.

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