'Cause you said, said he was the one
Baby yes you said, said you were in love
Back to basics: Step 1
Arthur
JJC
Outgrowing 17
Dreamer
Poet
Lover
Atheist
Left-Handed Saggitarian
My passions: Step 2
Food
Company
Writing
Movies
Music
Debates
What i am: Step 3
Strengths:
Confident
Sensitive
Eloquent
Weaknesses:
Paranoid
Unorganized
Careless
Dreams of a globetrotter wannabe: Step 4
Paris
Shanghai
London
Gold Coast
Japan(Tokyo)
Rome
Taiwan
Hong Kong
New York
San Francisco
South Korea
Wishlist
My own domain
Scholarship
To publish a book
Want to know more about me?
Read my blog and you would start discovering fragments of me
P.S. All the works here posted belong to me unless stated otherwise. If you want to post them elsewhere, please seek prior permission from me before doing so. Thanks.
Layout: vehemency
Icon: reruntherace
A real life story about a Haemophiliac
Monday, September 1, 2008, 10:56 AM
This is about Haemophiliacs and why we should donate to The Haemophilia Society of Singapore. There's a personal story from a Haemophiliac himself and some information about Haemophilia such as the treatment cost. It apparently was started by a schoolmate of mine who's a haemophiliac or at least his story was included in the email i got. I suppose the story's true since i guess most of my schoolmates forwarded it to me as well. Presumably true i suppose. Besides, the person included his real name... Dosen't seem like a cock and bull story... I thought I will just do my part and put it up on my blog. Put it up on your blog too if you empathize with him or think it's a worthy cause people should support. :)Hi all,
Haemophilia is a genetically inherited bleeding disorder where there is a deficiency of a clotting factor in the blood. This results in a form of bleeding tendency. Thus, the haemophilia patient often suffers from easy bruising and bleeding into muscles and joints. Because of the genetic pattern of inheritance, the disorder generally affects males only. Females with the haemophilia genes are known as carriers.
I am one of the many haemophilia patients in Singapore and I am here trying to reach out to all of you to help us out in one way or another. With the advance medical technology these days, there's still NO CURE to haemophilia. We, the patients, rely on the injection of Factor 8 or Factor 9 into our body in order to live life like any normal human beings.(Details of the conditions can be read from www.haemophilia.org.sg)
Here's the cost of medication(for me):
5 Units of factor 8 per injection: S$22.74 X 5= S$113.70
3 injections per week: S$113.70 X 3= S$341.10
4 weeks per month: S$341.10 X 4= S$1364.4
Note: cost of each unit of the factor 8 has been heavily subsidized by hospital grant as well as Haemophilia Society's subsidy. Actual cost per unit is $122 for factor 8 and $242 for factor 9.
The point is, after the incident of NKF as well as the Ren Ci monk (Damn these pple), the haemophilia society of Singapore lost her greatest donor. Donations is very low and the society is basically falling on the balance that we have to help subsidize the patients costs. If this situation carries on, the society will soon be unable to subsidize the patients. In other words, it will become and other burden for the patients.
You can help, by just forwarding this message to whoever is unaware of the existent of this group. Yes, we are small, and thus we are vulnerable. Please help in whatever way you can. Some examples:
Corporate leaders: Donate money to help us through this difficult time.
Students: Spread this message around. Especially to those student leaders who are in search of beneficiaries for any charitable event, add 'The Haemophilia Society of Singapore' into your list of beneficiaries!
To anyone else: simply forward this message to as many people as possible in your address book!
Please direct all donations to the following:
The Haemophilia Society of Singapore
www.haemophilia.org.sg
Or email to secretar@haemophilia.org.sg
The financial records of the society can be obtain from the webpage mentioned above. Don't worry, your donations will definitely be put to good use.
IF U ARE STILL NOT CONVINCED ENUF TO DONATE , Please READ ON...
My Story:
I am a student, currently studying in Jurong Junior College. I am a haemophiliac (a term for haemophilia patient).
I don't remember when i started to know about this disorder in me. My mum takes extra care for me, and my father works extra hard to support the family. And my role, is to use up half of the family income each month. Let's drop the issue about money.
Being a male, I am a very active person. I play all kind of sports that i come in contact with, only to get scoldings by my mum. 'Others can play, but u cant, you are different.' That's what my mum told me. 'you are unique' might be something that one might one to hear, but all i heard is ' you are different'. That makes me sound like a freak.
But my doctors encouraged me to take on sports as long as i know how to take care of myself. All my classmates and teachers know about my disorder and took special care of me. I shud've been glad about it, but i felt so different.Why cant i be like others?
Until one day, wen i turned up for the Annual General Meeting for the Society, I spoke to this mother of a haemophiliac. She told me 'My son dare not do anything, PE , camps in schools, outing, he skipped them all. All he does is staying at home and play computer.'
This is a very common thing that happens to haemophiliacs, they close themselves in. We can lead normal lives if we receive prompt and adequate treatment. We could be like any other person out there, do the things that we want to do, if we are able to support ourselves for the treatment.
A summary of the story:
a.) Haemophiliacs close themselves in due to factors such as cost of treatment, views from society etc.
b.) Not able to pick up life skills like any normal person. Miss out things in life.
Not only everyone has the right to live, everyone has the right to live life to the fullest.
Surviving for survival is plain emptiness without a dream, let us have dream..
WE are a minority, but we have our rights to live and dream as well...
Grant us the chance, by donating now. Thank you...
With regards,
Wong Yang Ping (18 years old)
yangping90@hotmail.com
Labels: Donation, Factor 8, Factor 9, Haemophiliac, Hospital, NKF, Ren Ci, Sad, Singapore, Story, Subsidy
More Political Freedom in Singapore?
Sunday, August 24, 2008, 11:29 AM
This talks about the increasing political freedom in Singapore. Do we really have more political freedom? Should we already had been entitled to this long ago? Should we have more? Can we take it? Is PAP trying to maintain dominance through these legislations? Hmm... I question PM Lee has announced that we will be having more political freedom in Singapore. Yay. Let's clap.
Now, before we all get too happy, let's think about this in greater depth.
Podcast, videocast and election materials will be permitted, finally. Probably because of the increasing pressure from the people to liberalise the political scene here. These materials have to be factual though. The reason given for banning these materials in the past was because the government felt that visual materials would interfere in our decision making process and influence our decision making process as compared to cold hard words where we are supposedly able to make a more informed and better choice. Really? Should we all then stop visiting the theatres and youtube videos and turn to the thick volumes of books that had been collecting dust in the library for our facts? Really, the minimum age limit set there for electorates isn't just for show. Given that the electorates are of a certain age and know the seriousness of the matter, they would make an informed decision and I personally don't think they would be so easily swayed just by visual images because afterall, it's not some mindless decision making process. People do think through their decisions even after watching the images. That's of course assuming that our people are concerned about politics in Singapore.
If these people aren't really concerned about politics, I think they would just vote for anyone and most likely PAP because of the fact that they are already the ruling party and because they have been running the country pretty well in terms of economic growth and development. These visual materials wouldn't make much of a difference to them, I feel. The convenience of convention. Sigh. Besides, that sort of a rule would only put the ruling government in a position of advantage, regardless of which party it is because the spotlight would be on the ruling government most of the time and people would know them best as compared to the opposition parties which tend to be rather alien if you don't really bother to read much about them.
Political apathy in Singapore? Right on. It's a vicious cycle. Most people are apathetic, I feel, because of the lack of the need to care because the ruling government is doing a good job and the opposition isn't given much room to advertise itself . We don't have the chance to look through the profiles of all the parties. When we go shopping, we look at all the products and we make a decision. But you most likely wouldn't go to some isolated area and check out the prices of their products too. In fact, you most likely don't know much about them and have a distorted impression of them. I think the same goes for politics. We shop for the best party to bring us the most benefit and serve us well in the future to come. There isn't much to care about when you aren't really engaged in the process of selecting a political party because you don't really have a lot to choose from, particularly if you are someone who dosen't bother to read up about the opposition or find out more about them which is made worst by the fact that we are very comfortable with the way of governance of PAP in many ways more than one. There's nothing much to get you to think and thus the apathy. But if you were presented with a myriad of information, you would have to process the information and look through them and leaves little room for apathy to operate. So elections after elections, we would go in circles and circles until one day we get more chances to participate ACTIVELY in the election process. Now that the government has loosened up a little on this already, hopefully this would come to an end.
Now, we allow more free speech but only at Hong Lim Speaker's corner... Who really goes there? I personally haven't been there and I don't think many people have been there. That's speaking in my own capacity of course. Personally, I don't know much about the Speaker's corner. Apathy? Perhaps.
On a whole, these "additional" liberties that we would be entitled to, note the use of the word additional, are a good thing and it's an improvement from the past. Whether it's sufficient, I leave it to you. Perhaps, we would get even more liberalised in this scene. If PAP is truly worthy of being elected as the government, then it should not have to worry about losing to the opposition and should liberalise our political scene to a greater extent, that's of course assuming that they are doing some things to secure their position in the government which I have no concrete evidence to prove nor strongly believe in for these actions taken by them do seem to root from the need for greater good.
If PAP is truly worthy, we would elect for PAP no matter what kind of videos or podcasts the opposition will try to shove right in our faces. Ultimately, my point is that I think there is not much need for trying to somewhat "suppress" the political scene here because I think it's not necessary. I still think that the restriction on the fact that the speech should not be about language, religion and race is still something that needs to be in place. With such restrictions in place, we already have bloggers that go around making derogatory remarks about the other races or religions. Think about what would happen if we lift such restrictions. That would be sinking ourselves waist down into quicksand. More should be done for the political scene but let us still be thankful for what has been done.
Labels: Apathy, Corner, Hong, Lim, National Day, Opposition, PAP, Politics, Rally, Singapore, Speakers
Singlish, the Singaporean Language
Saturday, July 19, 2008, 4:12 PM
The debate about the use of Singlish seems to have led to the conclusion that Singlish is bad. But is it really that bad just because it lacks practical use as non-Singaporeans don't understand it? This issue about Singlish being irrelevant and useless popped up in my mind today out of the blue. Our education system discourages the use of Singlish and promotes the use of English itself for a very practical reason, that being English is one of the most widely spoken languages. The same goes towards the increasing emphasis on the use of Chinese language with China rising.
But really, let us think about this. We have heard of various American slangs which are synonomous with our "Lah", "Leh", "Loh" in terms of function which is to achieve the desired impact through selective use of words.Why is it that we don't hear about the Americans trying to get rid of these slangs and replacing them with "proper" and "accurate" English? I would say it's because Americans are proud of it.
Language is an ever evolving entity, just like culture, which evolves with influence from external factors such as the country in question and it's historical background. It's just like how a fast-food restaurant won't have the same menu throughout all it's outlets in the world. Language is adapted and anything but static. This is however, not characteristic of the modern society that we live in today because modern English itself is a result of such evolution in English. We had Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English(The Language of Shakespeare) and now Modern English. In fact, even in Modern English, we have included words from those of French and Norman. Thus, we shouldn't see it as surprising that we have adopted modern english into Singlish.
Why is it that not many people understand Singlish as compared to it's counterparts such as American slangs? I personally feel it's probably a lack of exporting of our publications and the lack of influence of our language. This could partially be because we don't have a lot of established writers and probably also because what's written isn't interesting enough to attract international attraction.
This makes it almost impossible for us to have an identity associated to us in various forms such as language and various aspects because we simply just take what's pragmatic and of economic signifiance instead of trying to spread our beliefs and ideas. This would of course mean novelty is imperative for this to happen. Much of the problems associated to Singlish by academics probably wouldn't be a problem at all if we spread our influence and in fact would promote our identity. I think developing and promoting an identity is something that is coeval. When you promote an identity, you feel proud about it and devleop it in the process.
Why discourage Singlish?
Labels: Language, Singapore, Singlish