Aljunied PAP rally

Some of you might have seen the image below:

If I look retarded it is 101% my parents' faults for bad genes. Not mine.

So the above picture caused a little hoo-hah, and began rather innocuously with this:

A plate of a mixture of fritters, mini cakes and a sandwich, served by PS Cafe for an event hosted by the owner of Tyan Boutique (Palais Renaissance).

I was really, really excited when Worker's Party won Aljunied GRC! (Sorry for the GE spam on Twitter if you were following me) I was tweeting how I really hoped a GRC would be won by the Opposition this year - the FIRST in history!

I feel kinda bad for the WP though, because now people expect so much of them as the first Opposition-held GRC. But what can they do really? The PAP controls all funds and authority.

It reminds me of a comment I saw on Facebook:
Person A - Well now the WP has 6 seats in Parliament and a continuous bloc in Singapore (if you take Aljunied GRC + Hougang SMC). They have a lot to prove.
Person B - The PAP has 81 seats and the rest of Singapore. What about what they have to prove?

(Ok not in exact words, but you get the gist).

It's a shame that George Yeo has to go since he does come across as a good minister to me. But essentially he's a victim of the GRC system, and many people don't seem to realise that the PAP came up with this and it is a total deviation from the original parliamentary system (Westminster) they were following.

I saw comments (I was furiously stalking #sgelections on Twitter) about how people thought the PAP might topple, or how maybe the WP can raise/lower bus fares...

The chances of the PAP toppling in this GE was about as high as me marrying Prince Harry. A.k.a theoretically not totally impossible, but 99.99% unlikely. The Opposition had NEVER won a GRC since the PAP took power, and winning one this GE means just 5 seats. Out of a total of 87.

There are currently 87 seats in Parliament. To pass a new legislation, make new policies etc... they need to take a vote. With 81 seats, the PAP can currently pass any law it wants. With 6 seats, the Worker's Party can't do anything but just be an alternative voice in Parliament.

Why can't we have more Opposition in Parliament? I'm baffled by people who are so angry just at the fact that the Opposition cracked a GRC (if you're sad about George Yeo that's another thing). The PAP still forms the massive majority. If they're proposing policies that is for the good of Singapore, why would the Opposition disagree? They are not the bad guys. Why would they try to fight the PAP every GE when it is so hard?

We should remember that you can have multiple parties in Parliament. You could have 5 parties, and the party with the most number of seats would form the government. It does not have to be a ridiculous number like 93% of the seats, especially when the PAP only won 60% of the votes.

You love the PAP; that's fine. I think they're an extremely capable party too. But that's all they are. A PARTY. The common ingrained mindset is: PAP = the government. PAP = the state. PAP = Singapore.

Elections should not be about The PAP vs The Opposition. Opposition parties should not exist or be viewed just for the sake of being a "retort" or just that, an opposition. They are to be formed of credible individuals of their own, that should be viewed on the basis of their OWN merits, not in perpetual contrast to the PAP.
The Election is not to see how much of the PAP can be kept or lost from Parliament. It should be about selecting worthy individuals for Parliament, regardless of the "brand" of their party.


Naturally the PAP can field good candidates most of the time. They pick only the best and the brightest, because they have the outreach and resources. But this is not always the case. And with the GRC system, they can bring weaker candidates into Parliament by grouping them with a strong one (e.g. Tin Pei Ling, although I think the nasty jokes targeted at her should stop).


The Opposition is currently unable to offer as many equivalent stellar candidates, since these are usually already recruited by the PAP (one of the Opposition candidates had been approached by the PAP before but for the life of me I can't remember who - someone please tell me so I can remove this embarrassing line). 
But they sometimes have, and they are worth a listen to. And when more are able to present themselves, I hope people will listen to them. And without the fear of the losing the PAP in return (or just a few of its ministers rather), because the PAP =/= to Singapore. Its people are.


If Parliament is still formed mostly of PAP ministers, picked based on their talents and not due to the GRC system/fear of non-upgrading, etc, fine. But the mindset they were picked with is crucial. We have to see beyond the PAP-Opposition dichotomy.

Okay back to lunch:

Really weird drink that Qiuting and I both got! (The only non-alcoholic one that day as it was an event)


Wendy putting on her contact lens.

Fashion show within PS Cafe:



I'm bad with brand names... I remember there was Vivienne Westwood, Sonia Rykiel... um.
Haha anyway the dress on the left was the prettiest! (and the most expensive)





The PS Cafe lunch had been agreed upon quite a long time ago, and the night before Wendy and Qiuting told me they were going to go to George Yeo's last rally after. They asked if I wanted to come, but said I didn't have to wear white.

I didn't see why not because I hadn't even seen pictures or videos of rallies up till then so I thought it would be interesting. And remember this - I am NOT ANTI-PAP. There is a huge difference; because I recognize everything they have done for the development of the country and I hold the older ministers in very high regard. I am not just hating on them, and I simply disagree with certain policies.

If you read my chunk of text above, I am for the best candidate, and I am for greater balance in Parliament. So yes I can fully support the Opposition in one GRC, and the PAP in another. Lame/cliche but... I am pro-Singapore? Haha.

Anyway we had time to kill so we went down to the Clicknetwork office:




They were both drawing PAP logos on themselves, and kept trying to trick me into doing it! "Sophie, the couch very comfortable right? Do you feel like sleeping?" (if I did I would wake up with my face covered by the famous lightning bolt) (no, not Harry Potter's).
"No need to draw lightning. How about... just lines? Stars? In WHITE? ^^"


Finally... I drew cat whiskers on myself hahaha I KNOW NOT A SMART MOVE LAH OK. Didn't help at all to our being branded "bimbos"...
It's just that that day we were talking about the cat whiskers on my Hello Kitty Blackberry cover. Kind of stuck in my head.


Gimme tuna? ♥ Ok you can ignore my act-cute/pitiful face already.


Those are the Hello Kitty whiskers in question! Wendy said they're too close to the nose/eyes, and we were forced to Google it to prove her right. Ok she's right.


Wahlao ever seen anyone so bohliao to draw the PAP logo on their nails as well? Hahaha.


Wendy's super awesome writing! I mean seriously the font looks printed!


Me. Very extra haha.

Down to the rally, which was insane in getting parking for! I also used the Portaloo for the first time in like, 10 years. Because all 10 years I have totally refused to use any.






PM Lee Hsien Loong came to give a little speech of moral support for George Yeo! First time seeing him in real life really. Don't think I've ever seen MM Lee in real life either. I was an usher for SM Goh once! ^^ Brief few seconds within the same breathing area hahaha.







Astounded by the enthusiasm of the supporters. They were so cute; making friends with each other and shouting fiercely at each other to put down the boards as soon as whoever is speaking starts up again.


George Yeo came on last! I talked at length about his speech on Formspring already but I'll do a rough summary here:

1st part: Talked about his grassroot experiences with the Aljunied folk, and it really seemed to get to him how the people of Singapore are honestly struggling. This part really... reignited my hope that the PAP would start to prioritise its people again, because we feel abandoned for the economy. Well now... George Yeo isn't in Parliament anymore but I hope his opinions are shared by the rest of our leaders.

2nd part: Attacked the Worker's Party. Didn't agree with the things he said, which basically was that Low Thia Kiang was just exploiting the people's unhappiness to gain power and entry into Parliament. I already stated that I don't feel that the Opposition is "the bad guy".
But ok no one would praise their competitor. Unless... reverse psychology *suspenseful music*

3rd part: Usual political talk about how surrounding countries are all developing rapidly; Singapore is in the middle of all the action so we will develop etc etc.

Essentially the main part the media captured was how George Yeo spoke of the need to change how the PAP governs.
Saw LOTS of sarcastic remarks about this on Twitter -_- I mean seriously people, there's no need for all this nastiness; it really escalated in this GE and made politics so incredibly unpleasant and childish.


Had crab for supper afterwards!

Abrupt end of post.

P.S. If you're wondering why I'm only blogging about the GE now (a.k.a when it is clearly over), well... I never actually made any concrete opinions about the GE when it began. I mean I roughly knew what I thought, which was just essentially More Balance/Voices.

I couldn't vote in this GE so I made no real effort to watch rally videos or read manifestos. I never planned to blog about my opinions on it; never planned to concretize any. Then over the one/two weeks I got a lot of questions on the GE, so I was essentially forced to think about it as I answered. I considered doing a post on it on Cooling Off Day, but I never had any intentions to sway any voting readers' opinions (if I even can) and I was... lazy haha.

In this blog post I mostly just wanted to draw attention to a rough outline of how the whole government system goes, so I didn't talk about the merits/faults of either the PAP or the Opposition. It's not that I think I know particularly a lot about Singapore politics or politics in general (there's a reason why I majored in Sociology and not Political Science haha).
However it just seemed to me like a lot of people were basing their support on some kind of do-or-die PAP/Opposition scenario, where people couldn't envisage both, or even MANY parties. Like I said, the WP, SDP, SPP, NSP, etc shouldn't be there to be seen only in contrast to the PAP. They are all equal parties (including the PAP), to be evaluated on the same criteria, and the PAP should not be placed on this unreachable pedestal.

All in all, remember this: If the policy proposed is for the good of the country, the majority of ministers in Parliament should be able to agree on it. It need not, and should not, be such a huge percentage of any one party.

Hacked

Been a little lazy to blog recently, but thought I'd just update everyone on how I was hacked almost a month ago.

To start off, after looking at all the emails about password resets etc, I realised the hacker began with my Facebook account and changed the password at around 3+pm.

I'm still not sure if it was a spiteful attack or just a pure coincidence, because a day later a friend (not a close one, and she is not a blogger) of mine got hacked by the same person.

It feels like perhaps the hacker got into my FB account, and from there realised I had a blog, a Twitter, a Formspring account etc from my profile and was lucky to be able to gain access to all because I use the same password *embarrassed face*. But come on, I bet most people do, and I'm sure that my password is definitely 50% harder than 90% of all of your passwords!

I don't believe the hacker could have GUESSED my password, much less be able to guess that of a friend the next day. Plus I know a week earlier, another not-close friend got hacked as well. So I think there's some techie shit involved somewhere.



HOWEVER, the hacker did do some very personal actions so it was very strange. A.k.a. tagging a nasty comment on Alaric's photo. I was out with Qiuting at that time having dinner, and that was when I found out I had been hacked (around 8pm) because he called me (and we almost never call each other).

The hacker also answered ONE Formspring question, and a short while later we also realised he/she had viewed this stupid video on my Youtube account (that's the problem of everything being tied to your Gmail account) of a girl with giant fake boobs in a tiny bikini trying to look all sultry on the beach.

So that was why people on Formspring kept asking me about that stupid video -_- and even if I had watched it, I really don't think it's a big deal sheesh.


One of the hacker's emails. All the emails used to replace mine are definitely active because he/she has to go into it to accept the change.

So the hacker cleared the associated emails (my Gmail and Hotmail) and changed my name, so if I searched any of those, Facebook says I don't exist.

HOWEVER, my Facebook account was tied to the NUS network. And to be in the NUS network, you need a valid NUS email from which you log in and certify that you're part of NUS.
So that was the only way I even managed to locate my poor, mangled account.


So this was the email sent to my NUS email, which clearly showed that the password change was made at 3.29pm, much earlier than I had thought. It's a shame I never synched my NUS email to my phone (because they send so much junk about programmes and discounts on printer ink) or I would have known earlier.


Reset email changed in my Twitter account. This was how my friend and I realised we'd been hacked by the same person, because he/she used fifthslave1386@yahoo.com.sg for my friend too.


More of the hacker's emails. He/she changed my profile name as well as my country/region and birthdate, as these are necessary when trying to reset my password. So when I indicated Singapore, Hotmail would think I'm not the real user (and because Hotmail is a dumbass).



Accounts I got back easily: Gmail/Blogger/Youtube (all linked), Twitter and Formspring.

Hotmail
I finally managed to get my password reset through Customer Support where you "talk" to these Hotmail operators in a forum, so I managed to prove my identity by providing folder names, contact names, subject lines etc.
They took like over a week to finally give me my account back, compared to Gmail who returned it to me within an hour after I filled out a form requesting similar details.

After getting my Hotmail back, the hacker actually tried to get my email reset again but luckily I was in my Hotmail account at that moment, and cancelled the process. And you know why the hacker still can do it? Because I cannot remove his/her emails from the reset password info.

I have been trying to ask Hotmail about it, and checked forums etc and basically it's this - if you have one reset email, it'll take 30 days. If you have more than one reset email (which is why the hacker put 2 emails), it'll take 6 months for them to remove it after you indicate that these are not yours. I mean, WTF HOTMAIL?!

At the same time I also told Customer Support I just wanted to get back into my account to delete it, since they are so lousy at keeping my account safe. But get this - to delete your account, it has to be deactivated first. For it to be deactivated, it has to be unused for a total of 270 days. And in the meantime if I log in to my account to check that the hacker hasn't been messing with it again, that'll start a new 270 days.

So the lesson to all of you is: Hotmail sucks. I am so happy for the day I switched to Gmail (because at that time Hotmail kept crashing), whose interface is also better and has GoogleDocs.


Facebook
As for Facebook, they are 50x worse than Hotmail. Even after identifying my account and knowing that IT IS STILL THERE (because of the NUS network thing), they never returned my account to me. I followed all the steps, and the website always claims to have sent the reset link to my email, but they never do. I have tried more than 10 different emails, same result. Nothing ever received.

Finally I found another link where you can "describe your problem" and even upload screenshots (where I showed a cached version of my original Facebook account), and I received an email from Facebook that you can actually reply to. Problem is, they don't reply. I sent them more than one email, and searched online to see what other people said - the consensus is that Facebook doesn't give a shit.

*P.S. You guys know they're setting up an office in Singapore right? If I'm not wrong it'll be the first in Asia. If they were open now I'd go down and complain! So frustrating!

I've given up on Facebook's Customer Support and created a new account. I'm so sad about my Farmville account, which I had played on Facebook for more than 2 years )':

I sent Zynga a report as well,
Incident Entry by Zynga Customer Portal Wed Apr 13 14:14:24 GMT 2011

My Facebook account was hacked and Facebook has been extremely inefficient in giving it back to me (they have managed to identify my account and claim to send me an email, but I never receive it).
Is there ANY WAY I can keep my Farmville account??? That's all I care about ):
- - -

They replied promptly, but said there is nothing they can do )': (the English was very strange so I highly suspect Customer Support was outsourced to somewhere haha).

Right now my new Facebook account has 300 friends (after super intensive friend-adding sessions) (I know, very desperate haha). It's quite tough deciding who to add again. Like... do you add people you don't really know now because it's been years and you were just acquaintances then, but you TOTALLY STILL WANNA KPO ABOUT THEIR LIVES?

P.S. Strangers have been adding me. Don't lehhh... make me excited for nothing because I'll be thinking, WOOHOO one more FB friend! Then it turns out to be a stranger... I still don't accept people I don't know, sorry! :/
If you make yourself known to me often enough (like don't comment anonymously please), I'll remember you and eventually maybe you can drop me a message when you add me just to identify that it's you (:

Meh

Just a quick update on the second wall decal I've added to my room!


It's the sticker kind so it's pretty awesome because you can arrange it however you want (I didn't follow the shape given) and it's really easy to apply. Plus it can be removed (they're stickers) easily, unlike the expensive rub-on kinds.


So this is the suggested shape, with alphabets to tell you which piece is which.


I wanted it to fit in this tiny space though, so I had to rearrange it a little! You can see on the sticker sheet how I cut off some snippets of "bark" etc.
Ok I think it looks a bit weird but it's the best I could do with the small area!
(And yes I wanted the stem to be on the right instead of the middle, although in retrospect that would have been smarter).


♥?


And this is my other, older wall sticker/decal. For some reason my wall paint is a little bumpy. I used to have purple walls (a total of 3 shades) and they were repainted white in 2009.






Posters near my place and Alaric in specs trying to flag a cab.


Is it a rule that all Opposition posters MUST be below that of PAP's? Just wondering, because I've never seen otherwise!


Sad for Chiam See Tong ):

Spent a while watching videos on the world's smallest apartments/house today. Amazing and... depressing. The owners all think space is just a wastage but gosh I would still want an ADEQUATE amount of space. I think some of the apartments are... the size of my room. Which is standard HDB size; not huge or anything.

I used to (still do) spend quite a lot of time daydreaming about my ideal room.

When I was a kid my ideal room had:
- A slide for a door. On the outside you climb up the ladder and then slide into my room. My 7 year old self never considered how I might get out of my room.
- A fish tank. No idea why.
- A ceiling rope so I can climb up to the roof (ignoring the fact that I can't climb ropes for nuts).
- A reading area with tons of pillows. Ok boring.

Now my ideal room has:
- A big king sized bed, with a chandelier above it and a big plasma TV opposite it.
- A walk in closet leading to the bathroom!
- An L-shaped table and usual stuff like bookshelves etc etc.
- A balcony with a swing on it, with a staircase that leads to the pool on the 2nd floor. The pool would be above the living room with a glass floor so if you're downstairs watching TV you can look up and see people swimming!

Is the pool with the see-through floor possible? I know there are pools with see-through walls, but not sure about floors... Where would the plumbing etc go?

Ok done boring you guys with nonsense from my brain.

Qingming

Went for Qingming on Sunday, which was the last day to go (after which the Gates of Hell close)! My grandfather's ashes are at Mount Vernon and it's usually pretty crowded during the Qingming period but it was drizzling this Sunday.

From Wiki, for those who may not be familiar with Qingming:
"The Qingming Festival is an opportunity for celebrants to remember and honour their ancestors at grave sites. Young and old pray before the ancestors, sweep the tombs and offer food, tea, wine, chopsticks, joss paper accessories, and/or libations to the ancestors."






The place isn't well maintained anymore because they want to evict "everyone" and move them into high-rise urns. It's always quite amusing how they're organised like HDBs haha.




Paper money, paper clothes, paper clothes, wine, food etc!


High-rise urns in the background!


Someone on my Formspring asked to see my sandals up close. No comments on my feet/toes/toenails thnx.


Never met my grandfather before because he died before I was born, but said hi anyway!




My mom and one of my newer nieces (my family is quite large)!

Ate at Pepperoni's at Greenwood Avenue the other day, and we saw this fat/chubby cat strolling through. It was clearly a regular, because it knew to come around 10+pm and which restaurants to wait outside of (staff fed it some leftovers).

Fat cat probably feasting on sushi and what not! I plucked off (sacrificed) a piece of ham from my pizza and offered it to the cat but it ignored me. So I put it on its head hahaha.

Quite amusing. It sat there for ages staring around with the piece of ham on its head, which obviously eventually dropped off. And it ate it anyway. It was quite friendly; I pet it after that. Typing this I just realised I pet it on its head right where I had put the ham lol.