Whenever I stop

I want to stop,

my brain tells me so,

but when I do,

I get

further

further

and further away.

I really want to stop,

my body tells me so,

but when I do,

I get

further

further

and further away.

I have to stop,

my brain's dying,

but when I do,

I get

further

further

and further away.

I really have to stop,

my body's dying,

but when I do,

I get

further

further

and further away.

I must stop,

so says my heart

but when I do,

I drift

further

further

and further away,

till I saw the angels and the clouds.

No more long bus rides?

No more long bus ride? More short-distance bus rides? Would this benefit us or trouble us instead?

Personally speaking, I do not actually think that more short-distance rides would actually benefit us at all. The intention of the LTA for pushing forth such a policy is so that they would be able to solve the problem off having too long waiting times for buses. However, in trying to tackle such a problem, the LTA might have actually inconvenience the rest of those who do not really mind the long bus waits. What are the advantages of having long bus rides that caused such a debate?

With the long bus rides, the commuters going to work or to school would be able to catch up on lost sleep. They wake up early in the morning so as to be able to reach their destination on time, and hope to catch up on lost sleep in the bus so as not to feel too tired later on in the day, but with such a new policy, would they still be able to catch up on lost sleep? Probably not. This is because with the new policy, there would be lesser long distance direct buses to get the commuters straight to their destination. With lesser direct buses, it means that they would have to transfer to a MRT station and taking an MRT to the station that is nearest to their destination and then taking another bus to get them to their destination. With more transfers around, how would they be able to sleep on the buses while going to their destinations, when they have to transfer buses every 20 minutes?

Furthermore, such a policy is also very troublesome to some commuters. To some commuters, such a policy would not be a problem to them, since they might be living near their destination or that their destination is right beside an MRT station. However, to some others, it is extremely troublesome. Why is this so? Simple. After taking a bus to the MRT station, they still have to take an MRT before reaching another MRT station and FINALLY reaching their destination after taking ANOTHER bus. Not only does such a policy prevent them from resting on the bus, it also causes a lot of trouble for certain commuters.

Apart from being unable to rest on the buses and it being very troublesome to many commuters, there is another problem for them to face, that is, even longer bus waits. The original purpose of the LTA proposing such a policy is so that the commuters would have to wait less for their buses. Have they actually thought that it may have backfired to those who need to transfer buses/trains often? Whenever they transfer buses/trains, they have to wait even longer for their buses every time?

I believe that with such a new bus policy, it does not actually help many commuters, but trouble them even more. Who knows? Such a policy might even result in them actually being LATE!

Distance fares

On July 3rd, the LTA put forth a new policy to the rest of Singapore. According to them, this policy would allow them to save money when it came to travelling around by bus. However, did this really help us save money? Or was it simply just a policy to help the LTA earn much more money? What is this policy all about, that creates so much debate when it came to whether it helped commuters save, or spend more money?

Just a few years back, one paid the bus fare by entry, for example, when a commuter takes a bus once, and transfers over to the next bus to complete his journey, he has to pay twice the fees needed. Let's say that each time you take a bus, you pay 50 cents. With the old system, when you changed buses twice, you have to pay twice the fee, resulting in the commuter paying a dollar. This means that you pay more when you change more buses, and that it is cheaper to take a direct bus to the desired location. However, the situation is now changed. With the new policy in place, then the situation is reversed instead. One no longer has to pay by the number of times he takes the bus, but by the distance traveled instead. This policy benefits those who transfer buses often, as they no longer have to pay by the amount of buses they take, which would lead to a high bus fare since they transfer buses a lot, but pay by the amount of distance traveled.

Such a policy has its advantages and its disadvantages. The advantages of such is that it benefits those that transfer to other buses very often to complete their journey. The downside of such a policy is that it does not benefit those that actually take direct buses to their desired locations. Think of it this way. A commuter who has to take a direct bus to his desired location, say from Choa Chu Kang to Tampines, has to pay for the entry fee for the bus ride, say 50 cents. This small sum of money would allow him to reach his desired location. However, with a new policy, the same commuter has to pay a lot more since the bus fare is calculated by the amount of distance traveled and not the number of times he or she enters the bus. This results in him not just being unable to save money, but ending up paying more.

Let's have an example to allow ourselves to picture better. When a student like me takes a direct bus ride from my school to my house, I only need to pay 55 cents for the bus fare, since I only entered a bus once. However with this new policy, I instead have to pay 80 cents instead of the original 55 cents. If I take the bus for 5 days a week, that means I have to pay 25 cents more every day. I would have to pay 5 dollars more than I usually have to with the old policy. Does this actually help us to save money? Does it? IT DOES NOT.

I am not saying that it would not save money for ALL of us but majority of us. This does not mean that the LTA has not thought of anything to actually try to benefit those who do not benefit from the policy. There are policies to allow such a policy to benefit everyone. What is this policy then?

This policy is to reduce the amount of direct buses but instead increase the number of buses that lead to MRT stations instead, so that commuters can take a bus to an MRT station and continue their journey by MRT. HOWEVER, does this really benefit us? Would such a policy be a curse of a blessing?

I believe that such a policy is more of a CURSE than a blessing. Why do I think so? I would finish up this topic in the next post.

Book review: The Final Days

Title: The Final Days

Author: Alex Chance

What it is about:

Karen Wiley, recent qualified San Fransisco psychologist, thought she understood moral dilemma. Then an anonymous child cries to her for help via letters: "O God help me hes going to hurt me if you don't do what he says". No one Karen knows is in trouble, but the letters keep coming. Then something far worse: "He knows where you are now I had to give it to him". Until the horror in the Trueblood trailer, Ella McCullers, police chief of Canaan, Utah, believed she knew crises of faith. Abruptly promoted to senior investigator of the state's most high-profile kidnapping case, her only leads are a decaying tombstone, a missing cat and a little mute girl with ghastly formless nightmares. "Daddy says go to the church of the final days" was also another letter sent by the child. In truth , it began with the Cult of the Final Days, and a long-buried history of murder. Now Karen Wiley must cross the desert wilderness to play a deadly game disguised as a righteous quest for the truth.

Personal opinion:

I think that this is a very interesting book for a few reasons, namely the suspense that is created, the different viewpoints and language that is used to show the characteristics of each character, and the eerie atmosphere created by the letters

The suspense in the book was built up gradually, unlike most of the other thrillers that I have read, which does not have this element of suspense in the plot. The books starts out with the mind of a madman, which leaves the readers in suspense, as we gasp in horror at what he does at the start of the book. This suspense is built gradually as he starts to talk about his fetish for phone books to target his new victims. We do not know who he really is at the start of the book and are left in suspense as why he was introduced as the first chapter is not immediately revealed to us. Such an introduction entices us to read on. No one except for Karen trusted the letter and this also builds up the suspense gradually as it isolates her from the rest of the world. This gives us the feeling that she is the only one who was in danger, and this builds up the suspense, as part of us actually worry for her while reading the book.

The choice of words and scenes in the book is also something that I enjoy in the book, as it clearly depicts the characteristics of each specific character. The first character that is introduced in the story is Jon Peterson. He is introduced as a madman and this is clearly shown in his weird fetish for phone books. He is further depicted as such by him targeting his random victims by using the phone books. However, the diction changed when introducing Karen Wiley, and the choice of words give us the impression of a slightly confused but reliable adult instead of the delusional madman introduced earlier. The diction was then changed again to show the innocence of a young child of the two divorced couple, when she just wanted to make her father happy. This change of diction to introduce the character's characteristics is interesting and allows us to fully grasp the atmosphere.

Piano

Its dark black structure

filling the room with sounds

Its stream of queer buttons

filling the room with creativity

Its wooden base

filling the room with strength

Its inner mechanism

filling the air with energy

Its dark black structure

Its stream of queer buttons

Its wooden base

Its inner mechanism

Filling the air with music.

Flash Floods that sparked off the lame blame game

Some people grumble and mumbled to themselves as they secured their pants above their knees and trudged through the flood waters even above their knees. More people swore and complained to themselves as their car engines died down gradually, going to a complete stop. Most just gasped at the sight of their destroyed goods. Then the lame blame game starts as everyone starts complaining. "It's the government's fault for not making sure this would never happen". "It's the PUB's fault for not properly maintaining the drainage systems". As the blame game continues, no one actually stopped to think what is the main cause of the entire incident is. Is it really the drainage systems? Is it really the government? Or is it simply an incident that happens once in a blue moon?

In my opinion, the people are not particularly correct either. Look at what they have done to try to "alleviate" the floods. Complain, grumble, curse, swear and the list goes on forever. However, have they actually thought about how the government may not always be the ones at fault? Have they ever thought about how they may be other factors that are beyond the government's control? No, they have not. They only know how to play the lame blame game but never thought about how unreasonable their demands may be. They demand that Singapore must be a flood-free country. The government tries their best to give it to them, but is it really possible, when there are also other factors that may be preventing a flood-free Singapore? Perhaps a suggestion: Mother Nature. The participants of the lame blame game never really stopped to think that such floods may simply be a phenomenon that happens once in may years. Think of it this way, the average rainfall per month for Singapore that month was about 150mm. All that rain fell in two hours. How is it possible that the people are unable to comprehend the fact that it is impossible to stop such an incident from happening? How is possible that the government still blames the PUB for such an occurrence? The people do not even try to understand the governments plight and how it did try to prevent such events from happening. They only played the lame blame game and made the government the ultimate culprit of a trick played by Mother Nature.

I'm not trying to imply that the government is entirely faultless in this event. Think of it this way, the government desperately tries to cover up their faults by pushing the blame to PUB or a clogged drain. Doesn't this just make the government look highly incompetent, when it does not even admit that they MAY be a cause of the flood and that pushing the blame to others just make it even more so? They blame the clogged drain but they did not really stop to think how it was near impossible that the drain could even get clogged to begin with. The drain was as large as the width of and SBS bus. You don't see debris as large as SBS buses suddenly floating down the drains and clogging them everyday do you? It just looks like a dumb excuse that the government came up with to cover up for themselves, since they think that they may be the cause for it. Furthermore, they blame PUB for not checking the drains frequently enough to prevent the flood. However, they did not stop to think that PUB might have checked the drains frequently? The drains were indeed checked by the PUB a mere three months ago and the drain was clear then. That did not stop the floods did it?

What I'm trying to say is that the people should just shut up and think for that one moment that they should not blame the impossible on the government and that the government should see how it may be one of the causes of the floods to begin with. The lame blame game is pointless. Both parties are to blame.

Expository essay exercise: What makes a superhero?

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Superman! You look at your favourite superhero soaring across the sky to save the damsel in distress. You gasp in fascination as your favourite superhero lifts cars and thrashes villains. We all know that they are more than just a sack of flesh, blood and bones, but has anyone actually stopped to think what makes them “super”? Has anyone stopped to think what makes them different from a “hero” that leaps into the air and crashes down almost immediately? What makes them so special? Without the brain of a fool, all the luck in the world, and a high-tech costume, a superhero would be no different from an average schoolboy with an “S” on his T-shirt and his briefs outside his pants.

The brain of a fool is highly essential in a superhero. Think of it this way. Without the brain of a fool, would the superhero be rush stupidly into danger to save the damsel in distress when there is a monster or an alien the size of a skyscraper? Probably not. If Superman had the brain of an average kindergarten kid, he would have realized that monsters were scary and that it would be pointless when the monster could break him like a toothpick. If he had half the brain of an average teenager he would have realized his outfit would have looked ridiculous. However, it is exactly because superheroes do not possess the brain of a scholar that makes them so heroic. Spiderman was battling a 100-foot tall pile of sand that could never be destroyed but that did not stop him from diving head-first into danger. He simply went “Mary Jane!” and rushed to save her without actually thinking how impossible the task was. It may also be the fact that it was because of him having the brain of a fool that he thought he could have killed the pile of sand somehow.

Luck is the next most important thing that must never be lacking in a superhero. Ultraman gets thrashed around by huge aliens time and time again, and more often than not, his little LED on his chest flickers red and he lies on the ground half-dead while the city screams in horror at the sight of the mutation that threw Ultraman off the ground. Lucky for Ultraman, the alien creeps towards him at the speed of a snail. By the time it reaches Ultraman, he recovered miraculously and jumps up again and throws the alien back into space. Without his insane amount of luck, he would have met a lightning-quick aliend that would have thrown Ultraman down and ended him there and then. Another superhero with that requires luck is probably Ironman, where with a lot of luck, his beam touches that of his ally’s and it created an explosion, killing the enemy. He would simply kill his ally by missing if he had no luck to speak of.

A high-tech costume is the most important in a superhero. Spiderman would not be shooting webs if he did not have a super suit that does it for him. Imagine, would Superman be able to attract the attention of his enemy, if he did not wear his red briefs outside a ridiculous blue suit? Would the Hulk be able to show his power if there was not a suit for him to burst out of and scare the enemy into surrendering? This shows the importance of a suit to a superhero. An “S” on your suit would not save your life, the suit would.

Without the brain, the luck and the suit, “super” would be erased from the dictionary of the superheroes. Without them, you would get insane fools jumping from building to building, and falling to their deaths in the most comical manner if they failed to have a firm step.