Posted on Tue, 17 April 2007, 9:52 pm, under @#$@#RANTS ·
My friend had a rather nasty encounter last night. He’s a JC student. Apparently he and his friends were at City Hall MRT station last night after a concert. His friend took out some chocolate to eat in the MRT station which of course is not allowed. She was warned once by the MRT official. They persisted awhile later and the station master came down and informed them that they would have to be fined (I think the fine is supposed to be $500). Now this is all well and good because yes, they did break the law, knowingly, even after having been warned the first time. So I have no quibble with that.
But…my friend followed the two girls up to the control station. As the station master was speaking to the girls, my friend happened to notice a man coming through the gantries with a half-filled (I’m an optimist) cup of iced coffee in his hand, sipping from it through a straw. My friend told the station master to look at the man, expecting him to apprehend or at least warn the man as well, but the station master got very snippy with him, demanding to know if he was “challenging” him, telling them they were only students and should have “basic courtesy”, didn’t warn the other man at all, and threatened to call the police on them. You can read the account below.
I’m pissed off because it sounds like the station master is some frustrated employee with a power trip, and while he had a legitimate reason to apprehend the two girls for eating chocolate in the MRT station I certainly don’t see any reason for him being so aggressive and repeatedly demanding, “Are you challenging me?” when my friend also repeatedly said he was not, and even apologized. I don’t see any reason for him to stop two girls eating chocolate and holding them up for so long but when another man, drinking, was pointed out to him, he chose to do nothing about it.
M says:
i want to rant about last night
last night choir had to perform for ajc choir thing
as guest choir
so we ended around 9
then we went to city hall mrt in one group
and one of the girls was hungry so she took out chocolate to eat
the station people say cannot eat
so she kept
we went in
and she took out to eat anyway
and continued eating
which is wrong
so another girl ask for some chocolate too
so the station master came down and ask the 2 girls to go up
say he need to fine them
so i went up after some time to see
he says he has to uphold policy
account to his boss that hes doing his job
say he caught everything with his 153 cctvs
then i was looking another group of people walking thru the gantry
one guy had this huge cup of ice coffee
like half full
straw in his mouth
obviously drinking
so i tell the station master
“look over there”
he refuses to look and stares at me
i say “look over there that guy is drinking”
“why dont you warn him”
he looks
then he looks at me and says
“ARE YOU CHALLENGING ME?”
and he repeated the question like a dozen times
i say no
i just ask why u pick this girl out but u don’t do anything to that guy over there
then he say something like
i mean
he just totally ignored my question
then he said if he fine that guy he will fine her too
then he ask again are you challenging me
i say no
then he ask again
and again
i say no
again
and again
then he say i can easily call the police
then he ask are you challenging me
i say no
i didnt want to get that girl into more trouble so i apologize
then he says to me
said to all of us actually but particularly to me
“you are JUST STUDENTS”
“you are ONLY STUDENTS”
“basic courtesy you should know”
he said that like dunno how many umpteen times
then he says to everyone and stares at me
im not trying to create trouble for all of you
to me “ok sir?”
like some sarcastic manner
then the girl started crying
then he said i actually dont want to fine and yada yada
so in the end never fine
and whatever
but i’m disgusted
i’m a consumer of their services
i should be treated like one
but im viewed as “only a student”
if other people werent involved i wouldve asked him to go ahead and call the police
-jadeite- says:
well if they had called the police you probably would have had to pay the fine
M says:
no
he has no right to fine
because
i made sure
he saw someone else drinking
but he didnt fine that person
additionally
-jadeite- says:
being a devil’s advocate here: on one hand it is not about “look, that man is doing it too,” but your friend having done something that is expressly forbidden and already having been warned
M says:
he constantly stated “you are only students”
this shows bias
so why
but he still has no right to fine because he is selectively apply this supposed law
and his 153 cctvs must have caught that guy drinking too
so these rules apply to us just because we are students?
someone else who doesnt come in in uniform can eat and drink?
and adult can walk in eating and drinking?
i need to know my consumer rights
i do have the right to question why only a selected group of people should have to abide to the law
and why he blatantly didnt take the effort to “uphold his policies” on others
he says he needs to be accountable to his boss that hes doing his job
but he clearly isnt
-jadeite- says:
well you do have to understand on a moral point of view…if you are caught for stealing you can’t plead for mercy just because other people steal, too, so why aren’t you catching them?
but you’re right, the onus is on him to extend the same manner of jurisdiction on others
M says:
proof of that is he knowingly allowed others to enter
i wasnt the one who broke the law
but yet he singled me out
as “you are just a student”
-jadeite- says:
but your friend also has to accept that she shldn’t have eaten the chocolate
haih that part is disgusting
did you get his name?
M says:
no
but he is station master of city hall
very big sized guy
hard to miss
but i still dont think he has the right to fine the girl when he didnt fine, or even bother to warn someone else
my point is that he was aware of it right at that moment
and he was able to act on it
but he didn’t
not to mention he threatened me with the police
and accused me of challenging him
my friend was shocked
she was crying
ironic thing is the trains had the advertisement
courtesy starts with a smile
or some nonsense like that
i really wonder what he wouldve said to the police
like im reporting a case of two girls eating chocolate
and a guy who is being rude to me
how is he being rude?
uh, well
he didnt use vulgarities
he apologized to me
and uh
-_-
FYP event down.
CS438C event down.
FYP report down.
CS222 term paper down.
HZ101 portfolio down.
FYP presentation down.
AAR282 portfolio down.
CS222 exam and CS438C exam to go - after that, it’s Beijing bound for me! Wooo!
It’s kinda hard to swallow that this is the absolute end of my tenure in SCI. :(
My new favorite quote adapted from a Chinese song, just because it sounds poetic and pretty - ‘the sunlit day cannot hope to understand the darkness of the night’.
:)
Posted on Tue, 17 April 2007, 12:46 am, under Love, Sing a song [of sixpence] ·
Posted on Mon, 16 April 2007, 1:55 pm, under @#$@#RANTS, Links ·
Straight from the wonderful website of WKW SCI:
 |
| Bachelor of Communication Studies (Honours) – New Curriculum from Aug 2007 |
| All incoming first year and second year students will be reading the new undergraduate curriculum from August 2007. Students will choose from six tracks or concentrations: 1) Journalism, 2) Broadcast and Cinema Studies, 3) Advertising, 4) Public Relations, 5) Communication Policy and Research, and 6) Interdisciplinary track. The last track allows students to pick their subjects to fit their specific requirements. With careful planning, students may also be able to complete two tracks in the curriculum.Be Media-Savy. Be Critically-Informed. Be Value-Creative! Join WKW SCI. |
| Read more > |
-taken from the WKW SCI Undergraduate Homepage
Mmhmm! Be Media-Savy! The Saviest person will Win a Prize! Because, you know, we love Savy People in WKW SCI! People…who…save!
I am so bloody disillusioned. Who on earth is the brilliant person writing all these things and why does he/she not know how to use the simple spell-check function?
Posted on Mon, 16 April 2007, 12:07 am, under Musings, Picture-Perfect ·
She forgave me eventually.
Marley smiles at me, and damn if she hasn’t got the cutest little gap-toothed grin I’ve ever seen. I should recognize that angelic smile by now – it’s the I-didn’t-do-nothing-wrong look, patented by Marley and dragged out every time she knows she’s butt-deep in trouble. Her brown eyes are huge. She makes them as wide as possible and stares at me with a gaze of calculated innocence.
Sweet little Marley. She learned how to talk when she was barely thirteen months old and I haven’t been able to hush her up since then. My mother thinks it’s incredibly funny because apparently I couldn’t shut up myself as a kid. Retribution, she calls it, but of course she says it with a great deal of affection. Marley may be able to talk your ear off but you can’t help falling in love with the little tyke. How could you not? Just that sometimes I look at her pacifier with wistful longing and wonder why on earth she ever had to grow out of it.
If you’ve ever heard the term ‘devil in disguise’ you know the creator probably had a Marley of his or her own. She gets into trouble with the greatest of ease. I can’t explain it. She must have been born with some sort of magnet inside her because no matter where she is, she’ll figure out how to break something – or someone. Chor Ling from down the street won’t bring her Bobby over to play anymore, not after we spent that harrowing evening in the A&E when Marley slammed her bedroom door on Bobby’s fingers. That’s when I found out that the worse the sin committed, the sweeter Marley’s patented look is. After smashing Bobby’s fingers in the door she’d toddled to the kitchen and given me a real whopper of an angel face.
This time, judging by the expression she’s wearing, I’m absolutely certain I’m going to be needing an extra-strength aspirin in a couple of minutes to deal with the headache she’s put in my way this time.
Posted on Sun, 15 April 2007, 3:56 am, under Musings ·
Found a whole archive of band music on multiply.com and downloaded a whole bunch of songs that we’d played back when I was in secondary school band. Man, I hadn’t realized how much I missed playing my clarinet and how much I’d secretly enjoyed band despite the terribly regimented and overly disciplinary nature of it. I remember all the good parts now :) and the utter bliss of creating beautiful music together as a band. Alfred Reed’s music thrills the blood.
Been crazy over El Camino Real, Armenian Dances, Overture Jubiloso, Concerto D’Amore, Wachet Auf, American Graffiti…I’m really upset that I can’t find Johan de Meij’s Hobbit or Jan van der Roost’s Spartacus: A Symphonic Tone Poem. I absolutely loved Spartacus. Never mind, my favorite is El Camino…it’s been rather embarrassing listening to it in public because my arm twitches to conduct the fascinating beat and to sing my clarinet part out with gusto.
I miss TKGSSB. Never thought I’d say that, but yeah. I miss being in band. I miss sectionals.
And of course a little part of me misses being greeted “Good afternoon ma’am” everytime I bump into a junior, hoho.
Kitty just streaked past me and under my bed, literally like a ball of greased lightning, if greased lightning was furry, calico-colored and bloody terrified of thunder. Went to tease her out from under the bed but she’s huddling in the corner shaking and with her ears pinned back against her head. Don’t think she’ll be coming out till the thunderstorm is over.
Whoops lightning just shorted out the entire house. Thank God for laptops and batteries, or I’dve lost my term paper :O
Posted on Fri, 13 April 2007, 2:23 am, under Prose ·
As I leaned on the table and rested my cheek on my hand I caught a whiff of a pleasant scent. Where did it come from? I turned my head - was it? - it was! The scent emanated from my own hands. I dabbed my nose against the thin pale skin of my wrist and inhaled. The smell was light, floral, unfamiliar. I couldn’t connect it with myself; it didn’t smell like anything I recognized. Ah, yes. The toilet soap I’d used to wash my hands with. I breathed in again. It was faintly alien, to sniff my own hands and not recognize my own smell. For a second it felt like another person’s hands were attached to my arms - it was such a peculiar feeling.
I began to imagine what this person would be like. An older woman, most likely, going by the bouquet. Widowed - or perhaps, more likely, her husband had left her. Hair liberally streaked with gray, I thought, and an empty apartment yawning beneath her feet. She’d sit by the dresser in the mornings and examine her wrinkles in the mirror, dab toilet water on her pulse points. A useless exercise, since no one would scent it but herself. I nodded to myself. This arm belonged to her. It couldn’t possibly be mine.
I ran my lips gently across the wrist. It was soft and satiny, the fragrance drifting into my head. I hadn’t ever noticed before how delicate the skin there was. Then I recalled how it looked to have beads of blood swelling and ripening in a thin red line, bright red against the white of the wrist. Yes, it was fragile. Thin. Easily torn.
Again I stared at the forearm as if it belonged to someone else. I convinced myself that I could no longer feel it attached to my body. It was foreign to me. If I twitched a muscle, would the fingers really move? I imagined straining, stretching, while the hand stayed stiff and immobile and uncaring of my demands. Experimentally I contracted a muscle in the arm. I held my breath. The index finger moved - I felt vaguely disappointed. I decided that despite the strange scent my arm did belong to me after all. I smelt my wrist. I felt the puffs of air as I exhaled on my skin. It was my own hand.
Posted on Fri, 13 April 2007, 12:53 am, under Sing a song [of sixpence] ·
泪有点咸有点甜
你的胸膛吻着我的侧脸
回头看踏过的雪
慢慢融化成草原
而我就像你没有一秒曾后悔
爱那么绵那么粘
管命运设定要谁离别
海岸线越让人流连
总是美得越蜿蜒
我们太倔强
连天都不忍再反对
深情一眼挚爱万年
几度轮回恋恋不灭
把岁月铺成红毯
见证我们的极限
心疼一句珍藏万年
誓言就该比永远更远
要不是沧海桑田
真爱怎么会浮现