i am inclined to complain and whine a lot at this point of time. just 18 hours of camp for this entire week! in and out, in and out, and without the luxury of sleeping on my own bed, in my own room. my life sucks. on the bright side, there's just 79 more days to go, which translates to just 40 working days thereabout, so that at least is something to look forward to. yay.

so the world doesnt stop for you even though you are closeted in the confines of s a f camp. the table tennis team lost to china last sunday, which has become old news now that lijiawei lost to guo yue - a conspiracy they say, to make wangnan win just so that guo yue will face jiawei in the bronze play off and have a higher chance of winning that match, ensuring a clean sweep of the table tennis singles medals -, pm delivered his national day rally and now everyone is talking about having about having babies.

i think singaporeans do not give their fellow singaporeans enough credit. to them those carrying the singapore flag are always never good enough, and always subject them to some rather harsh criticism. it was the case when hady won asian idol - he won it by pure luck (not that i thought hady was ever very good), and while the local press hasnt harped on this, many are saying how singapore got its silver medal through luck too, through unforced errors by the koreans, more than real tenacity and skills on the part of singaporeans. the thing is, it takes a certain level of skills to get to where they really are, and rather then harp on what they did not do, why not focus on what they did. to win. and even if they lost, should we still not appreciate their hard work? isnt that the case when we compete and want people to appreciate our hard work. there's really more of "they are just not good enough" more than "we tried our best".

and then there's this whole idea about foreign talent and that the silver doesnt really belong to us. which i dont agree with really, because this is what singapore has always been about, an island with different ethnic groups because of the immigrants she attracted on her founding and has continued to do so until today. so as long as such atheletes made a choice to don the singapore colours because they were attracted by something in this country and as long as they believe in what they can do for this country, then i think it is time we stop treating them as second class citizens. of course they could just be mercenaries, wanting money and leaving once the money is made, or they just wanted a world stage to showcase their skills and singapore being this desperate country willing to pay for what they are asking is a convenient ground for them. but i think we need to learn to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe in them.

still on the olympics, i think lee bee wah as stta president is crass and has embarrassed herself and this country with her "rage" as she puts it herself. either she is new to the job or just trying to show off. i mean couldnt she have waited until everything was over to "blow her top", couldnt she have been more calm rather than consistently affect the morale of the coaches. and couldnt she do this internally and discuss it with the rest of her management rather then come across as being as a tyrant who talks about what she wants. gosh.

ok i am making a lot of assertions and all but whatever.

there wasnt really any shocking revelation in pm's speech. except for the whole protests being legalised at speakers' corner! wow. haha. that was a surprising move, but it would be interesting to see if the masses actually take to that idea. then of course there were the new incentives for more babies to be born. those who just had kids are probably pulling their hair out now. i think in the future for anyone who wants kids, have them after the ndp rally to be extra sure no new incentives come up within months or even weeks after your child is born and after you had one, have the next after 3-4 years because that's when the govt decides the babies STILL arent enough and there's a huge need to increase the incentives. see that way you ensure your maximise the amount of incentives received as you have kids.

o well, there's ahm tomorrow, and running just becomes so boring after some time.

junyi! posted at 11:34 am.