So today marks the last day of my university life.

No more travelling 17km to Clementi. 1.5 hours by bus. 30 mins by car. 

(I hate the commute back home even more because of the horrible jam at Dunearn and Lornie)

After today, the only time I'll have to go back there would be for my convocation next year, and probably my other friends' convocations the year after.

It was fun taking mods like Sex Comms, Political Comms, Non Verbal Comms, Advertising, . . .  ok basically majority of the COM400+ mods. 

I'll also hold close to me the friendships I've forged, especially that with the #UBæs (Alicia, Sam, Venn, and Grac).

We were in this together since Day 1, when we all sat together in Kirti's 8:30am ESL407 class.

(ok all this was funnier in my head because I could hear it in her voice and accent)

I won't miss. . .
 The crazy rush to complete our assignments and projects. Suffering from severe lack of sleep due to our procrastination. (Sam and I used to not sleep on Sundays because we we were always rushing to complete our ESL407 assignments which had to be submitted by Monday 8:30am) Having useless 5 hr breaks. Suffering 1.5 hrs of torture with profs who just could NOT teach. Rushing for a table at Food Clique. Exiting Food Clique and going for class with smelly clothes. Hearing drama about the juniors. 

Anyway, let's take a walk down memory lane, LOL.

I've always been fascinated by words with dual meanings so for my ESL408 definition essay, I chose the word "Fine".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

When you hear the phrase, “Singapore is a Fine city”, your mind automatically jumps to define Singapore as a city that charges you for money over offensive acts and you aren’t wrong to think this way because according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2017), the noun, “Fine”, means “a sum of money exacted as a penalty by a court of law or other authority.” Singapore may be a minute nation in comparison to other countries however, we have countless laws set in place to maintain order in our little red dot. Just to name a few, you could get up to a $1000 fine for littering on the streets, $200 fine for parking offences, and fines for spitting in public and for jaywalking. There are also some offences that are seen as trivial or outrageous to foreigners, such that it has resulted in them ridiculing our country. For instance, you could receive a fine or be imprisoned for up to 3 months for singing songs that contain obscenities. You could also be fined up to $150 for leaving a public toilet unflushed after using it. Even in your own home, the place that is supposed to be your personal property, you could be fined $2000 or jailed for up to 3 months for walking around nude without drawing your curtains, as it is deemed to be an act of public nuisance. One of the more incredulous “crimes” involve chewing gum. Chewing gum is a type of sweet that can be bought easily in other countries. However, in Singapore, selling gum can warrant you a fine of up to $100, 000, or imprisonment of up to two years, such that people don’t dare even eat it in public. In secondary school, when people were seen eating chewing gum, their friends would immediately chide them, saying, “Orh hor, you eat chewing gum! Later police catch you!!”

All these laws and fines for the simplest of issues have led us to lead such cautious lives and become law-abiding citizens. This behaviour has been instilled in us for as long as we can remember, such that even though these foreigners laugh at us for having petty laws and constantly ridicule us for “being under the rule of a dictatorship”, they still agree that it is one of the safest countries in the world. However, because of all these laws, our mind does not jump to the adjective meaning of fine, which is, “of very high quality; very good of its kind, worthy of or eliciting admiration.” Despite all these tights rules set in place though, Singapore is a beautiful country. It’s clean, safe, and we have managed to become a first-class nation in a span of less than 50 years. When you stand at the Esplanade Bridge and look around, especially at night, you can’t help but marvel in awe at the grandiose skyscrapers of our city skyline, bathed in the light emitting from the buildings in the central business district and shopping malls, and the stars. We also have so many highly acclaimed tourist attractions such as Gardens by the Bay, Sentosa Island, and Orchard Road. According to the Straits Times, Singapore recorded the highest number of visitors in 2016, at a whopping figure of 16.4 million, despite several economic problems, terrorist threats and the Zika virus outbreak. The fact that numerous tourists choose Singapore as their Number 1 destination makes Singapore a fine city indeed. Singapore is also a land of opportunity and it is seen with the amount of migrant workers who come to Singapore to work and make a living for themselves and their family. Why did they choose to come to Singapore, and not any other countries?

The last definition of Fine, however, does not entirely have to do with Singapore, but we do use it. It is to do with our mental state of wellbeing. The last definition of Fine this essay will touch on is the adjective, meaning, “good, acceptable, or satisfactory, used in an ironic way to refer to things that are not good or acceptable.” Many times too often, when people ask us how we are feeling, or if we’re feeling good, we tend to respond with a simple, “Nah, I’m fine.” It is probably a white lie we tell everyday about the true status of our mental state. Even when we aren’t feeling all too well, we still give that response, either because we do not feel we are close friends enough to the asker to self-disclose our true thoughts and feelings that are eating away at us, or we simply just do not want to worry that individual with problems that are really affecting us. Also, sometimes when we’re arguing with somebody and feeling annoyed with them but we don’t feel like continuing with the argument, we reply with an, “Yeah, ok fine.” It can also loosely imply us ironically saying that everything is ok, when in actual fact it is not and that the argument is still not concluded, but we do not want to waste our breath on the other party.

The examples above show how many different meanings there are of Fine and also how some original meanings have changed over a period of time and in different contexts. Who knows? Maybe in a century or so, Fine would have a completely different meaning than what it is currently.

References:

Merriam-webster.com. (2017). Definition of FINE. [online] Available at: https://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fine [Accessed 31 Jul. 2017].

Singapore, 1. (2017). 16 odd things that are illegal in Singapore. [online] Business Insider. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/things-that-are-illegal-in-singapore-2015-7/?IR=T&r=SG [Accessed 31 Jul. 2017].

Channel NewsAsia. (2017). Singapore’s tourism numbers hit historic high in 2016. [online] Available at: http://www. Channelnewsasia.com/news/Singapore/Singapore-s-tourism-numbers-hit-historic-high-in-2016-7590730 [Accessed 31 Jul. 2017].

Little piece I did for my COM 438 Nonverbal Communication Assignment #1. We were made to watch the Passion of Joan of Arc (in all its b&w glory), identify several nonverbal cues, and discuss if the director was successful in conveying his intended message. 

Here's a profiling essay I did for my ESL 408 module. I lowkey did it in a rush, so I apologise in advance!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Amidst a row of old, weathering but identical shophouses along Jalan Jaksa in Central Jakarta, one shop stands out the most with its jarring bright neon red sign with Mandarin characters that loosely translate to “Aunty Wang’s Restaurant and Takeout”. In contrast with this loud restaurant that does not quite seem to fit in with the surroundings, is the owner Dinda, who simply does not stand out with her 5 feet tall stature. When you first lay your eyes on her, you would assume she is one of the staff as she is dressed identically to them. She is dressed in a black pantsuit with her hair neatly tied into a long sleek ponytail and she greets every customer with a bright smile and cheery “Ni hao” when they walk through the doors. She even helps her wait staff with the serving of food during the lunchtime rush hour and cooks in the kitchen with her chefs on occasion. Rain or shine, even through natural disasters, Dinda always keeps her restaurant open for business. She is always the first to arrive, and the last to leave. She’s never taken a sick day throughout the 5 years of restaurant operations and only takes leave when absolutely necessary. The last time she took emergency leave was because she had to bring her youngest daughter to the doctor when she caught the chicken pox. The reason why Dinda manages to work everyday without neglecting her 2 children and husband is because they stay at the 2nd storey of the shophouse, which makes it easier for her to pop in and out to see them or have a meal with them. “Aunty Wang’s is one of my children too. I can’t bear to be apart from it for too long,” she laughs.

It is lunchtime and the restaurant is packed. Aunty Wang’s Restaurant and Takeout is a result of three shophouse units that have been combined into one restaurant. Seven massive red chinese lanterns adorn the length of the shop. Upon entering the restaurant, two shoulder-height Chinese lions greet you at either side.  The entire 1st storey of the shophouse is filled with dine-in customers, and there is a line of waiting customers snaking outside at the five-foot way. Aunty Wang’s, as it’s known to everyone, is rated as one of the top 5 restaurants to visit in Jakarta on TripAdvisor and it is highly recommended that you book a reservation to ensure yourself of seats.

Looking at Dinda’s constant upbeat and chirpy demeanor while chatting with her customers, one might think she has had a smooth sailing and uncomplicated life without any hurdles. However, that was not the case. Her mother had passed away at childbirth, and her father found the thought of being a single dad too daunting that he fell into a state of depression and alcoholism. He lost his job and respect of his family and friends. Reluctantly, his parents took Dinda under their wings. Despite not having any parents around, Dinda had a relatively mediocre childhood. She received a good education, all paid for by her grandparents, clothes to wear, a roof over her head and never went hungry. However, good times don’t last forever. Disaster struck when an earthquake destroyed her grandparent’s house when she was 15 years old. It caused parts of her house to collapse and a massive beam hit her grandfather on his head, knocking him unconscious and eventually, killing him. Even though Dinda and her grandmother escaped unscathed, the death of Dinda’s grandfather took a toll on her grandmother and over the next few months, her health took a turn for the worst, causing her to become bedridden. Despite being only 15 years old, Dinda had to take on the responsibility of an adult and to make ends meet. Her grandfather did not leave much of an inheritance behind and her grandmother’s hospitalisation bills were piling up. With no other family to turn to, her maternal relatives were living miles away on an island north of Indonesia, she set out to find a job. It was difficult finding work as a 15 year old and eventually, she succeeded in getting a job as a factory worker with a miserable pay of 15 cents an hour. Dinda grew increasingly worried as the bills were amounting for everyday her grandmother remained in hospital and her grandfather’s savings were slowly depleting. It was somewhat a bittersweet blessing in disguise when her grandmother finally succumbed to her illness and passed away. Dinda had never felt so lonely before. This were the least of her problems though. Her grandparents failed to leave a will hence the government seized the house, leaving Dinda homeless. She then made a life-changing decision to work as a foreign domestic worker in Singapore. Even after hearing several horror stories about fdws being abused, she still decided to proceed with her plan as the pay sounded promising and she had nothing left for her in Indonesia. The moment she became Aunty Wang’s fdw, was the moment her future changed for the better.

Aunty Wang was a formidable elderly lady in her seventies who had suffered from a stroke, thus affecting her mobility. She had 2 daughters however, they rarely visited her and did not even give her money, even though it is common in the Asian culture to give parents a monthly “allowance”. Dinda was initially extremely scared of Aunty Wang’s overbearing presence however, eventually she grew comfortable with her and Aunty Wang taught her how to cook authentic Hakka food, through which she also learnt that Aunty Wang used to own a popular Hakka cuisine restaurant in Keong Saik Road before she suffered from her stroke. She learnt how to cook so many dishes, such as braised pork with preserved vegetable, drunken chicken in glutinous rice wine, and braised pig trotters, which was her speciality. In no time, Dinda was able to cook several Hakka dishes to perfection and when Aunty Wang’s friends came over for mahjong sessions, Dinda would cook these dishes for them and they would always comment on how succulent the meat was and that the dishes tasted as though they were cooked by someone with Hakka origin. They even joked with Aunty Wang that Dinda’s cooking was better than hers.

Dinda worked for Aunty Wang for 15 years and they developed a very close relationship, almost as if they were granddaughter and grandmother. “I loved Aunty Wang so much and when she passed away after her second stroke, it was as if I had lost a second grandmother,” says Dinda rather tearfully. Aunty Wang left everything in her will to Dinda, so despite feeling devastated at losing another loved one, she was definitely much richer now with her sudden windfall. She returned to Jakarta and thus opened Aunty Wang’s Restaurant. When she first opened the restaurant, it only occupied a single shophouse. She did the cooking herself and hired only two service staff to help her serve the customers and to manage the shop till.

However, news spread of this amazing restaurant serving Hakka cuisine and how it was cooked by an Indonesian lady who used to be a foreign domestic worker. People flocked to the restaurant and she soon realised she needed to expand her team as she could not cope with the cooking alone. She trained all the chefs she hired personally and over a span of 5 years, her team grew to twenty people and a single shophouse became three.

When asked what her future plans for Aunty Wang’s would be, she simply replies coyly with a smile, “We’ll see.”

-

Here's an Opinion Article I did for my COM 300 Written Communications module. Decided to touch on a slightly sensitive subject - Foreign Domestic Workers. There's been much controversy recently ever since the case where a FDW "ill-treated" a child with special needs by failing to follow the proper procedure her employers had taught her in caring for the child.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

When did our maids suddenly become caregivers and tutors?

Brigid De Souza for Com300

PUBLISHED MAR 31, 2017, 8:00 PM SGT

ARE WE EXPECTING TOO MUCH FROM OUR FOREIGN DOMESTIC WORKERS (FDW)?

In Singapore, we currently have 237, 100, and counting, FDW, which equates to 1 maid for every 5 Singapore households. In the past, it used to be a benefit to hire a maid, however, now it is norm.

Some of the reasons Singaporeans are hiring maids are due to our ageing population and long working hours, which amounts to us being unable to take care of our aged parents, children, or even to do daily household chores like cooking and cleaning. However, in recent years, the roles of maids have gone beyond their initial job scope.

Nowadays, there are maids who do more than keeping the household clean and cooking for their employers.

Ministry of Manpower rules state that foreign domestic workers “can only perform domestic chores” however, they do not define exactly what “domestic chores” entail. Hence, Singaporeans have taken advantage of this loophole by hiring maids to do things other than basic cooking and cleaning. Besides simply being a housekeeper, as what was initially expected, the  job scope of a maid has broadened and now even entails caring for their employer’s mentally or physically disabled loved ones, helping their employer’s children with their homework, and sometimes even doing the homework for them. Some foreign domestic workers even have to tolerate physical and verbal abuse from their employers.

Is it fair to expect too much from our maids? The answer is no.

The main reason why I bring this topic up is because of a recent case involving Kusrini Caslan Arja, an Indonesian maid where she was charged in court for ill-treating her employer’s bedridden four-year-old son, who has type one spinal muscular atrophy and requires support ventilation and oxygenation. A little backstory to what happened; she was hired by the family in March 2016 and was taught by them how to use the suction machine on their handicapped son properly. However, one morning, she failed to follow her employers’ instructions and she “improvised” the proper method to clear the phlegm from his windpipe by inserting the cap into his mouth, despite them telling her to only use it outside his mouth, and this thus sparked a mishap. The cap got lodged in his throat and without thinking clearly or logically and calling for help, she used her hand to manually retrieve the cap from his throat but she failed. When her employers came back, she still did not alert them to the situation immediately and instead, they discovered the catastrophe themselves when they saw that he had a higher than usual heart rate and there was blood in the pump container of the suction machine.

Kusrini was unrepresented in court when she was charged for her negligence but luckily District Judge Low Wee Ping refused to charge her unfairly and thus appointed a lawyer to her.It was also clear to Judge Low that Kusrini did not ill-treat the boy intentionally during the crisis. Instead, she had  behaved like how a normal person would have if they were faced in a crucial situation. I also wholeheartedly agree with him when he says, “We employ domestic maids to be car washers, gardeners, plumbers, nurses, when they should not...When they do something wrong, we point fault at them.”

How is it fair to expect our FDW, who have no prior medical training, to take care of our physically disabled loved ones? How is it fair that we push the entire blame towards them the moment something goes wrong? Most of these maids come from rural backgrounds and prior to coming to Singapore for work, they have never stepped foot out of their village, do not have basic education and probably do not know anything about technology. It is also unfair to expect a maid to do something she is untrained to do or has no knowledge on the matter whatsoever.  

It also depends on each individual and hiring the right person for the job; the job to care for the physically incapacitated loved one. Even though the FDW does not have proper education, they will still be able to care for your loved one if she has determination, mental resilience and the willingness to put in extra effort to pick up extra skills on how to operate the medical equipment and broaden their technological expertise. Currently, as the government has noticed more citizens hiring maid as caregivers, the Ministry of Manpower is allowing employers to send their maids for caregiver training courses under the Agency for Integrated Care’s (AIC) Caregivers Training Grant and an annual $200 subsidy will be granted for caregiving of seniors and the disabled.

There are also some maids who already have the relevant medical and caregiving certificates however, Singaporeans are not keen on hiring them as it would cost them close to $1000. However, this is the price you have to pay if you want someone qualified enough to take care of your ailing relatives. Would you rather hire a domestic worker who has no clue on how to care for your physically handicapped loved one, just because it’s cheaper?     

We really need to stop expecting too much from our foreign domestic workers. We make them do so many things out of what is initially required and we expect them to do everything perfectly. Are we as perfect when we go to work? Nobody is perfect, not even us, so we should not expect absolute perfection from them either.

We also need to remember to hire the right person for the job.

Sources:

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/maid-pleads-guilty-to-ill-treating-bedridden-boy-0

http://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/employers-need-to-get-right-person-for-caregiving-work

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/wanted-clarity-on-a-maids-job

-

Hello erhhbody (lol, doubt anyone comes here, honestly). Anyway, here's a personal narrative essay I did for my COM 300 Written Communications module. It's slightly personal, and about an issue that's constantly been bugging me ever since I was young.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

“Are you angmoh? Where are you from? No, I mean where are you really from? Which country? And your parents? Huh...then your grandparents? Really? You don’t look Singaporean at all. What's Eurasian? So can you eat pork?”

I can't even put to words the amount of frustration I feel everytime I hear these words. Especially the amount of energy I have to exert to hold back my eye rolls. If I could receive a dollar for every time I heard these questions and remarks; I would probably be a millionaire by now. And every time I answered these questions, they would be received with blank, puzzled stares and further questions.

When I was younger, back in primary and secondary school, I never received such interrogations. It was probably due to the fact that as kids, we were blind to skin-colour and ethnicities. We were oblivious of the social stigmas and discriminations surrounding the different races, hence, we treated everyone the same way. Majority of Eurasians were Catholics or Christians hence, studying in a convent school for 10 years of my life meant that I was lucky enough to not be the sole Eurasian and I did not get questioned too much about my race and ethnic background.

However, after graduating from secondary school and enrolling into a polytechnic, I started getting exposed to people who had never met a Eurasian and did not know what it meant or vaguely knew of our existence in Singapore but were confused about our heritage. This is because we are living in a country where the people are predominantly Chinese, at least three-quarters of the population, and the other races, Malays and Indians, even though they were minority races, they were more prominent and of a higher percentage than Eurasians, which are merely lumped together as “Others” at 3.3%. Eurasians were, and still are, a dying race in Singapore, which is why many people are unaware of our roots. Just the other day, an elderly aunty approached me to ask what country my parents and I had come from, and upon hearing that my whole family was born in Singapore, she remarked, “Oh, but you don’t look Singaporean. You look like other people.”, which I loosely translated to the fact that it meant I do not look Chinese, Malay or Indian. Even though she probably did not meant what she said, I was offended, took it to heart and was affected by it for the next few days, which is also what spurred me to write this essay. What exactly was I expected to look like then? I wondered if she knew Singapore was made up of other races, and not just of her race - Chinese. Even when you compare Asians from different countries at a macro level, or even at a micro level, everyone has different facial features and skin colour. So I wondered why I constantly received comments such as these, that I looked different. Even though people meant no harm, it honestly really hurt. It broke me and bothered me so much that I, and other Eurasians, were treated like foreigners in a land we were born in and call our home. We were born and raised here. And yet people still doubt it, just because we have European features. For example, in the case of Joseph Schooling, Singapore’s National Swimmer. He is a Eurasian, as is his dad. They are Singapore citizens and even though Joseph trained in the United States of America, he still represented us in the Olympics. When he won a Gold Medal for one of the events, there was so much controversy over his nationality and even Singaporeans called him a foreigner, just because he did not look and sound like a “typical Singaporean”. Thereafter, it led to a lot of articles springing up about what exactly Eurasians were; to educate people about us.

No matter how irked and tired I was from answering strangers’ curious questions about where I come from, I would always try to find patience within me, to explain that even though my heritage was that of Portuguese, Spanish, Peranakan and Indian descent, I was in fact Singaporean.. Being an introvert, there were also days whereby I would feel too drained for human interaction and I would simply tell them I was from Portugal, without bothering to explain the other ethnicities and how my family came to live in Singapore.  Thank goodness no one has asked me to converse in Portuguese yet.

There are also people who tell me how lucky I am to be of a mixed race. However, there are times when I feel it is of a disadvantage, especially because I do not speak Mandarin. There is currently a high influx of foreigners working in Singapore, predominantly from China, and many come here without knowing a word of English. I find myself suffering on a weekly basis trying to communicate with them, especially when it comes to ordering food, and eventually, I just give up and bring my business elsewhere, where they speak the common tongue. I personally feel it is unfair that these people are allowed to work in Singapore, knowing only their own language, and yet we were all forced to take up a Mother Tongue in school, something which I struggled with as what should have been my Mother Tongue, Portuguese, was not offered in mainstream school, hence, my parents advised me to take Malay as it looked easier amongst the 3 options and looked the most similar to English. However, I failed it throughout my education life.

I long for the day where everyone finally understands that there are four races in Singapore, not just one. I hope one day I’ll stop feeling and treated like such an outsider in my own home. I can’t wait for the day that Singaporeans finally accept Eurasians as their fellow countrymen.

-

MedicineNet,. (2015). Hippocratic Oath. Retrieved 22 November 2015, from http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20909 Mukhida, K. (2007). Loving your child to death: Considerations of the care of chronically ill children and euthanasia in Emil Sher’s Mourning Dove. Paediatrics & Child Health, 12(10), 859. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2532575/?tool=pmcentrez  (2015) Infotrac Newsstand - Document - Euthanasia for children also. Retrieved November 23, 2015, from http://go.galegroup.com.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/ps/i.do?p=STND&u=sunybuff_main&id=GALE|A360708351&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&userGroup=sunybuff_main&authCount=1