Venue: Meeting Room

Meeting a student, who happened to be a lecturer in a Malaysian University, who is seeking co-PI-ship with my supervisor. Supposed to meet up to determine if there’s any vested interest between his project and mine.

Venue: Tentatively Boat Quay TCC

A Ping.sg gathering (TCSS) event. Will be meeting everyone that I met at Ping.sg anniversary, but hopefully on a more familiar tone.

I was reading the above post from Geek Goddess and happened to meet the Serial Lazy Entrepreneur online and we had a small chat. Actually, it became more of a monologue… and it’s reproduced below. Some grammar had been modified from the original conversation, but the essence is still there:

Me: I just read estee’s post on the disfigure thingie
Me: The loved one will still love you but you will lose your friends
SLE: Loose friends?
SLE: How so?
Me: Erm…
Me: It’s a cyclic thing
Me: The scarred person (SP) will be aware of his/her (hereafter her) scars
Me: Then the SP will be afraid to go out
Me: So SP sees lesser of her friends
Me: Subsequently SP drifts away from friends
Me: The “true lover” (TL) will remain
Me: But SP tells TL to find someone else
Me: Then sometimes TL gets irritatingly persistent
Me: SP locks TL out of her life
Me: SP is now alone
Me: SP dies a lonely death
SLE: Gee…
SLE: Kinda pessimistic…
SLE: But no less true…

Well… I should know better. I have had first hand experience of it…

The lab supervisor is treating the entire group to dinner @ Sakura @ Clementiwood, in celebration for people’s coming graduation as well as post-mortem celebrations. wherever that is. Yum yum…

That no one is going to spill on who LTA X is, and personally, I think this is a good closure. Referring to my previous post, Singapore is not really a forgiving society and even though LTA X didn’t commit murder, Singaporeans will just refer him as the officer who AWOL and got pwned by 龙的传人.

But my vineyards, who had been mumbling and not being really clear recently, told me why LTA X AWOL’d. Apparently it’s because of personal reasons that he AWOL’d. So I think perhaps, it’s time for people - like myself, to bring out some compassion to the whole case. If LTA X had wilfully AWOL’d, thinking that he can get away with it, then I’d say, by all means - he’s taken the chances and it’s fallen flat on him.

On the other hand, if it’s because of personal reasons - particularly reasons of the heart, then I think Singaporeans should just be compassionate about it, close both eyes and get on with life. Here, we have a potentially good officer whose future has more or less been ruined. If you think he deserved to be punished, well, I think he’s got it from the system and the case should be closed.

Afterall, we are all humans and humans being humans, we have feelings. Just that sometimes, it gets the better of us - and if it happens at the wrong time, we end up paying the price for it.

I’ve fallen ill. Finally. This is something that had been hinging since a few weeks ago and I guess I’d try to take a good rest today. Sigh… haven’t had the chance to read the papers yet.

Teeth and gums are feeling a little sore and my throat is screaming with pain. Head is bobbing like a ball in water and muscles, aching from pins poking out of the bones. My nose is dried like the dessert desert and each breath is like brushing sandpaper against the tonsils.

I am sick.

Just came back from Kevin’s farewell @ Oosh this morning. It was quite a crowded and it seemed more than the 15 pax that was written on the reservation list at the reservation desk.

I met interesting people at the gathering but I’m really bad at names. So, in order not to offend anyone unconsciously, it’d be nice if you could drop a comment (and your blog? or contact, if you don’t happen to blog often) and it’d be nice to keep in touch via email/sms/msn.

And oh, I think I just forgot to foot my bill. Shucks! Er… who foot the bill in the end? Can I pay you back? So sorry…

That was what was screaming from a forumer on a Saturday paper. Quoted from the comments by Singaporean60 in the straitstimes.com forum:

The most pragmatic way would be like what we did during the SARS crisis. Isolate, identify, quarantine, eliminate! Homos were the first and a continued source of HIV/AIDS/GRID. They should be treated like SARS prime carriers. Others are secondary infections.

We didn’t do that earlier, but shouldn’t we do it now to prevent it from spreading further? What were the rights of the SARS patients then?

He is actually 1/2 right. The only rights that the SARS patients had was the right to treatment. Other than that, they were not allowed to even have close contacts with their family members.

But it is 1/2 truths like this that mislead readers. Firstly, AIDS is not contagious *, meaning, I do not get AIDS from a person by just being in close contact with him. Holding hands or even sharing drinks do not spread AIDS. On the contrary, just being in close contact with a SARS patient can render the other party infected. It is this contagious nature of SARS that the government took such drastic measures.

It is also the responsibilities of sexual partners to determine if they are infected. One of the reasons why this is not happen is because of the pragmatism of the nation. Once a patient is diagnosed, his name will be sent to the MOH in accordance to the Infectious Disease Act. To quote from Part 3 (Control of Infectious Diseases within Singapore) of the Infectious Disease Act (Chapter 137):

6. -(1) Every medical practitioner who has reason to believe or suspect that any person attended or treated by him is suffering from an infectious disease or is a carrier of that disease shall notify the Director within the prescribed time and in such form or manner as the Director may require.

In addition, spouses of AIDS patients are now automatically notified. This alone may give consenting adults second thoughts about engaging in casual sex. Of course, we are now talking about gay sex, which is generally perceived as non-commital.

Hence, the moment that a person knows that he’s infected with the disease, he gets automatic discrimination from society. I feel that our society is not ready to live hand-in-hand with AIDS patients, in addition to homosexuals.

The other reason why AIDS patients (thankfully) cannot be treated in the same elimination manner as SARS patient is the duration of the window before a person knows he’s infected - which various from one persion to person. To keep potential patients in a hospital would just be like running a prison service and is hence not pragmatic.

To sum this up, Chua Chee Hiang quoted the national pledge to be one people:

GAY people are Singaporeans too whether you think they are natural or not according to your religion or social perception. As National Day draws near, remember our national pledge. It should apply to heterosexuals and homosexuals alike.

To me, being a Singaporean comes first, everything else; religion, race, language, personal and social customs, and sexuality, et cetera, second.

However, the writer forgot that the pledge is limited to race, language or religion, and does not include sexuality and infected patients.

* Contagious, infectious are usually distinguished in technical medical use. Contagious, literally “communicable by contact,” describes a very easily transmitted disease as influenza or the common cold. Infectious refers to a disease involving a microorganism that can be transmitted from one person to another only by a specific kind of contact; venereal diseases are usually infectious.

There was a recent debate about repealing Section 377A and I thought that I might just share my views since it didn’t die down as quickly as I thought it would. I’ve always thought that it was a decoy to bring people away from the topic of the minister’s pay hike, but apparently, it is still ongoing. In addition, the recent comment from MM about him thinking that homosexuals are mostly born that way and that the government has adopted a don’t ask, don’t tell approach, has drawn quite a fair bit of activity and discussions.

Besides the gay activists wanting Section 377A repealed, other supporters such as Rev Dr Yap and MP Baey have also supported the repeal. This has brought some fire from the Methodist Church in Singapore (MCS) as well as citizens about the appropriateness of their views.

MCS was quick to send a letter to the Straits Times Forum on their stand about homosexuality and that it contravenes the order of the church, effectively distancing themselves from Rev Dr Yap, who had retired from active service since 1994 from the Trinity Annual Conference. Some citizens have also lamented that MP Baey should have considered the overall views of his constituency instead of just representing his views. This, however, brought responses that the MP should not represent the majority’s view, but the minority’s as well.

The amount of arguments and conspiracy theory that was conjured is also amazing. Letters to the forums were fast and furious, with many people taking either sides of the argument. Some people feel that a mum-mum family is not only feasible, but has also given an equivalent amount of love for their kids, while others have been a little too imaginative and extrapolated that brother-sister, brother-mum, sister-dad, man-horse relationships are also possible in the near future. I think that’s bringing matters a little too far and beyond reasoning. It could jolly well be his own fantasy, but I want no part in that world, especially the man-horse portion. Gross.

Near personal attacks by readers were also made in the forums, with most asking how the other party would react or feel if their own kids were homosexuals. The tone that was used was almost similar to that of asking their reactions if their kids were thieves - at least the “correct answer” was that the latter would teach their kids right from wrong. This, of course, assumes that homosexuality, like theft, is a crime, is by choice and is correctable.

The latest letter to the forums was from a Dr Ang, who, after a trip to San Francisco, decided that Singapore would be the best place for him to raise his kids, and if ever local schools were to teach that homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle, and that his children’s teachers are open about their homosexual relationships, he will quit his immensely satisfying career to home-school his children.

In addition, if the time comes when local church/religious leaders sanction same-sex marriages and ordain homosexual ministers, he will quit going to church and will not send his children to a mission school. He also lamented that the day Singapore becomes like San Francisco, foreign talents can come in all they like, but there would not be much left to keep him in Singapore.

If you ask me, I smell emotional blackmail.

However, one of the better arguments that I give credibility is one from straitstimes forumer, kwicktake, which is summed up nicely by venusspartacus, who feels that Christians should understand the difference between something which (they consider) is a sin, as opposed to something that is criminal. There are, too, many examples - lying, hypocrisy, (and being) disrespectful to ones’ parents are sins according to the bible, but they are not crimes punishable by law.

Indeed, sex between 2 guys may be sinful in the context of Christianity and various religions, but this may not be mentioned in other religions. The moment someone uses the basis of religion to argue the cause, he has already lost his case, and perhaps credibility. It is important to note that Singapore is not a Christian state and that no one should impose their religious beliefs on others. A blunt example would be the imposition of the restriction of consumption of pork to non-Muslims, or for that matter, beef to non-Hindus, or even meat to non-Buddhists; and because there is freedom of choice in religion, I feel that forumers should stop using the basis of Christianity as the reason not to repeal Section 377A. To quote kwicktake, what do Christians want from Section 377A?

The other avenue for argument will be on moral grounds, in that gay sex is not moral - and moral is something that is decided by the society at large. We can all argue that gay sex is against the orde of nature and that is is not morally accepted. This is almost a good argument. However, we are also reminded that Section 377 was recently repealed too and it states that whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animals, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to fine. As far as I can remember, the genitalia was never meant for other uses. In other words, to retain Section 377A on the basis of morality, Section 377 should never have been removed in the first place. In Christian-speak, God never created the genitalia for the other party’s mouth and according to the arguments that gay sex is a sin and should thus be criminalised, so should carnal intercourse against the order of nature.

My personal stand on this issue is that gay sex is a sin in the context of Christianity, but really, it is none of my business what 2 guys do behind closed doors - just as much as I won’t question what my straight couple friends do behind their doors. As long as the repealing of Section 377A does not bring harm into anybody, I would say, go ahead by all means. The moral, religious and social consequence, should likewise, be borne by homosexuals themselves. Section 377A, to me, is just a technicality - probably one to give the moral-conscious the comfort that homosexuals are best kept behind closed doors, away from them, their moral rights and in the case of Dr Ang, his children.

While I believe that homosexuals are born the way they are, I will probably not condone homosexuality to be taught as an alternative lifestyle (the use of the term lifestyle is, in my opinion, a fallacy). I am however, confident that this will not be happening (in the near future) as much as oral sex is not taught as a means of alternative CCA.

I am currently was watching this debate on Channel U about whether criminals will be given a second chance easily after they are released from jail - this also highlights the fact if Singapore is indeed a forgiving society. Some of the people that were brought into the picture includes Christopher Lee, who was recently sentenced to a jail term of 4-6 weeks for drink driving, failure to render help to victims in an accident and removal of vehicle from site of accident. Of course, the other person in focus is Durai, who unfortunately is down with dengue at this point in time.

Some interesting comments where made during the show. One said that, while Singaporeans are not very forgiving, we are just very forgetful. So, a typical Singapore will probably not forgive a person of his crimes, but because he is forgetful, it will long be gone from his mind. Of course, in the case of Durai, not only will he be forgotten eventually, but also the person who made the peanuts comment.

Another panelist mentioned that some crimes can be forgiven while others cannot. So, in his view, Christopher Lee is worth forgiving while Durai is not, because Durai is aware that he’s doing wrong. The other group of people that he thinks can’t be forgiven are drug abusers.

I have no comments, but I feel that Singapore is not a forgiving society. Singaporeans will always be prejudiced and bear grudges. I remembered that there was this doctor who was reprimanded but was allowed back into the medical services. Almost instantly, an ex-cop wrote to the Straits Times Forums to comment and condemn that the doctor not be allowed back into the medical services. Singapore a forgiving society? Far from it!

Unfortunately, this blaming, unforgiving and judgmental culture has also spread to the primary schools, where teachers can also be quite judgmental. The example that was given was that if something was lost, the first group of people that the teachers will approach would be the EM3 students because the “EM1 students will not do such a thing”.

Another topic that was brought up was the ease of getting employment should ex-convict declare his status during a job interview. I highly doubt so and I am just being frank. It’s a matter of choice. If you are an employer and you have to choose between 2 equally qualified candidates, won’t it be obvious that you will choose the one without a conviction history? (just to side track a little, a doctor once told me that given 2 postgrad medical applicants, they will choose the younger one; which is why I am not applying to Duke-NUS).

Of course my arguments here are weak (and I’d like to support my views) because it’s 330am and my brain isn’t as active as it is in the day. If you feel that Singapore is a forgiving society, I’d like to hear about it.

Also, food for thought: Can jail change a man? No. Only a man’s inner thoughts can change him.