Farm hustling

Its 4am and im still wide awake. Been playing farm hustle for like 3hrs? Just stoning and 'hustling'. Brain freeze and an aching finger. mousing, clicking, mousing, clickin. Been a long day.. I waited hours just to get the A2 sized boards printed. Gosh.. all becoz its cheap. as in really cheap. so i traded 5 hours of my not so valuable time to save on printing costs.

Yip and Im officially unemployed now. I tell myself to adjust the date to 'results day'. Hmm. But well. Sad to say at the ripe old age of 22 going on 23, im still unsure of what exactly i want to do or rather where my competency is, what exactly im good at? As a kid, ive aspired to be a doctor, astronaut, teacher, journalist, a novelist.. the usual childhood ambitions and the not so usual too.. like fa3 yi1 after watching some tv serial.

By now, i no longer fantasize about what i want to be. more like the bread and butter issues. and hope for a good working environment, wherever that is.. and earning a decent living. life as an adult is no no longer airbrushed. harsh reality beckons and i have to accept my lot in life and make the best out of it.

The world is an ugly place. There are moments of beauty of cos. And we all live for those moments. Or else life would not be worth living.

On TV, with the elections looming, things are getting unpleasant. The mud-slinging, ugly exchanges are going into overkill when they're being repeated over and over. Please report on something else.. please.. Its there on the Newspapers, on radio, on the news. It'll all blow over by Sat..thankfully.

My area is a walk-over, so there is hardly any action. But in contested areas, it seems that dramas are unfolding. On the papers, i contemplate the opposition's 'to-do' list. Although i dont love the PAP to bits or anything, I do find some of the items on the opposition's laundry list laughable.

Example: We'll do away with foreign workers who are taking over our jobs. Then all Singaporeans will have jobs.

Seriously, how can people buy this? But it works! Say it during a rally and the middle-aged and unemployed guy with no skills and a family to feed will believe. Yes it can happen. If all the Bangladesh and Pakistani construction workers who are depressing the wages leave, the company would hire me and pay more $!

But if cheaper foreign labour is eliminated, the factories would pack up too, taking the jobs along.

If healthcare is made free for poorer folks, the rich would be taxed more, and Bukit Timah folks would cash out their bank accounts and go somewhere else with a lower tax rate. And we'll be left with a nation of poor people. Although i agree that health care is really really expensive. and if i get cancer now, i'll probably just die quite fast cos i'll be stuck in a C class ward with no air con and taking generic brand subsidised medicine. I'll have to see a different doctor everytime who will scan thru my record in a minute and dont give 2 hoots about how sick i am cos he has many other patients to see and im too poor to get a dedicated doc.

Sad but true. But that's reality.

Of cos there's income disparity. And its getting bigger. How do i measure it? By looking at the number of people going through rubbish bins. Yes digging in rubbish bins looking for empty drink cans.

I dont know about other estates but I stay in bukit batok and sad to say, ive been seeing them all the time. In recent years, i c more and more. I recognise this old plump auntie who always ambles along with a metal rod which she uses to poke around the rubbish in the bin and fish out the empty drink cans. If i had an 830 class, i'll probably see her 'stopping by' the bus stop while waiting for the bus. Its like a routine and she's kind of more reliable than the bus.

There's another old man who uses an umbrella instead. He'll poke around the bin with the pointy end of the umbrella and i often see him too.

I figure they live in bukit batok as they probably wont have the money to spend on transport. Ive done a rought estimate of how much they make. Assuming that one drink can fetches 5cents, and it takes 5 min to find another dustbin with one empty can on average and they work 10 hrs a day. It works out to ( 60/5=12 cans an hour 12x10=120 cans 120 x 0.05= 6 dollars) Its really sad and i cant help but feel sad everytime i c them. Sometimes on bus 174, i'll think about it after seeing the woman with the metal rod.

And people who make such statements know that such cannot be done. But they still say it. Cos some of the gullible folks out there might actually buy it. Folks like the woman with the metal rod or the old man with the unbrealla. Im appalled.