Back!

There were a lot of things that I thought I wanted to blog about in the course of the last fortnight, but somehow or rather I either lost that chain of thought by the time I came home or did not feel like blogging altogether.

Actually, truth be told, it's the latter mostly - for one main reason actually.

The pace of school work is picking up. Tutorials just started this week, and I found out for myself what a daunting task it is to be consistent with academic readings.

The difference between before and now, is that while I merely aspired and talked about doing it in the last few semesters, I am forcing myself to do it now. This is the first time, I am still at it at the end of the third week of school.

And for that, I have got this extended Chinese New Year weekend to thank. Hopefully.

Because since I last blogged, in between trying to keep up with readings, trying to wake up for 8am Monday classes and working 1am pagination days every mid-week Wednesday, I have also been trying to meet people for lunches, lead the Monday VCF contact group in school and making time to purposefully rest physically and spiritually.

But mostly, the desire to blog has somewhat dissipated. There are no real reasons actually and honestly I do not know what is up with my system - and I am quite honestly okay with it.

In the interim, however, a few things happened:

• I attended 2 wakes in the span of the last fortnight and both were the wakes of friends' mothers who have passed on from cancer.
  
• I have been officially released from the leadership of my church's youth ministry a fortnight ago after a talk over lunch with Ailing, Daniel Tham and Pastor Ian two Sundays ago.
  
• The Workers' Party released its party manifesto, perhaps in an attempt to beat PAP at their game of announcing-the-election-dates-as-and-when-they-like.
  

And provoked a spirited response first from Ng Eng Hen, the party-in-white's organising secretary for "special events," who described their 4 main points of contention as being "time bombs."

If you are interested, also read Khaw Boon Wan's response that came after that and ST columnist Janadas Devan's "Think racial harmony is natural? Think again" in today's paper (Jan 28, 2006).

I thought this careless use of words that are connotative of terrorism was intended to play on the existent fears in a post-9/11 society.

More importantly, it was totally part of the game plan, especially with the local media a controlled one, to accentuate the seige mentality among the Singaporeans -- especially with election talk hitting fever-pitch.

But I guess it may somewhat backfire on them, if people are beginning to find their rhetoric sounding somewhat tired. While they keep harping on the WP's manifesto would destroy the fabric of racial harmony in Singapore, they do not exactly explicate anything new that would present any clear or present danger.

More on this later, but also note how this is besides the point of how such hooha so early would at least give Singaporeans more time to think about the politics and the real issues at hand before hitting the ballot box that nay-sayers are projecting to come sometime in March.

Maybe, this is significant for me because the classes I am taking in school is awakening the previously subconscious desire to be a responsible, democratic citizen in me.

With classes dealing with areas such as political sociology, race and ethnic relations, social theory, news writing and a USP class whose "Democratic Possibilities in Singapore "name is oxymoronical to some, I think this is somewhat inevitable.

The semester is turning out to be one of moulding in more ways than the spiritual one I was expecting. And the best thing is that despite having so much to read and do, I am having fun and feeling alive at that.