the wacky wombat weblog

What has it come to when the government pays RM214 for a set of screwdrivers that probably cost only RM40, and doesn’t do a thing to check for possible corrupted practices?

Read this on The Star online today. It’s simply ridiculous.

The Auditor-General’s report revealed that the government has been paying insanely high prices for what seems to be very generic tools when they funded the supplies tools for the National Youth Skills Institutes in Malaysia.

Like RM10,000 for a technical tool set that costs RM 400?? And the list goes on.

Hasn’t it occured to anyone to check what was going on when the proposed budget ballooned from 400 million to 700 million? You mean nobody noticed the suspicious budget that doubled twofold?!?! 0_o Amazing. Dunno how to count izzit?

This is what truly annoys me about my home country. No proper governance, no transparency, and money squandered away for the benefits of the filthy selected rich ones.

When I first came to Singapore to study 6 years ago (gosh so long ago!), I was still optimistic, and dreaming of going back to KL to live and work there. What to do, I was 18 and I missed home.

But after all these years and witnessing what goes on in the news and among the people, all desire of returning home to ’serve my country’ has vanished.

No way I’m going back there in the near future to wallow in mediocrity and fear for my safety on the roads, and suffer through high cost of living. (Contrary to what many think, Singapore is a much more affordable city to work and live in. But that’s material for another blog post. :p)

Not to mention the rising tension of racism and religious difference. Nothing’s happened, but signs of the society being delineated along racial religious lines are just too obvious to ignore.

Once you’ve travelled abroad, seen other cities and all, then you start to see all the possibilities that could have been, but are wiped off because of greed, inefficiency, selfishness and narrow-mindedness. The future definitely doesn’t look too good.

Singapore isn’t the best city in the world to live in (I’m still trying to find out which city is), but I think I’d live better and happier here. So for now, I’ll just shelf my KL plans. For now it’ll just be my hometown, where I go back only for visits to my family and friends, and ‘real’ food.

I’m in a limbo sort of phase right now.

Feels great to have graduated. No school, lots of time to just hang around, catch up on some regular reading (had no English books for 3 months in Japan), watch TV, go out with friends, get some exercise before the Coming of the Haze. Heck, I even had the time to spring clean my room AND my wardrobe.

But I also feel a little restless at the same time. Sucks having to wait around for a job, not knowing when your search will end - 2 weeks? 2 months? I know everyone’s always complaining about the working life doldrum, but seriously I can’t wait to start. I just wish to have the certainty of a future and wake up knowing what I’m gonna be doing for the next week, and not looking at irrelevant job matchings provided by the various jobsites and going ‘ugh’. Being paid is a bonus motivating force too - doubt I can survive too long with whatever’s left in my account and I don’t really want to dip into my savings in Malaysia just yet.

Anyways, I just attended 2 interviews yesterday, and there’s another 2 later. Yup, interview marathon it is. Tiring, having to run around one interview after another, but the good thing is, at least I will get to consider any offers given at around the same time, so I won’t have to go through the “omg I should have given up that job for this better job” mental torment.

I so despise wearing formal, not because of the look, I like that really. But it’s just too freaking hot out there. Once I get off the bus/MRT, and walk in the afternoon sun searching for the office, within 2 minutes I can feel sweat forming on my skin and my make-up ready to melt. gross.

On other job-search related matters - I do so despise misguiding reports in the papers and all about how great the job market is for graduates and etc. I think sometimes it really does give people false hopes and expectations. I’ve only been searching for 3 weeks so I have nothing to complain. But I know of people who have been searching for months and still are doing so now.

And let’s not even go to the “<insert university name> graduates earn an average of <insert ludicrous amount>” reports. Somewhere out there, some young ciku freshman is all happy of a rose-tinted future that does not exist (ok, unless the person scores uber top grades in engineering/accountancy/business). I believe the CS (Communication Studies not Counter Strike) cohort are single-handedly responsible for pulling down the ‘average pay’ statistics to a lesser and saner number (though still ludicrous - cos we’re too small a cohort to make significant statistical impact).

In any case, I’m glad for my situation I suppose. At least there’s been a couple of interviews, so hopefully there will be good outcomes from them. Just gotta start somewhere and work my way through. Crossing my fingers, and hoping for the best!

I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t had time to just sit down, and sort through my own thoughts.

Time just flew past after my shoot, I hardly had time to think: “hey, my darling’s finally flying back this Saturday!” It’s there in my thoughts all the time, but unlike previous trips, I hadn’t gone and done stuff like countdowns everyday, and planning out all the activities for the days when he arrives.

I guess I’ve just been swamped. Freelance work, tape logging, plus running erands and chasing after my MacMac. Guess that really didn’t leave me much time to even rest properly, now I feel even more tired that I had felt right after the shoot had ended. So that leaves even less time for me to float in my own thoughts I suppose.

But yes, I am so glad. It’s been over 4 months since we last met during my trip over to Japan in the summer. Now I’m just sitting here, waiting for my hair to dry, blogging to kill the time (and rest my feet) before I go over to the airport later.

It was our 2-year anniversary several weeks ago. Just the words “2-year” makes it sounds so loooong! I mean, it really wasn’t that long ago when we first got together. But I guess, yeah, 2 years. I’m nearing the end of my formal education, and I guess that’s something I hadn’t even imagine 2 years ago, that I’d be here done with a film shoot, that I’d be here with a serious relationship.

I’m never a planning sort of person. Just take whatever comes my way. So I guess to get where I am today is really a pleasant surprise. It’s good to have something so settled in my life right now. I suppose you can say it’s reassuring and comforting.

Sometimes I get a bit tired of this whole long distance thing. But after 2 years, I guess you can call us veterans now, haha. 2 years is heck of a long time, but it finally helped me to really get settled into the physical distance issue. I don’t get bogged down by the distance as much and as frequently anymore. And I suppose we’ve also really gotten a rhythm going, weaving each other’s very separate lives into one another and accommodate for each other.

All I can really say is that, despite some of the not-so-great moments, I’m glad we stuck to it and with time, I think we finally got the hang of the game.

And I suppose knowing that the long distance phase will eventually be over soon does help. Gives it a goal to work forward to. So that I can say to myself: ‘this time next year, we can start to make moving-back plans.’

I guess Christmas is a good time to reflect and be thankful for the many things in your life. Well, I don’t celebrate it religiously, but I like its symbolism.

I’d say I’m thankful for this relationship. What I have now is something that I’d never have expected at the beginning.

I guess I should also say that I’m thankful for all the things that have gone well in my life. My family, my schooling, everything. It’s been a good year.

So here’s a little Merry Christmas shout-out to everyone out there who’s reading this. Hope you have a meaningful Christmas this year.

It rained this morning here in Tokyo, and temperature now drops to a more comfortable 26 degrees Celcius. With the weekend fast approaching, it seems that the temperature will start to cool down a bit over the next week. That is much welcomed, given that the past few nights I have been sleeping without the air-conditioner on.

When it starts to get cold end of December, I’ll be coming back to KL! w00t!

Yeap, got my leave approved - gonna be out of office from Dec 23 to Jan 8. Gonna finalise my travel itinerary and purchase my air tickets next week. Will be flying NRT-SIN-NRT route, so will probably spend a couple of days in Singapore then travel by bus back to KL with tsewei. And then, travel back to Singapore by bus on Jan 5 or 6 before flying back to Tokyo on Jan 8. That’s the tentative plan anyway.

Anyone available for meet up, do contact me. I’ll call you guys once I get back and get a DiGi prepaid SIM pack

Update: just booked my air tickets! w00t! NRT-SIN on Dec 23, SIN-NRT on Jan 8. Flying the super sucky United Airlines though