Due to unforseen circumstances, I was not able to post this yesterday(My computer suffered a breakdown, sad I know). I hope it's not too late. I am writing today on a more carefree topic, having received unsavoury comments from mysterious and shy people with absurd names on my previous post.(Read the comments on my previous post, don't worry I hold no grudges)

I was walking my dog along the park beside my house yesterday, I was witness to a most despicable act. A fellow dog walker was letting her dog defecate on the grass without using a newspaper or any sort of material to prevent the faeces from littering the public area. Without a word, when the dog was done, the young lady took up the leash and walked off, smiling at me as she walked past. I was flabbergasted at this despicable act of littering. I confronted her in the most civil and polite way one can speak to such a charming but disgusting girl.

"Did you just leave your dog's poo there?" I asked her with a concerned expression on my face.

"Oh, no one will step on it lah, anyway now you know, it's ok lorh." she said as she carried on walking, apparently unaware that such an act is an offence. I am ashamed to say I did not take further action having no desire to pick a fight with someone in the middle of the street. I was unable to clean up the other animal's waste as I had already(most uprightly) disposed of my dog's waste with the newspapers I had brought along.

I know most people in Singapore, especially people around my generation, view picking up their pet's waste as disgusting. My own sister finds it paticularly horrifying, we all hold a sense of disgust at having to clean up after our pet's. But if you are not prepared to do so, you are not qualified to own a pet. As our principal is fond of reminding us, every action has a consequence. Even if we find it "icky", our basic sense of community spirit should at least make us do something about it. Perhaps we should all think carefully about what will happen before we do something, and what we should do right. Singapore has shown a marked improvement of late, there is little or no more defecating in lifts, throwing our flowerpots off our window ledges to crack our neighbours' heads open. But as Minister Mentor Lee has recently said, it will be a long time before we become an courteous society island wide. I am hard pressed to get a smile or "hello" from some of my neighbours even though I have lived here for over a year.

So, to end with, I strongly urge all of my fellow distinguished students and readers, no matter how much you might dislike me, pick up the faeces of your dog!

(If anyone somehow finds offence with this latest post, I am at a lost as to how, then my comments are my own and do not reflect the intention or opinion of anyone in power, alive, dead or dying. :)

For today's post, I have decided not to follow the given examples and write on a topic I feel is being downplayed in the recent times. The topic of importin foreign talent at a junior level sports has recently fallen out of favour in discussion sites due to the upcoming olympics and news of our senior athletes making waves. No doubt the government has only the best in mind for us when they bring in foreign youths to join our sports. But they must also give thought to the countless local youths who aspire to emulate our nation's sporting heroes, C. Kunalan, Ang Peng Siong. to name but two. Think back just decades ago, when locally trained athletes made history, bringing back international glory to our tiny island nation. My father often told me of his football idols, many of them were from our local team of past years, when the team consisted of Chinese, Malay and Indian players. Now look at the team, the only Chinese is from China, there is no Indian player to follow in the footsteps of V. Sundramoothy.
One has but to look at our SEA games team to know how lacking we are in local youth talent. Our track and field, sailing and shooting are the only ones where the youths are mostly made of local youths nurtured to be future medal hopes. But at the senior level, our only thrower of note is from China, the other two have mysteriously disappeared, choosing to leave an adopted country short of talent. One cannot put all the blame on the two China throwers who decieded not to show up, we are not their native country, merely a platform for them to step on. At their choosing. Think, if we had developed more talent in this area, would we be so desperately begging foreigners to compete for us, and falling short in the medal quota when they play us out? No, we would have had a bargaining chip, if they did not agree to our terms we would not have needed them. Our other areas of sport, most notably swimming, in which we are a traditional powerhouse, has suddenly experienced a Chinese invasion. Where is the next Joscelin Yeo? I doubt many of us know the name of the Singaporean home bred swimmer who came second to Tao Li. The next young swim queen who is Singaporean, spent her entire childhood in teh untied states, perhaps if the local youths who dream of representing their motherland go overseas to train privately, then they might have a chance? How can that be? Only our water polo team has done us proud, needing no foreign influx to bolster them. But ten years down the road, will we still be able to claim a dominant water polo team made solely of local talent? That is not a pleasant thought is it? I was once trained in water polo after being invited to train with a team, but I realised the number of foreigners who come here to seek a future in sports is so much greater than the number of locals who choose to go for the sport.
Recently, as part of our school's track and field team, I went to a seminar orgainsed by the comitee bidding for Singapore to host the 2010 Youth Olympics. Almost every school in Singapore was invited to send a group of their athletes. The organisers spoke of bringing the Youth Olympics here for our benefit, of pairing every single school in Singapore from primary to junior college level with a country. How it will benefit the local youths here! It is an exciting prospect, one which I fully look forward to. But I strongly suspect, if we do achieve that, how the youth athletes will be shocked at the number of non-singaporeans in Singapore? Perhaps they might even meet a contingent of "local athletes" from their own countries. Perhaps I sound like I am discriminating, I should clear the air. I do not dislike the foreigners I train with every day, I respect their abilities and passion to excell. But I am disappointed when many of my fellow team mates, the locals, are what we would term, "slackers". Because of the lack of opportunities given to the local youths here, many of us, in fact the vast majority of us do not see any hope in representing our country in sports. My sister, who was chosen to represent Singapore in canoeing, has no intention whatsoever to continue a sports career. She is going to complete her education in university and join a profession, not continue a sports career in representing Singapore. Even I myself have given up most hope of one day representing Singapore in the SEA games or olympics. It is every sportsman's dream to one day represent their nation. But for Singaporeans, that is a fast dissipating dream.
The government tells us our parents must encourage us in pursuing a career in sports, but how can they truly believe that we have a future in that aspect when even we do not. On the surface the government is doing what it can to show that a sportsman has a career after his peak days are over, but what choices do they have? Coaching, or oblivion. Even James Wong, the undisputed discus king of south-east asia, what great career does he have? How many of you would recognise his face in public were it not for his size? In the end, except for the few exceptional ones among us who have that slim chance of making it big in sports, there is little that an influx of foreign talent, at our basic foundation of sports, the youth level, can do to help. Sure we can follow their example and learn from them, but after a point it comes down to your fellow country-men aiding themselves. Athletes from other countries will never feel the pride that comes from representing your country by representing us. If we do not nurture our local junior talent and instead bring in foreigners, even at this young, critical level of development, how much futher can we improve? Instead of pumping money into recruiting overseas for young talents, we should concentrate on our own population and create a strong foundation before taking in others to supplement our lacking areas. Are we, Singaporeans so weak in every aspects of sports that we have to get overseas help in every area? Sure we are a relatively small population, with limited land, but there is definetly enough talent. The people at the top just have to turn their heads back inland and look for them. Or soon, we will lose interest in sports, already many of the young generation have no basic concept of patriotism. Will we soon even lose the interest in doing sports, and dreaming of representing our nation.
I dread the day where the young boy in his bedroom no longer dreams of playing soccer for his country and does not hopes to be the next Fandhi Ahmad.
(Note: What is published on this blog is my personal opinion and does not represent any idea or plan of the government, school or any authorities. Unforutunately.)

something that took place in school

Last Monday, it was the time for the secondary one trials. Being part of the school's track and field team, I was part of the team holding the trials for throwing. When i reached the P.E. room, I was greeted by a barrage of noise that assaulted my ears like waves upon helpless weeds. I looked on in amusement as my team mates struggled to get the secondary ones to settle down. They shrugged their shoulders when I asked them how long they had been trying. I entered the room and saw a tiny, adorable boy preparing to attempt a standing broad jump. My seniors were towering over him, looking for any potential. He was so terrified he jump a miserly length, he seemed glad to be out of the room when we let him go out.
The next person to enter was more than two worlds apart. A huge, pot-bellied boy with a chubby face entered. The moment he was asked to jump, he began howling with laughter, in mandarin he asked whether we believed he could jump. After calming him down, we got him to jump, a mistake that proved the equivalent of a catalystic earth quake wreaking havoc on our equipment. However, when we got him to throw a rubber version of the shot putt, it was equally destructive but more fufilling. he managed to throw it above ten meters, even breaking the tough rubber ball.
We convinced him to join track and field through a mixture of far-fetched lies and jokes. The proceeding candidates entered and left, only a few making the mark for the short-list. After three exhausting, utterly boring hours, punctuated occasionally by a bold and humorous secondary one who refused to leave the P.E. room, we were finsihed for the day. after experiencing the first day of trials, I was hardly looking forward to two more days of similar chores! However, being the warrior that Victoria has made me, I promised my captain to persevere for the next two days

Dear class 2I of '08
english ws so fun today! actually i'm still in english class, :) I have finally created my blog(number 2). yay.