Okay 3 main things to blog about today just in case I forget. Dialogue, MAD open class, and extra.

Dialogue session with Mr Viswa Sadasivan was very very very good omg. It's so awesome that it's so hard to describe the awesomeness of his dialogue session cause you just gotta be there in person to experience it first hand. He's such a natural speaker (he didn't use any scripts or powerpoint slides at all). So engaging that my eyes were wide open (even though usually friday after school is the shaggiest period of the week), I was sitting at the edge of the chair listening intently to him while scribbling tons and tons of notes.

Okay the topic of the dialogue is the changing paradigm in Singapore politics. He started the dialogue by telling us how politics changed in Singapore, because more people got more educated through compulsory education, they formed their own opinion of how Singapore is being governed, and began to challenge the unspoken 'social contract', whereby the government will provide people with their basic needs and in return the people need to be submissive to the government's actions. Besides education, television played a part in changing people's thinking, because people start to compare their living standards with other people from different countries, instead of people who are also living in Singapore. Internet and globalisation played a part too.

So now, in our generation, we view basic needs (such as housing, food, water), which were viewed as luxuries in the past, as a given, and the government cannot purely rely on these basic needs to get the people's support. This can be seen clearly in this year's General Election watershed. People were voting on national issues (eg minister's pay) rather than constituency issues (eg HDB upgrading works), people want more significant changes by the government and not just material changes. Hence, this something the government needs to work on - making bolder changes.

Another point he brought up is that, in the 21st century, the government's challenge is to MANAGE SUCCESS, since we have already past the stage of ACHIEVING SUCCESS in Singapore. This is especially important, because Singapore has one of the biggest income gap distribution in the world, despite our GDP growth being one of the highest. This means that people at the higher level of society are earning tons of money, but people at the lower end are struggling to cope with the rest of society. WHICH IS BAD RAWR.

Another challenge the government faces is finding solutions. In the past, most solutions to problems were technical solutions (eg. impose fines to people who littered), however this is less significant now because people are earning a lot more money, and paying these fines are not difficult for them. Hence technical solutions work a lot less effectively now, and finding solutions for complex problems is increasingly difficult (eg minister's pay - if don't cut pay, people still unhappy; if cut pay, people will say that the government over-valued ministers in the past - a case where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't).

Hence all these have resulted in some changes in Singapore:

Firstly, there will be a re-equilibration of power between the government and the people being governed. People are more empowered and emboldened (due to their education), this has led to the humbling of the government (evidenced by PM Lee's apology speech during GE). This may translate into power sharing between the elected government and civil society, for civil society, in terms of cyberspace driven non-government organisation.

Secondly, the government needs to question themselves - what is their role? The government needs to provide creative changes as there is a greater demand for more quantem significant changes (evidenced from issues being raised in meet-the-people sessions), and the government cannot just pay lip service to the people (people are smarter now!).

And thirdly, the media in Singapore is not seen as the sole purveyor of information anymore. Mediacorp is seen as part of the government, hence people will view it as less credible and turn to other forms of media such as the Internet. This may be dangerous for Singapore since the media is essential in giving important crucial information, and with Singaporean's attention directed to other forms of media, these information might not be effectively communicated through. Hence the government needs to liberalise media to increase its credibility.

He also brought up an interesting point, on how ministers need to be more human. Because ministers are trying to act tough by showing that they are not doing populist actions (doing actions to gain popularity and support), so much that they get swung to the opposite end where they dehumanise themselves instead. Mr Viswa recounted a conversation with LKY, asking him why he has never seen a picture with LKY carrying a baby in it. LKY responded by saying he does not believe in carrying babies. However, isn't carrying babies a very natural thing to do? Since LKY is a father himself!

Ministers need to strike a balance between doing the right thing (even if it's not popular) and retaining likeability by getting respect from the population, and not instilling fear in them.

Mr Viswa also feels that there are many politically talented Singaporeans, the problem is that there is no political system to allow these talents to step up. (which I totally agree okay!)

He mentioned alot of other stuffs la, but this is the main gist of what he said. I might not have phrased it in a nice way :/ so if it isn't coherent blame me not him hahhaha.

Okay then today I went for HCJC's MAD open class (modern) with Callie and Pingghee. It was really an eye-opener lah, I have never attended these kind of dance lessons before. The PT at the beginning was really cool cos they do PT (like crunches, planks, pushup positions) with pop songs like 3 by Britney Spears, which is super fun lah! Should recommend that to wushu one day haha! Stretching was not bad, though I realised how horrible my left leg was compared to my right leg.. severely imbalanced aigo, Then did a few ballet-like movement, okay I think they ARE ballet movement, felt slightlyyyy awkwardddd cause I have totally no experience in ballet and I'm not the kind who will do these kind of graceful movements (hiphop yo yo person here yooo). So yea felt slightly paiseh. Oh but the only 2 guys in the batch in front of me were quite hilarious when doing the ballet movements haha. Oh my favourite part was learning the last set of choreography. It's super superrr cool lah it's really that kind of choreo where you can 发挥 a lot with it. Though I'm not exactly good but I love the choreo! Super expressive! But nah, I doubt I'll go for modern, totally no experience in ballet ain't good at all haha, plus modern isn't really my style lah. (:

Then after the open class we were caught in the SUPER HEAVY RAIN RAWR >( horrible shit, went to seek shelter in poolside cafe to wait for the rain to lighten, cause the poolside cafe restaurant wasn't opened .__. But the rain didn't seem to be getting lighter, tried to call someone living in hc boarding school to lend us an umbrella but turned out he was in sentosa which was apparently very bright and sunny .__. Pingghee and I totally couldn't take it anymore and just decided to walk to the bus stop despite the heavy rain, and miraculously the rain got a lot lighter while we were waiting for the bus. SO WE WENT SIXTH AVENUE'S ASTON FOR LUNCH OYEA. It was like 4.10pm by then already. I was so damn hungry that after finishing a plate of Aston's grilled chicken I wasn't full at all in fact I got even hungrier, so much that I went to order another plate of shredded chicken horfun (its serving is a lot bigger than the usual servings outside). And I managed to finish both food in about 30 mins gosh. Madness okay I'm totally shocked by my appetite. Amazing thing is my stomach wasn't bloated at all and I can still feel a bit of abs (HAHAH). And when I got home my stomach growled .__. Omg. Now I know why I never get full by my school's food.

Okay and the extra thing, was msn-ing with this friend and she told me this very interesting perspective that I just wanted to paste here for memory.

*the best way to get over it is to tell myself that the old ____(insert whatever name) is dead
*and that old dead _____ would have wanted me to be happy
*and now, i feel
*when you break up, it's not the end of the world
*it's not a boyfriend/girlfriend we need, it's love
*when a breakup happens, it simply means that love has left us - temporarily.
*don't take it too hard - it will come back, perhaps in the form of a different person,
*a different way of loving
*but it's still the same old love coming back.
*a boyfriend is simply the "incarnate" of the love that is to be upon us.
*something like that.

I'm not implying anything by pasting this here, but just that I find the perspective of breakup so different and interesting! Don't you think so too? By viewing it as interesting doesn't mean I agree with it okay! Haha I'm neutral about it, though the pov is still so interesting haha I'm just repeating myself.

De partager la route, ton bonheur est le mien.