Will you help?

Hi all!


If there's anything you would find out about me when it comes to charity, is that I champion Blood Donation above other forms. In fact, I think I have talked about it on a few occassions. Below the surface of that post, is a need to urge people to understand that charities, all well and good, can't always be about MONEY, SWEAT and extra hours of community service.

Some forms of charity require blood and marrow. A person can be the wealthiest man alive and thinks he requires no help and is not needy, but once struck by illness that only someone else can help him with, no amount of money can take away his mortality if there is no one to offer him a part of themselves.

What I am saying is: you may have built a rock-solid future stockpiled in cash, property, education. You think you'll not ever be needy nor be at the mercy of goodwill.

If you think like this, then you'd better be in the pink of health. We are all human and while our lifestyles make us think that there are multitudes of differences between us all, we are all one species. If a giant should look at us, we will look no different to him as we would view a nest of ants. We are all the same.

OK, perhaps I'm sounding slightly exasperated. Money I make all the time as long as I work. Ask friends for donation and all hands on the wallet to whip out a note. I am grateful for that. But things like Blood and Bone marrow? Everyone runs the other way. I respect your choice. I understand how the sight of needles and blood makes some ppl quake, this is actually the best reason of all. I understand that alot take diet pills so perhaps their blood isn't fit for transfusion. I even understand that why most would forgo bloodletting because they'd like to be below 45KG and scarless. Vanity deafeats us all.

So I'm plugging another drive again, this time for bone marrow donation. A friend of a friend has been dealt a swift blow. No matter if we act, look, feel 100% hale and healthy. There is sometimes no explanation why a normal person intent on living Life to the fullest can be diagnosed with a major illness. Same way a bunch of ants wonder why another ant, seemingly hardworking and beneficial to a colony, can be squashed by a person's idle fingers.

Do you want to take the necessary steps only when a close friend, relative, sibling get randomly picked for thumb-squashing? Or do you want to help now, in any you could, either by plugging Jaywalk or by telling others, or by getting yourself screened?


Because, seriously, that thumb might decide on you one day. Just because.


And then, you'll want to know that there are people out there, who have never seen you or talk to you, give you something of themselves so you can go back living your own Life to the fullest.

Forgive me for my agitation. Perhaps I am scientific by nature and hardly sentimental. The thought of a whole race of Man who have no idea that we are all like ants, that we all succumb to random bad luck, that we are not and never will be totally in control, squeezes my heart more than this lady's plight.

You see, I'm scared shitless. I donate blood, signed myself body for organ donation, and got screened at a previous marrow drive already. If one day, I or my loved ones should be thumbed down, I'd like to see my charity reciprocated. I would hate to know that I have done all these, only to end up dying or watching someone else die, just because others aren't doing what they should.

So you see? If you do it for others, you are doing it also for yourself. A prick of a needle in this bone marrow drive- what's it to you? Like an ant bite.

An Ant bite as a start to save a potential person's Life. How many people can say that?

I'll never know, but I've probably saved someone's life with my blood. And definitely narrowed the search for a marrow donor.

How about you?

Out!

AKK

Wah....A Singaporean 'Elite' speaks out!

Hi all!


I've just recovered from work trauma during today's Hari Raya Holiday when I came to read on the article in the Strait Times about this AMK's MP daughter making a name of herself in bloggerdom. This Wee Shu Min gal, aiyo...I tell you, if you never read, must take time to read lah....it's a case of

buying a pc: $2K
writing a blog entry: 30 minutes
writing with your full name in your entry, dragging your dad's name through mud, demarcated a country into the elite and stoopid and create a news furore at the same time: priceless


OK in order to be fair, here's the one article that started it all. This is by Derek Wee:


**********************************************


By Derek Wee
Oct 12, 2006

When I read the Straits Times article (dated 24 Sep) on PM Lee calling the young to be committed and make a difference to Singapore, I have so much thought about the issue.

I am 35 years old, graduated from University and gainfully employed in a multinational company. But I cannot help but feel insecure over the future of Singapore. Lets face it, it’s not uncommon to hear, “when you are above 40, you are over the hill”.

The government has been stressing on re-training, skills upgrading and re-adapt. The fact is, no matter how well qualified or adaptable one is, once you hit the magical 40, employers will say, “you are simply too old”.

We have been focusing our resources and problem solving on low unskilled labour. But in reality, our managerial positions and skilled labour force are actually fast losing its competitiveness.

I travel around the region frequently for the past 10 years. It didn’t take me long to realise how far our neighbours have come over the past decade.

They have quality skilled workers, and are less expensive. When I work with them, their analytical skills are equally good, if not better than us.

It’s not new anymore. Taxi drivers are fast becoming “too early to retire, too old to work” segment of the society. I like to talk to taxi drivers whenever I am heading for the airport.

There was this driver. Eloquent and well read. He was an export manager for 12 years with an MNC. Retrenched at 40 years old. He had been searching for a job since his retrenchment.

Although he was willing to lower his pay expectations, employers were not willing to lower their prejudice. He was deemed too old. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have another No. 1; having the most highly educated taxi drivers in the world.

On PM Lee calling the young to be committed and make a difference. Look around us. How dedicated can we be to Singapore when we can visualise what’s in store for us after we turned 40? Then again, how committed are employers to us? But we can’t blame them. They have bottom lines & shareholders’ gain to answer to.

Onus is really on the government to revamp the society. A society that is not a pressure cooker. A society that does not mirror so perfectly, what survival of the fittest is.

But a society, where it’s people can be committed, do their best and not having to fear whether they will still wake up employed tomorrow. Sadly, Singapore does not offer such luxuries and security anymore.

On the issue of babies. The government encourages us to pro-create. The next generation is essential in sustaining our competitive edge. Then again, the current market condition is such that our future has become uncertain. There is no more joy in having babies anymore; they have become more of a liability. It’s really a chicken and egg issue.

Many of my peers, bright and well educated have packed up and left. It’s what MM Goh called “quitters”. It’s sad but true, Singapore no longer is a place where one can hope to work hard their lives and retire graciously. It’s really the push factor.

A future is something we sweat it out, build and call our own. Unfortunately, people like me, mid 30’s going on 40’s, staying put by choice or otherwise, we can’t help but feel what lies ahead is really a gamble.

To PM Lee and the Ministers, we are on a different platform. Until you truly understand our insecurity, the future of Singapore to me remains a question mark.


**************************************************


So ok hor? Not too heavy, I hope? Now here's the reply from the zarbor:


**************************************************


mom’s friend sent her some blog post by some bleeding stupid 40-year old singaporean called derek wee (WHY do all the idiots have my surname why?!) whining about how singapore is such an insecure place, how old ppl (ie, 40 and above) fear for their jobs, how the pool of foreign “talent” (dismissively chucked between inverted commas) is really a tsunami that will consume us all (no actually he didn’t say that, he probably said Fouren Talern Bery Bad.), how the reason why no one wants kids is that they’re a liability in this world of fragile ricebowls, how the government really needs to save us from inevitable doom but they aren’t because they are stick-shoved-up-ass elites who have no idea how the world works, yadayadayadayada.

i am inclined - too much, perhaps - to dismiss such people as crackpots. stupid crackpots. the sadder class. too often singaporeans - both the neighborhood poor and the red-taloned socialites - kid themselves into believing that our society, like most others, is compartmentalized by breeding. ridiculous. we are a tyranny of the capable and the clever, and the only other class is the complement.

sad derek attracted more than 50 comments praising him for his poignant views, joining him in a chorus of complaints that climax at the accusation of lack of press freedom because his all-too-true views had been rejected by the straits times forum. while i tend to gripe about how we only have one functioning newspaper too, i think the main reason for its lack of publication was that his incensed diatribe was written in pathetic little scraps that passed off as sentences, with poor spelling and no grammar.

derek, derek, derek darling, how can you expect to have an iron ricebowl or a solid future if you cannot spell?

if you’re not good enough, life will kick you in the balls. that’s just how things go. there’s no point in lambasting the government for making our society one that is, i quote, “far too survival of fittest”. it’s the same everywhere. yes discrimination exists, and it is sad, but most of the time if people would prefer hiring other people over you, it’s because they’re better. it’s so sad when people like old derek lament the kind of world that singapore will be if we make it so uncertain. go be friggin communist, if uncertainty of success offends you so much - you will certainly be poor and miserable. unless you are an arm-twisting commie bully, which, given your whiny middle-class undereducated penchant, i doubt.

then again, it’s easy for me to say. my future isn’t certain but i guess right now it’s a lot brighter than most people’s. derek will read this and brand me as an 18-year old elite, one of the sinners who will inherit the country and run his stock to the gutter. go ahead. the world is about winners and losers. it’s only sad when people who could be winners are marginalised and oppressed. is dear derek starving? has dear derek been denied an education? has dear derek been forced into child prostitution? has dear derek had his clan massacred by the government?

i should think not. dear derek is one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country, and in this world. one of those who would prefer to be unemployed and wax lyrical about how his myriad talents are being abandoned for the foreigner’s, instead of earning a decent, stable living as a sales assistant. it’s not even about being a road sweeper. these ****bags don’t want anything without “manager” and a name card.

please, get out of my elite uncaring face.
posted at 12:08 PM

And here was her public apology on one of the blogs that were discussing her entry :
i apologise if i have distressed you with my tendency to rant. while i will not dispute some of the points you make in response to what i have written, i would like to bring to your attention the fact that the post in question was never meant to be a cogent response to the specific points raised in derek wee’s article. it is, quite obviously, a rant in the heat of the moment. in addition, i don’t believe that my blog has the wide readership of derek wee’s, or even your own, and my intention was more to vent my own frustrations than public denouncement.

i’d also like to clarify my use of the word “elite”. while i understand how misinterpretation may have arose, i intended to use it in irony, as a label that people assume i enjoy, and not one that i take particular pleasure in.

finally, i admit that i was harsher than i should have been, although the the crux of my belief in self-improvement and self-determination has not changed. once again, i apologise if my words have unintentionally offended you - i was under the rather naive impression that nobody reads my blog


*************************************************************


Hey, the purpose of this entry today is not to add oil to the frying pan liao, I think she's doing a good job of it so far trying to set herself on fire.


I just want to say that her dad? that AMK MP? Yup, he also 'elite' hor, Raffles all the way, then Stanford and yadda.


Guess where she got all her teachings, inspiration, social conscience from? Yup, no need to be aghast at the daugther when its the Dad and the Family who brought her up. This is called mei you jia jiao. Confirm its because Papa like that, daughter also like that.


Some one's paying the price for his actions and it's certainly not Derek Wee.



And to all those scholarship hopefuls out there, perhaps you should be glad you did not get in, because- can you imagine the type of people you might meet? and the type of personality erosion you might suffer?


Buddha Forbid.


Haiz.....I fear for Singapore.


OUT!


AKK

How AKK's brain is functioning....

work work work work work work work work work work sex work work work work work work work work work sex work work work work work work work work work work eat work work work work work work sleep work work work work work work work work work work work work work workwe loormw work wowek work work work workw orke sleep slerrp slepep slurr .....



and that's how everything breaks down.....



OUT....

AKK.....*collaspe*

A trip to HSA

Hi all!

Man, have I been fricking busy! I thank you all for your fine comments in the previous and previous previous blog. Although I often wondered how come nobody actually tried to ask more deeply into the problem of me being attracted to some one older…..


Oh hell, never mind, I’ll talk about it now…


Yes! I admit! I got crush! In fact, I’d be the first person to say that although you may be attached/married/arranged by grandparents to enter a stranger’s life and become part of his family, we all, yes, we all! Still have eyes that can see, ears that can hear! OK?! I admit! Hands up!


Do not take out thy sight nor block thy ears nor cover thy skin just because you are ‘taken’. This is a free world, there is no ownership, love should never be described nor seen as such. Love is not slavery nor self- prohibition, but agreeing that when all is said and done, there is always somewhere else you want to belong with, a place, a person; that you’d rather be with, even after seeing-eyes and hearing-ears.


To move with the times, Love is no longer the same definition as when our parents came together. And was never the definition then when our grandparents came together.


So back to the crush, as all crushes go, this one went by pretty fast. First he looked like delectable Harrison Ford to me (HF being my all-time favourite lao-ah-pek crush). Now, he now looks just like a Ford, ie. efficient and generally trusty, but not much fanfare. So after this period of moral enquiry, that leaves only the ‘taking second glances at the more distinguished profs’, ‘imaging Daniel Wu strapped and naked on the bed’ and ‘enjoying another older colleagues lilting Scottish brogue’ kinda-fantasies left to be savoured and morally dissected.


Ah! To be human and conscious about your thoughts is the woe of Man.



But I digress! Today, I shall be talking about the myth of blood donation.


I have been donating blood on and off since a nondescript email was spammed to me in the 90s, asking for donors to save the life of a Timothy Chan Ho somebody. A little leukemia-stricken boy. Bolstered that finally an email is asking specifically for my own blood type, I went to HSA and asked to donate to him.


Only to be told that while HSA is extremely grateful for the blood I shall donate, there are many other kids, not just him, who’ll require immediate attention and that my blood shall be given in order of priority. Because for every child who’s had publicity and help through internet and email-forwarding, there are a lot of others who don’t.

Remember that. Everything that you know is always the tip of an iceberg. But every drop of blood that comes out from my arms can perhaps mean a few more minutes to live. To some people, these minutes mean the difference between closure and a lifetime of hanging ends, words unsaid and unheard.


Always remember that there is no action too small that will help or harm a person.


Ah! But off with these heavy words! I was talking about the myth of blood donation. I had heard it many many times, coming from first-timers, old-timers and no-timers (ie, never try before). In fact, most culprits are plump auntie first-timers nervously fretting on the donation couch, seriously regretting their burst of charity after seeing the nurse rip open the needle syringe package.


‘Mee-si, mee-si,’ they quavered. ‘I heard blood donation makes you fat. Is it true?’


To which the nurse will sweep her arm across the room and ask, ‘Auntie, you got see any fat ppl or not?’


Which always makes my wildly happy because I was included in the radar of ‘got any fat ppl or not’ while she swung her antennae fingers and forgets to stop where I am.


So you see, there is a more sinister reason for me wanting to donate blood. Other than the compulsory feeling of the brotherhood bond with Mankind that I am giving Life to the needful, is the feeling that on the contrary to auntie’s last-minute back-out line, I actually feel that I lost weight after donating.


And because of the digital scale in the doctor’s room during checkup.


Yup. You heard right.



Since blood donation is a commitment of every 3 months, every 3 months, I’d be asked by the doc to step onto the scale to weigh myself. And that particular scale, I have given it the honour of being the most accurate scale around in my Life. Let’s face it, normal bathroom scales are always a + or – of 2kg and even when I’m sick, my GP never asks me to measure my weight.



Ever since I started donating blood, my weight has been steadily declining from a cushiony 58 kg to plateau at my current 47kg. Of cos, I had been exercising over the years but certain things you just tend to equate one with the other. That said, it was a plateau I'm delibrately keeping since you aren't allowed to donate if you are 45kg and below.


Since I’ve become the borderline of ‘can or cannot donate blood because you have too little mass’, that scale is a constant fixture that I’d see every 3 months. And like an old friend whose name I’d forgotten, the doc would introduce us again. I’d catch up with it by climbing on top and update it the happenings (food intake and lack of exercise) in the past 3 months. It almost always tells me I’m keeping my weight at constant and that’s usually around 47kg. To which I’d proudly announce to the doc, who’ll tick my name in the form and proclaim me fit for blood donation.


So recently, the urge to do good and meet my old friend came back round again. A happy occasion, I walked in HSA feeling like a veteran, filling the form nonchalantly because I knew every single question.


Then when the doctor called my name, I did not hesitate once. I was excited that my old friend shall soon proclaim me a healthy 47kg and allow me to drip enough blood to fill a Yakult bottle.


The doc and I did the normal-- blood pressure, questioning of general health. Finally the doctor stopped scribbling and turned the page over to fill in my weight. I waited for the doctor to introduce me to that shy contraption at the side of the room.


He looked up with a bright smile.


‘OK! We’re done! Please proceed on to the glass door on the left.’


‘But….but….what about my weight?’ I glanced at the beckoning scale.


‘Well, what about it?’


‘Don’t you need to know my real weight?’ I was frankly aghast at his rudeness and lack of social cue.


‘Oh, that!’ laughed the doctor. ‘No worries! You definitely can donate blood.’


‘But you still need to fill up my weight!’ Last ditch attempt and frankly shaken out of routine, I pointed out the blank on the form.


‘Oh, that’s OK. You look like…hmmm…....' a pause. 'You look like you weigh 55kg.’


Missing my look of open-mouth horror, he neatly flourished the number ‘55’ onto the blank. Just like that.


So while invisible shards of glass pierced mercilessly through me, he callously added, ‘and that’s 10kg pass the official weight limit. So you’re safe to donate. I can TELL.’



AAARRGGHHHHH!!!! AARRGgghhhhh!!!!!!! aaaRRgghhhh!!!!!!!!


While I was silently agonising, he flipped my past records and quipped, 'hmmm....I can see your weight's now back to your first few donations, what happened?'


'I got married.' I mumbled in shock, hands moving over my suddenly slack thighs...


'Congratualations then, so both myths are true!'


'What myths?' Unconciously, I rolled out my suddenly obvious expanding love handles with my hands.


'That blood donation and marriage can make you fat, of cos. what else?'


.......Choujidan…..Blood donation will never be the same again……….


Out!


AKK

Run For Funds!!!

Hi all!

Another year, another marathon and another bunch of kids get given a hand to help them along. Welcome to the RunForFunds Project where every fund gets given to the children and none get choked in red tape, admin or corruption. Jaywalk has asked to help out on awareness, but I think its neccesary anyway since it's only a good thing to announce good intentions and they actually do not entertain anonymous donations.

So interested parties can click on the link to Jaywalk's post to find out what its all about. Those who periodically run marathons *hint hint to SibehSian*, can actually do it for a good cause. How about that for both hobby and karma?

that's all!

Out!
AKK