Chocolate Day/Macaroni Day
2005-07-07 @ 11:08 p.m.

Had a talk about entrepreneurship and globalisation yesterday, which saw relatively frank exchanges, despite the presiding tutor's attempt to censor us right from the start. I haven't suddenly discovered some heretofore hidden entrepreneurial streak though. (Hello, civil service! As Mr Purvis puts it, I'll gladly hand over several years of my life to the government in exchange for an overseas education.) Finished another poem yesterday during class, Advent, which has turned out to be another of those pieces that starts with a decent idea, and then promptly degenerates into contrivance and substandard writing. One day, I will brutally revise all my poems to achieve a standard consistent with Another Night On The Patio and Retrospection. I'll probably edit so heavily that the end result constitutes a separate poem in its own right. My fiction piece has stalled after the first hundred words or so, largely because it's a very trying experience to do prose, at least for me it is. Stayed back in the library to do work, which was kind of productive. I shall do it more often in future! Jose is quite entertaining.

Read Ernest's blog, so I've participated in a poll on naming Circle Line MRT stations. Honestly, some of the suggestions are just uninspired, like National University, compared to the alternative, Kent Ridge. Others are quirky but very palatable, like Cluny and Woollerton. The worst I've seen has got to be Chip Bee as an alternative to Holland Village. It smacks of trying-too-hard-to-sound-local! The station is next to Holland Village, and it's under Holland Road, for crying out loud! Then there's Tanjong Berlayar versus Labrador Park. I've never heard of Tanjong Berlayar in my life. Can't stand it when Singapore does stuff like this, bending over backwards to sound rustic and local. Frankly, I think way too many of our MRT stations have names that only mean something to Singaporeans, and are largely meaningless to the rest of the world unless an explanation is supplied. Like Khatib or Yishun. People who did the National Archives internship last year will be amused/pleased to know that Bukit Chandu has been proposed as an alternative to Pasir Panjang. So go to www.feedback.gov.sg and vote! Exercise one of the few rights you can safely exercise by July 20, and please don't choose Chip Bee over Holland Village. Gross!