Poets are, in fact, lazy people. They crave a quick connection to another's soul without all the awkward get-to-know-you smiles and conversation like stunted creeper vines defacing public walls. They think too much and talk too little and in the end they are miserable, having one-sided imaginary conversations with would-be friends that somehow pan out more interesting than in reality.

I need to get out more.

Fuckitol.

Goddamnit, it's been an eternity since I've graced this little white space with the tedium of my life and my bratty rants but this is my space and I need to get rid of this pent up anger accumulating like a vent in my belly so fuck off.

I know I cannot sleep with this anger simmering in my belly and going to sleep pissed off is tempting Insomnia King, as well as his army of delusional, rabid bunnies with jade glow-in-the-dark teeth and mares which holler at night. Whatever. I am starting to question my own sanity.

All right. Social Studies -- also known as propaganda. I am absolutely SICK and TIRED of reading the same old bloody chapters about Stinkapore. Who the fuck bloody cares about the awesomeness of lee kwan yew and his oh-so-perceptive and smart maneuvers and his highfalutin, pompous self-congratulatory passages and achievements glorified within this shitty book?

I know for one I don't give a pink penguin's shivering arse about it. In melting ice because Antarctica is melting due to global warming.

Singapore is one tiny dot but for one tiny dot we sure make loads of noise. Yeah, every single damn page keeps telling students about our astute leaders and their wonderful achievements, elevating us from orang lauts we are at heart to this supposedly first-class state? the way they put it, you'd think that this country is maybe one of the top ten powers in the world and matters a whole lot.

BUT GUESS WHAT SINGAPORE? YOU'RE JUST A PATHETIC, TINY LITTLE VOICE TRYING TO GLORIFY YOURSELF TOO HARD, YOU ARE POEMS ON THE MRT, YOU AR E A THROWAWAY CULTURE AND A DENIGRATE TRYING TO MAKE HIMSELF IMPRESSIVE.

Your GDP per capita is only forty-something in the world. Not bad what, you say.

There are 113 countries ranked.

And we are two places below Malaysia, dunno how many places below Indonesia, and China, the country LKY has secretly despised and in our papers make it seem as if it were a third world country...guess what? Its GDP is IN THE TOP TEN.

In conclusion, we aren't worth a fuck in the world and we're too busy tooting our horn and pretending we are too good for everyone else when in reality we are a bunch of indulgent, complacent idiots with no social graces to speak of whatsoever, myself included.

Is this a love-hate relationship? Certainly, if a foreigner were to abuse Singapore I would defend my country, but I love it enough to recognise its faults. Maybe, just like Urbino Juvenal in Love in the Time of Cholera.

It's really amazing how much is omitted in our textbook. In the secondary four textbook, on globalisation, there is this little section on Venturing Abroad. The suzhou experience and the industrial park was mentioned, and the way they put it, while not exactly wrong :"Many Singaporean firms have set up businesses in the park." It also neglected to mention how the Singaporean delegates were blindsided by the Chinese because an identical industrial park (the Dalian industrial park, I think, correct me if I am wrong) was built RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO IT.
The Suzhou New District (SND) industrial park. As the Suzhou city government had only a minority (35%) stake in the SIP, while they had a major stake in SND, the city government largely ignored the SIP and concentrated on promoting the SND instead.

Oh, and it also neglected to mention the losses made in the first five years. Make your guess. One million? Nuh-uh. Higher.

Oh, it's kinda small, a nominal sum really... just a tiny weeny 90 FUCKING MILL ION US DOLLARS over a period of FIVE years.

Of course, Singapore got her hand roasted chaotah and retreated, settling for a 35% stake in the SIP instead of the original 65%, and the mos facetious thing about this was that a year after the Singapore government conceded defeat, the park made its first profit of 3.8 million.

-.-

That's pretty stupid investing and super suay if you ask me.

In the end, our dear, ambitious supposed-success foray into China ended up being taken over by the Taiwanese. Doesn't this simply showcase to the world our abilities? Wow, Singapore is so successful! Not!

And why haven't I read this in the Propaganda times aside from international news portals?

...

Now, don't get me wrong. I love history. I, in my own way, adore Singapore and have a special place reserved for her always. What I cannot stand is the damn writer tooting Singapore's horn as if she were some fucking goddess, because I know Singapore isn't. I hate fake, insincere, pretentious people. This writer is attempting to make Singapore better than she really is by projecting a sort of illusion over her, all the good but none the bad. It's unnatural. It's robotic. It's lost all the Singapore-ness and the humanity and the soul of this very island. Without flaws, and with a too-seamless government, Singapore seems...almost like an utopia. a 1984-esque utopia.

I still get chills down my back when I see words like 'Public education' and 'YPAP', because it reminds me too much of the reeducation processes and room 101 in 1984. Maybe it's my overactive imagination. Maybe I think too much. I don't know.

But really, would it hurt us to be humble now and then? Just come out with it, say "Okay, to tell the truth Singapore isn't that great...here's what we accomplished, here are our dreams, and here's what we can do better..." instead of OHOHOHOHO LOOK AT ME MAN I AM THE GOD OF AWESOME. MY HEALTH CARE SYSTEM OWNS BRITAIN'S BECAUSE A WELFARE STATE SUCKS.


I don't know if you people have detected this tint of selective lying and the proposed superiority of Singapore in the book. Maybe I'm just paranoid and screwy after reading the damn book front to back and being exhausted.

My conclusion is, never trust politics, which is kinds irrelevant. Oh, and don't piss of LKY because he'll sue the living daylights out of you.

Sometimes I wonder how the foreign students put up with it. I know I would be goddamn irritated if I were forced to take a mandatory subject like this, only filled with communist and socialist policies and forced to memorise and regurgitate every detail and still fail. Hell, I would be expelling spurts of fire from my nostrils and burning effigies of personalities displayed in the book.

What's the point of Social studies anyway? Sure, learning about different government systems is cool and I can totally apply it to my life, I do see the relevance but from the way things are posed in the textbook, it's as if the book are propelling us to the conclusion that there is no other system for Singapore other than the PAP system. They nicely addressed all issues and disgruntlement Singaporeans have towards the PAP within this very book and test us on it for our exams. Like the issue of foreign talent, lauded as 'thieves of rice bowls', amongst other more unsavory names.