i am woman, hear me roar

16 weeks of maternity leave. great. up from 12 weeks from the year before. terrific. more time with her child. yeah, fantastic. and paid by the govt. impressive. *roll eyes*

have you considered how 4 months away from work disadvantages a woman in the workplace tremendously? she's virtually replaceable. it makes my blood boil when i hear of women getting fired or unreasonably dismissed just because they're expecting.

your new initiaitves make it easier for us to have more babies? all bullshit, i say. bullshit.

how about this alternative - how abt we equal out the playing field for men and women? have the 4 months shared equally between the father and the mother, and leave it to the parents to decide how they want to split the leave. and make this leave period portable for both. parenting ought to be a shared responsibility, and when employers see that both male and female have the same amount of such maternity/paternity leave, it no longer makes a difference whether his worker's male or female. then the capability on the job would count, rather than the gender. same goes for race and age btw.

but i bet you'd never have the balls to do that, would you? you still think men are more impt than women in the workforce. we're no lesser than you men, you know, you mysoginistic a**holes.

oh, and one more thing - you might want to consider extending these benefits, taxes et all, to the single mothers? i think they need it even more than the couples do.

if you want to see real change in this area, then have policies that really make a difference, send a strong signal that parenting for both men and women is impt. equalise the playing field. stop dangling a little carrot in front of us women, pay us lip service and then expect us to produce more children.

while i am appreciative that my country is trying to help, i am also flabbergasted by the assumptions that lie beneath these hand-outs. i'm guessing they are mostly made by men who fail to understand a woman's struggle in this society. maternity leave is only the tip of the iceberg. so so so much more can be done to promote equalityand get rid of gender discrimination. THAT, will solve you babies and marriage issues.

have some balls for once and make policies that actually work for women.

mad about english

go watch this. confirm funny.

the best time of day

cool summer nights

windows open

lamps burning

fruit in the bowl.

and your head on my shoulder

these the happiest moments in the day.

next to the early morning hours

of course. and the time

just before lunch

and the afternoon, and

early evening hours.
but i do love

these summer nights

even more, i think.

than those other times.

the work finished for the day.

and no one who can ever reach us now.

or ever.

poem by raymond carver

photo by stellou

i have to say i got this off brenda's blog. and its had me in giggles since.

brenda's friend, goz, who is a singaporean but lives in the uk now, so decided to be patriotic this national day and wanted to celebrate it over there. so rightfully and logically, he called up our embassy there to ask if they have a celebration party that the bunch of them singaporeans could join in. but embassy told him there wasn't such a celebration because embassy didn't know how many singaporeans are living in the uk now.

what a crap excuse. poor customer service too, i reckon.

but goz, being entirely singaporean, wanted a platform to complain. so he writes in to mr brown, who was so moved by his letter that he published it on his weblog. and you could literally hear goz get angrier and angrier as he wrote on in his letter.

damn funny. i still have this silly grin on my face just thinking about it. *heh* goz, you're all our heros today lor.

some of the national day songs i've been made to memorise way to in school back in the 80s and 90s, are still superbly good songs - lyrics well penned and inspirational, and the tunes not only easy to remember, but popular enough for everyone to hum along. stick in your head.

count on me singapore is probably my personal favourite. i still enjoy singing and humming along to it on public transport, trying to ignore the weird stares i get doing that (hey, at least its not mahjulah singapura). if i just close my eyes to everything else that's happening in singapore and just sing the song as it is, it can really make me cry.

aaah.... that fleeting moment of patriotism, when my eyes are closed ie.

when my eyes open, dick lee's rendition (see video below) seems more befitting, more real. *haha*

oh, and happy national day/public holiday/or whatever that day means to you. ;-)

i remembered being a young dancer 6 yrs ago (gosh! has it been that long?? or longer??) scouring glitterlisa.com for videos to learn from. and that was before there was youtube!

this was one of the first videos i watched. and i remembered telling myself that i wanted to dance like that! =) elegant, clean, a seamless connection and flow of energy with my partner, yet filled with little surprises here and there. the tricks esp used to fascinate me to no end!

viewing the video again after so many yrs, well, feels different. the basic elements i like are still there, but there's a certain something-something that's missing, like a sparkle or an X factor. or perhaps it just looked too rehearsed. the performance could have been a whole lot more exciting just in terms of energy level.

Pushing out barriers to art

part of my on-going reflection on what art is, its meaning and significane to others. this internal discourse that's been churning inside of me for years now, and until recently, found self-expression in the work that i do as well. its a joy (and a burden at times) to be in a job that is an extension of myself.

anyways, i thought this to be an insightful commentary piece stemming from the recent uob painting of the year awards. rather unusual for Straits Times to write commentaries, but perhaps not so much in this particular section of the paper on Saturdays.

____________________________________

Straits Times, 19 July 2008, S14 - Pushing out barriers to art

Controversy has been attached to the artist Joel Yuen's series of photographic prints, showing arrangements of animal parts, which won this year's UOB Painting of the Year. Some, it seems, call it in bad taste. Now, art needn't be controversial, of course. And neither does controversy validate an effort to artistry. Nevertheless, the debate is useful for providing an opportunity to further public openness to what constitutes art. Too often, art is expected to be pretty. (But though Jackson Pollack is hugely admired, his paint splats are surely disturbing to take in; not pretty.) Worse, judgement too often is deferred to the size of the price tag next to the canvas, sculpture, or print. (Yet many artists fail to make money for pieces that are eventually highly regarded. The art didn't change over time, taste had to catch up.)

Contemporary art can be difficult, certainly Mondrian's black-bordered squares and rectangles of colours are hard to appreciate at first. To put it in just a few words, contemporary art gives the narrative and ideas attached a far bigger role than previously in the history of art. What the artist is trying to say - and how - has become very important. Without this, a Rothko canvas might simply be a bunch of fuzzy-edged rectangles of colour. But even without a grounding in art, history - and remember, galleries often provide useful primers - art can still be approached at face value. It evokes an emotional response, and we might be convinced t read up. With a deeper background, our reaction then evolves. Art is, after all, a relationship between the audience and the work.

So while some may be uncomfortable with Mr Yuen's prints, his attempt to make his audience think about animals and consumption, by "taking (animal) parts and putting them together", clearly has sparked engagement with the work. One person who viewed it was quoted in this paper saying: "These photographs ae disgusting... (They) make me very uncomfortable. Even if art is not beautiful, it should not inspire such feelings." But instead, that's precisely it: art draws out emotions, even if sometimes disturbing ones. (Think Francis Bacon's disturbing human forms. or Fang Lijun's bald headshinting at untold stories that you subtly invited to draw out.)

Maybe the debate over Mr Yuen's winning work eventually wlll bring a fresh appreciation of art. This would support many local artists who may not now be readily understoof, from those working in traditional forms to the emerging digital media. The barriers are being pushed out. With luck, more of the public will venture into the space.