I'm not about to blog about anything significant today. Lol, so if you don't want to hear me ramble about insignificant stuff, feel free to leave after the first few paragraphs.
Last night, I had a pretty interesting conversation with Amir. Partly about the PAP (which I shall not go into, lest I be thrown into jail, knowing the legal system here, although I am thankful I do not live in the States), partly about the issue about Edusave Scholarships and Merit Bursaries and I had my first indication that someone actually heard me rant about the Nguyen case.
I shall skip the first and last topics and plunge straight into the Edusave whatever issue. For non-Singaporeans, let me summarise it for you. Edusave scholarships are cash grants given by the government to ANY Singaporean/Permanent Resident student in the top 10% of their school. This is generally regardless of their financial and social situation. Meaning, even if you were the only child of the richest person in Singapore, you'd still get the money if you're in the top 10%. Whether it's in the school, district or national level, no one really knows, but the general feel is that it's on the school level. The top 5% gets more cash than the next 5%. Edusave Merit Busary Awards are given to the top 25% of students who are out of top 10%. In order to receive the cash ($150), your family must be earning a gross income (before taxes) of less than $3000. Then we have the Good Progress Awards, given to students who are in the top 10% in terms of the improvements in their academic performance, the amount of cash I don't know since I've never gotten them.
The problem with me is such. For the past 7 years, consecutively if I may add, I have gotten NOTHING other than the merit bursary awards. In lieu of the fact that my mum's income alone (which is half of my dad's) is enough to warrant me ineligible for the award, making me lose some $1050 over the past 7 years. And during my conversation last night, it turns out that I SHOULD have gotten the Edusave scholarship awards last year and this year, which I missed. I'm guessing that my friend got them for both years and that he thinks my results are at least on par with his and feels it strange that I missed them. I won't argue about last year, but I am feeling indignant about this year's, because I was ranked 36th out of 800++ students in June and 9th out of 800++ students in October. 9th puts me in the top 1.02273% of my batch if there are 880 students in my cohort. So the question is, why did I miss the Edusave Scholarship Award and how did someone in the top 1.02273% of her cohort end up outside the top 10% of her year for 2005? Is it some conspiracy? Is it discrimination (economically, it refers to a situation where a person is given a different wage or different chances of promotion for the same job done. Of course the job is the same, meaning to study. And my chances of ever landing the Edusave Scholarship is significantly lower?)?
SO my friend comes up with a scenario. Maybe the government is trying to lower the income/wealth disparity in Singapore (our Gini coefficient is higher than the US'. I was surprised to find that out one fine day on Wikipedia. BTW, 0 refers to perfect equality and 1, complete inequality, ours is 0.4++ I think). If this is so, I reckon the government is extremely "intelligent". My take on the issue?
The rich gets richer. The poor gets poorer. The lower middle income class gets marginally richer. The upper middle income class gets more and more resentful. HOW BRILLIANT!!! Yes, I admit it, I consider myself upper middle income class. How else can you describe my family circumstances? Rather than reduce inequality, it leads to greater inequality. Reducing such a disparity involves either raising the income of the poor or lowering that of the rich, not acting on the middle income class.
So now, we come back to this vital question. WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED TO MY EDUSAVE SCHOLARSHIP AWARD???? Call me a prick, but I would like to know, I need an explanation, but obviously that isn't about to happen.
Ok, now onto my insignificant stuff.
As I blogged previously, my mum bought a set of jewellery for me. With it came my FIRST 2 rings. I've never bought rings before, so I have no idea how wearing one should feel like and how a ring should feel like if it's the right fit.
The shop we were at had only one set of the rings of that set. And so I was told to try it. Ok.. it fitted into my ring finger on both hands nicely and snugly. And when I was asked, if it was the right size, I kept thinking to myself "How the hell do you know if it's the right size?!?!?!?! " But since both the salesgirl and my mum insisted that it was, so I let it be. And it was pretty comical that the only rings for that set in the entire shop would fit so nicely into my ring fingers. They looked really small but they fitted. Unbelievable that they slid nicely onto my finger.
Pictures Galore!
The pendant (centre) and the earrings (sides). I love the pendant. I think it's really beautiful. Of course, the image is kinda blur, blame the camera phone, ok?
Both rings when worn together. Looks like one HUGE, chunky ring, doesn't it?
One ring on its own
The other ring, again, on its own this time
Wow, it turns out I had more to say for my more...significant stuff.
I'm a 3rd year student in what is probably the largest autonomous university in Singapore majoring in a Science-related subject (well it sorta IS SCIENCE). I'm known to be introverted, sarcastic (at times), funny when I rant (which isn't a good thing lol) and somewhat of a loner. I miss LA and would move there in a heartbeat :(
