Looking at the present to decide the future

I woke up this morning to come to terms with a few things. I am going to graduate in two years time.

I am in my third year. FOr many friends it is their graduating year; honours is an extension. I do not know if i want to do honours or not. I enjoy studying economics. I really do. LEarning how economies work, how governments and state manipulate interest rates and fiscal policies and other economic incentives to manage the financial boat. it is a bit like sailing, cept you have only the vaguest of ideas of your destination, with only the rough ideas of how insturments will work and get you to your destination.

I come to see that i really want to do something practical with my economics knowledge. That means education if possible, teaching students not only how economics works, but how to to live their lives. Yet a part of me wants to enter government service to put theoretical knowledge into practical use.

I know how people who study economics at the lower levels think that it is all theory, that there is little practical use for economics. On the contary, every decision any one makes whether a micro or a macro decision is really an economic decision. Governments who decide whether to spend a dollar more must be careful lest they throw the economy into disequilibrium.

Sometimes i don;t know about which path i want to take. And at the same time, i know that if i trust god, if i seek his will, it will be the best. Whether to work as a teacher, to work with a government. My ideal is to teach economics, but i want to gain some experience in MAS first. I want to be able to when i teach show the students the practical side as well as the fascinating aspect of economics.

Yup that is it. Life is too short.

Church

I attended a interesting service at Northwest New Life Church today.

It was held in a school auditorium, and fairly well attended. The worship was well, more alive then the one i am used to at St John's.

What was interesting was what the pastor spoke about today. Well, it was not his main sermon, it was a story. It began when he was in Bible College. the class was asked to prepare a sermon on the topic of the good Samaritan. They were then told to meet somewhere on the day of the "test" and told to go to another corner of the school to present the sermon.

What was the idea of the lesson? Well, along the way to their designated location, they would run into a person in obvious need. He was dressed in dirty rags. The students who had prepared the sermon topic walked straight passed the guy who needed help.

SOmetimes we are rushing to do God's work, when we forget that God's work is out life. we should not be rushing to do God's work, we should be doing God's work. I felt that God spoke deeper on the topic. He wanted me to know, that it is never the big things that God will ask us about, the things that we did for the world to see. It is the small things we do when no one sees that counts.

Picking up the piece of litter. Stating your age accurately so that you are charged the proper price. Tearing your coupon accurately. Going at fifty when the limit is fifty, seventy when the limit is seventy. Not lying about having heavy traffic on the raod when you are late when actually you were reading some joke in the Newspaper. It is not that you should be righteous when you can be caught. But be righteous when there is no one there.

Central Banking Independence

Am trying to write my essay on the benefits of having a central bank that is independent versus one that is tied to the government. Time and time again i am glad i took PS1101E else i would be lost in the realm of politics.

ANd anyway the essay is just going off. Cannot really get a coherent idea down. And it is due on thurs. This thurs. ha ha i know, still got some time. Sigh.. i have no idea how to do this.

I still have to submit another assignment on monday for game theory. And one more in four weeks on the merger of ANZ and National bank. FOllowed by one on the relationship between crime and stuff. Sigh. All the work's piling up now. ANd all i can think of is the holiday trip i am takingjust before exams. ha ha, my flat decided to take a break and we are planning to take a trip out, into the the middle of south island. Incited by me that is. COs i saw this place which rents Mazda 3's at 73 a day. which is cheap. Really. muahahahaha

Ok ok time to work. Love you guys!

SNOWING

Oh my, it is snowing here!! Ha ha and it is quite bad, cos the roads are closed and many things are closed today! But so fun!!!! People snow fights , building snowmen and breaking windows etc... ha ha so fun. and cold. and wet. and dreary.

Pictures

Ok guys, here are the pictures. I put up a bit too much, blogger became a bit upset at me. SO that is it for now

Once a while, you get lucky with the camera. This was taken at kaikoura beach, the second one an Blenheim wineyards






Vine Yard. We went to five. Drink wine. I decided i dislike white, and the only red i like is Merlot. Reisling (is that how you spell it) Ice Wine is nice too. Bit too sweet though.



Travel Kakis. Left with teddy bear is Esther, right is Petrina. Guy is william.




On the ferry to Marlborough Sounds. I love the lake. Dunno why, but it was beautiful.






This was at Nelson Cathedral. The place really is just so sombre. worship here is so different from Singapore.







Marahau. The saddest place in NZ. We were the only ones at the hostel, which was a farm, it was wet cold, we had to drive to the toilet. Get the picture?



Abel Tasman National Park. Au Natural.










Stayed here, yes on a ferry overnight, in Abel Tasman. We chose this package, expensive, but worth while since they provide everything. Meals also.




The long walk back through the park.










Of all places to see cows...



We went white water rafting!!! So fun. Cold. Wet. But fun. Swam down river too.



We stayed here in Murchison. Very lazy people



Crossing over the Buller Gorge.



Getting ready...



...to cross this. In the air.



Hanmer Springs. Lovely Place. But got lazy to take pcitures. Going through this



...in this. That why all muddy. But it was fun.



Flying, well grounded at Christchurch airport. Grounded due to bad weather



I have very little pictures of Auckland, all in Rachel's camera. But this is one that is very nice. Looks like Parliment house on smaller scale.



Spring is HERE!!







I want roast duck!!!! No wonder the chinese restaurant on campus offers fresh duck meat



I made steak!!! After setting off the alarm. And smoking up the entire flat. And well. You get the picture.



Someone say it was spring? This was taken on 12 September. That was a cold morning. Foggy.




Rally Photos. Interesting activity. We should more of these events. People gathering around in the biting wind to cheer on or off the public servants.





Public toilets building. Not joking. This is a building for public toilets. And only toilets.

Rally

Edited due to bad bad typos

Let me bring you through the rally that just ended.

It started with crowds of people thronging the area outside the Central library of my Campus. Fair enough, it was afterall a rally and it should be well attended.

Then there were the placards. Cards that said polite stuff like Vote National, Brash for PM, Vote labour. Cards that were rude like Ignorant Clark. And cards that were downright disgusting.

Then, upon arrival on the PM who was late, she was welcomed by limited cheering backed by loud boos. How sad is it to be the most powerful person in the country to be met by an outcry of dissent. But this shows some maturity. That the Government can take criticsm and an honest outpouring of unhappiness. Singapore PAP is just too immature to take such comments. However, having placards that were merely derogatory might be a bit too much.

Incidentally, Ms Clark was caught speeding (at about 170 kmh as well as driving recklessly) to catch a thief. No actually, to catch an all blacks game. A jouney that should take 2 hours minimum took 1 hour 30 minutes. I think that was fast enough for her to be on time to catch a match but failed to come to speak on time.

Throughout her speech which was peppered by people yelling out names that are well, not very polite. That is if you were in singapore, you'd get hauled up to court, fined, declared a bankrupt and exiled. Your family too to boot. Here you get nothing. I think PAP needs to learn to allow people to complain about the government, whether fully justifiable or not. I am sure that there has to be some truth. But the PAP will only allow criticism if it is fully justifiable, and all failings can be justified. Since all mistakes can be justified, criticism can never be fully justified.

When Helen Clark was about to leave, a guy came up dressed in a pilot uniform and said something like "Flight 422 departing from Christchurch to Wellington is now departing" got into trouble with a labour supporter and that almost got into a fight. (The flight was in reference to the speeding incident that Helen clark was involved in)

Note: I just realised what he said: "Flight 422 Departing Christchurch for Wellington will be delayed as we are waiting for our prime minister, Helen Clark"

Was pretty cool actually.

Here is my take on it. I think in any election, it is not the country that makes the decision who becomes the government. No. It is in many cases the minority who have no presuppositions and do not punch the party ticket. I think the problem arises when the vote becomes one for the party and not one for the country. In singapore, the two terms, party and country, are used interchangably.

Much as anyone would like to counter, we are not a true democracy, neither are we a true dictatorship. It is like a monopoly with firms threatening to enter. IT is a monopoly in the sense that no other firms are in the market, but is's power is limited by the threat of the potential of other firms.

Unfortunately, in recent times, the monopoly has been able to exploit its power to grow and this has created substential barriers to entry, which reduces the potential of the threats of the other firms, further allowing it to exploit it's position.

Don't get me wrong, exploiting a position may not necessary mean bad for the society as a whole. In some cases, allowing the monopoly to capture the entire consumer surplus will result in an efficient outcome. THus allowing the PAP to extract all or as much of our civil liberities as possible might just permit it to operate at an efficient outcome. Of course the more civilised and perhaps more acceptable manner would be to allow competition.

HA ha like my friend said, too much economics. Ok ok i got to go for game theory now. see you guys

The election

I am skipping my economic analysis of law class today.

Before you chide me, i am doing this because i wanna go listen to helen clark speak. Well actuallyi just want to attend a rally. Never been in a political rally before (Singapore ones don't count because PAP knows regardless it will be returned to government) So here it is. The election for the next government is on for the kiwis. And it is just so funny to hear the politicans speak. and scold one another.

will update later

Weather report

Living in singapore where it is hot or wet, you kind of assume that what you wear on any morning is sufficient till the night, unless you were intending to go into some of NUS lecture theatres where the Air conditioning is set at such cold temperature, one wonders if you were in winter.

Barring that, I have come to learn that even though they claim that spring is here, it can still be cold. Case in point, this morning it was freezing, foggy, wet and basically a bad day to go to class. And i thought i could keep my winter jacket. Bleah. Luckily the sun came up soon enough so weather got back a ok.

SO far it is getitng warmer, but only in the day. Nights and mornings before sun rise is still extremely cold.

Oh well got to run, Industrial Organisation is calling out to me. Then i got to study Econometrics 2 which i detest. SIgh

Economics

Laws and religion

A friend pointed out an issue to me.

Law is supposed to be free of religious overtones. There should be a seperation of state and religion. So why is bigamy prohibited? On what secular grounds is bigamy wrong?

What i decided to find was well, if that was true. Are our laws actually supposed to be drafted on the principle of Secularism. If so, then what will be the definition of right and wrong?

The problem with secularism is not that it isn't just, in many ways, it is more just then religion, the problem is it lacks a common marker. It is, an inefficient and potentially biased estimator of the true mean.

The issue here is that if laws are written on the basis of secular rights, the basic rights of humans and all that, where will it come from? Where do we obtain a piece of paper declaring the rights of human beings, the rights that transcend time and societies spread across the world.

I cannot find an answer. Laws that are written on secularism have to have a basis somewhere. In a inherent moral codes written into the minds of man? Or in a written generalisation of the religious codes that exist today.

Personally, i go for the second. Laws should be secular in the sense that people are not treated differently on the basis of religion. Laws cannot be secular in the sense that they are based on religious codes.

But anyway i was searching online for singapore constitution. This is interesting:

Article 152 Minorities and Special Position of Malays

(1) It shall be the responsibility of the Government constantly to care for the interests of the racial and religious minorities in Singapore.
(2) The Government shall exercise its functions in such manner as to recognize the special position of the Malays, who are the indigenous people of Singapore, and accordingly it shall be the responsibility of the Government to protect, safeguard, support, foster and promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and the Malay language.

Article 153 Muslim Religion
The Legislature shall by law make provision for regulating Muslim religious affairs and for constituting a Council to advise the President in matters relating to the Muslim religion.
(from http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/sn00000_.html#A152_)

So muslims have a special place in the eyes of the state. What really interests me would be to know two things. Do the muslims claim that right in situation? And more importantly are muslims who do claim such a right faring better off than others who do not claim?

Why is it that Malays have that special seat in the country? In many ways, i do not htink there is a visible manifestation of that privilege. So why was that article written in out constitution? It endangers the government should there be any attempt for any group to exploit that legislature. Double edged sword.

Singapore in many cases is a paradoxical society. Our national language is Malay, but our parliment is conducted in English. Our first language is English, while our anthem is in Malay. We have a national language but four offical languages. Malays are the indigenous people, yet i do not think we have a 'bumiputra' culture.

It is interesting when you learn what you do not know. That we are a chinese majority country with a far greater similarity to countries with indigenous people being a minority (i.e, US, NZ, AUS,) Yet we do not suffocate them nor allow them to claim special rights. We do however, give them the provision to.

tours

Ok the holiday blog.

I started my holidays (mid term here means a two week break).Friday the 19th of august and started to tour. Yey..

We (me and two other Singaporeans) rented a car from quality rental (but name quality, car not quality). A nissan Sunny. Not too bad, quite comfortable, but I just do not like sunnies. I dun mind being driven in one but I just do not like driving one. (my kingdom, my kingdom for a Subaru Imprezea WRX STI.)

Anyway, we left on sat morning, went to Kaikoura. And five (yes five) minutes into the drive, yours truly got lost. I was driving and I read the map wrongly ( I am probably the only guy who cannot read maps). Yup, we got lost in Christchurch, how embarrassing is that! But one of the other girls managed to read the map. With a bit of luck, trial and just plain driving straight, we managed to find our way to highway 1 to get to our destination Kaikoura

So we drove. For the first trip, we did not see sheep (which is weird when sheep outnumber people here 12 to 1). Neither did we see cows (something like 1 to 1). All we saw was cars, trees, grass and the sky. Lovely day for a drive, and it was not that long, about two half hours. We arrived in kaikoura safely, and on time! Checked in at the Dusky Lodge, nice backpackers, but I realise I do not like having to walk in the cold to the toilet. Makes you not want to shower.

Kaikoura is the animal place. There is a seal viewing place and there is whale watching for the rich and those with time luxury, fishing for the hungry and animals for the sua kus like singaporeans who have never seen chickens. Alive.

We went to see the seals. Which were really very huge, proud animals that only allowed a few people to take pictures before running away. Along the beach, we happened upon something that made us shrink back. Sheep’s (or goat’s) leg. Someone hacked at the animal and dumped them onto the beach. Not sure if it is for the seals.

So anyway, we spent the rest of the day at a farm we saw. Basically, we paid to let them give us food to feed their animals. I am thinking even slaves do not have to pay to work, here we have to let them earn a profit from us working for them. But the animals are nice.. there was this one huge sow, (and I mean huge, like you could sit on it) and there was this billy goat whose sole objective was to eat out (and probably along with) my hand. Then there was the aggressive chickens who have learnt that people equals free food. No need to peck on the ground for the slimy, sticky, yucky, horrible, fear striking worms. Nope no need to eat worms. Just wait till the nice people put the pellets on the floor and we will attack.

So anyway we left kaikoura and the animals. Headed out for a wine tour in Blenheim. Blenheim is a wine region. Beautifully built. The company we went with was based in Picton which is a port town (cannot call city because it does not have a cathedral. Well I did not see one anyway). So we wined and dined with the rich (except that the rich were behind the photo frames on the walls)
I have decided that my favourite wine is Merlot. It is a nice dark red bugger that goes down well. I have also decided that I do not like white, save Resiling white and ice wines. And desert wines. Ha ha lots of wine

After that we went to stay at the bayview backpackers. Nice place. Very nice actually. But as we had a walk the next day, down the Marlborough sounds, we could not extend the next day.

Monday morning saw us at Picton harbour getting ready to get on the boat to take us to Endeavour Inlet, which was where we would hike, a staggering X km (I have decided to not say the distance due to the fact that X is not very big, but not very small). It was a 3 hour walk on majestic hills, covered by lush green trees, bounded by the lovely sea. And we walked. Boy did we ever. By the end of it we were complaining.

Then we decided to walk on to see the waterfall which was a bit after out end point where the ferry would pick us up. The three stooges (us that is) got lost on a pre marked trail. Go figure.

Anyway that night we drove to Nelson. Which was a nice enough town. The backpackers room had a nice name, the Palace backpackers. Nothing too palatial about it though. But it was cool enough.

Nelson is a big town (big is relative, think something like Hougang; remember NZ has a population of 4 million people) but it was happening enough for us.

Wed we drove to Marahau. Now this is I think the smallest town in the world. It consists of one street of houses, all weekend houses that is, a few adventure shops. There is no mobile signal there. When we got there, it was dark, raining, cold. To make matters worse, we found the place we were staying to be a nightmare. First it was not heated. (think cold). We had to walk a fair bit (but we drove instead) to the toilet. In the cold, wet, night. Then, on this huge farm that we were staying on, there were no other people. It was disgustingly scary. And moody.

But the good news was the next day would be an exciting day. We had picked to kayak in the Abel tasman National Park, followed by a boat stay somewhere in the park of which Marahau is the entrance to, from which we would return on our legs.

The kayak was fantastic. Really had a lot fun just kayaking. And the guide, a chap called Scottie decided to allow us to sail (yes kayak sailing) back to shore. Fun, but extremely difficult, involving angling, pulling, praying and shouting.

The flip side was that petrina, one of the three stooges lost her camera at the bottom of the tasman sea.

Anyway the boat stay was good. The boat was a nice place, and it had hot water. After a day of salt water that is cold, all you want is a hot shower.
The walk back on the next day was uneventful. We concluded that we will not take any detours because we were sure to get lost. So, we chose the safest path which was to walk the clearly beaten track and enjoy the scenery. Which was awesome.

The last days of the holiday was just spent at Murchison. We stayed at the lazy cow, and mind you the people were lazy. There was a sign that said, please come in, get a room and we will collect payment tomorrow. Anyway, here we did white water rafting which was so fun! We did crazy things like swim down the rapids, Stand on the raft and raft down the rapids, and jump into the water from 3 metres. Scary but great fun. After that stop, we went to Hanmer springs, a thermal resort.

Well, then I went to prepare for the second half of my holiday. To go up to Auckland and visit Rachel and the north island. Was a good flight, but..

On the day of departure, Tuesday, the fog outside was bad. With many flights cancelled, my own flight was in the balance.

But at ten, the sky cleared up enough for my plane to take off. Yey… so I took off to the Largest city in NZ. Mind you it was large and busy. Met Rachel at the airport, she and a friend came and picked me up. Subsequently, we drove to the Kaitaia (which meant according to the guide, Food (kai) on wheels (taia). Actually it had a longer name, Kaitatia or something which mean plentiful food)

Ninety mile beach is an interesting place. Because it is part of the highway, but it is a beach. You save on maintaining the roads (the sea does that for you) But the sand was so fine, it was like salt or flour. And the sea was so clean, not like Singapore ones.

The last few days was spent in rachel’s flat, just hanging out with her and the friends. Was so cool. A bit sad to leave and come back to school (and hence work) but in ten weeks time, she will be coming over !! yey.. doing a west coast tour of the south island which I left out.

Oh and i forgot, on my return trip, i sat in Seat 2A. Which suprise suprise, was a business class seat. There were two seats in the space for three seats, so the seats were huge, comfortable and i slept the whole way back. Ha ha

I am going to post the pictures on some photo bucket thing, once I learn how to do it. Can anyone tell me which is the best to use? Thanks

Anyway time for dinner now. See you!

home

ok i am back. I am too tired to blog now but i will so check back soon.

Been a great holiday. Going around NZ, going up to auckland. SO exciting.. blog more soon!