I would like to say that blogspot is full of shit. I have lost 2 posts about the uniformity and childishness of Singapore universities. It was a rave about how veryone describes themselves as "flexible" and "creative" and "unique" and vibrant" that no one is and the places that really are don't use those awful words anymore.

Today I was catching up with chris on the phone and she said "Kevin Costner ages well, but Alec Baldwin ages like a potato." I have never seen an aged potato, but Alec Baldwin sure as hell doesn't look too good. The closes thing to a aged potato I've seen is a week old crisp I found under the sofa. It didn't look too good either.

ASEAN has always had a vision of being the magical problem solver in southeast Asia. Another problem has been highlighted the past few weeks -- the haze. So besides Singaporean and Malaysian leaders complaining to the Indonesian government, and clueless Indonesian farmers, nothing much has happened. All that ASEAN has resolved to do is have ministers meet every quarter. We all know that these meetings are just a farce, to pretend as if somebody somewhere is doing something about the smoke. And even if they were making a genuine effort, they're doing it wrongly.

They shouldn't have meetings every 3 months. That doesn't achieve anything other than having a reporting system which daily measurements by local meteorological stations make pointless anyway. What they should do is have one meeting. Just one. Get all the experts down, then decide on the course of action they need to take, appoint a monitoring body, and follow it through. Although the UN has not been the most efficient organisation, I think ASEAN has something to learn from it. Get other countries involved, because sooner or later they're going to be affected as well.

If Singapore wants to be the big shot again, then it can also take a leaf from the UN's book and send a task forced down to Indonesia, with the sanction of other ASEAN memebers. Then after the full scale of the problem has been ascertained, people will be needed to go to the ground and educate farmers about the alternative options of clearing the land. Or, the Indonesian government could do what was done during the Green Revolution. Subsidise the cleaner methods. No tragedy of the commons here, because Indonesia is receiving the brunt of the haze.

I will not be able to stand another day having my allergies act up. Puffy eyes and a running nose just kill your daily functionality.

The only worse thing than being lousy at something is watching other people be good at it. I watched that Discovery Channel kungfu thing, where men built like mountains smash through brick walls, men built like cats move like monkeys and women built like bamboo poles whup the asses of the men built like mountains. So like any other mere mortal who has trouble running the 2.4, I spent most of the time exclaiming and wishing that I too could deliver the ninja hammer-punch that crushes the ribcage and kills a man with a single blow.

Which tends to put your abilities into perspective. The only things that I've ever attempted never required me to have muscles or stamina. I mean, how much upper body strength do you need to lift chess pieces? Or how much lung power do you need to debate? I sound like a first class wimp. The kind that never make it pass the door in American high schools, and need to be directly admitted to Harvard at 12 or risk getting beaten to a pulp.

It is important to note that in developing cranial abilities for these weakling activities, the brain needs fats to construct and maintain synapses. This means that I have considerable amounts of fats elsewhere. Wonderful. Sometimes I wish my parents had dragged my sorry little butt to taekwondo class or something, instead of letting me languish into my current state.

Well, when I was about 3 or 4, I did go for this thing called Tumble Tots. (sounds like a brand of disposable diapers) It was to kick the scardy cat out of me, because when I was 3, I was morbidly afraid of stairs, escalators, and lifts. My poor body was forced to do somersaults adn flips and climb strange contraptions in the hope of making me the new Bruce Lee. Didn't work. I was screaming all the way, the last in class to manage anything, and it inculcated in me a strong sense of self-preservation.

I blame this experience for making me the wimp that I am today.