missed jessie and the chats. :)

last all hands meeting.

last German class with Gabi.

it's hitting me that I'll be leaving soon.

What may have seemed as a very simple question to my friend, was in actual fact, a question that got me truly thinking. Flashbacks of the past came to me, and I pondered for a long time before I answered it.

Privileged.. what was my definition of it? Not financially, but in terms of doors for Opportunities..

Never thought that way when I was a kid. Neither did I when I was a teenager, the odds seemed always to be against me. All I knew back then was to live day by day, I wanted to just get by. Someday, something clicked and I found myself resisting passivity, to carve out my own path and take control of my life.

Bit by bit, with effort, I found support from others around me. With that help, I slowly moved towards Opportunity. When I think where I am right now (and the last couple of years), I definitely see that I'm privileged - not everyone has the chance to go abroad and have the experience I have had.

Yes, I would say that I've had a stroke of luck with the effort I have put in.

So, with the upcoming elections - I've had more thinking done. What is the average Singaporean? Started to think about my friends around me during my childhood and those whom I have met - where are they now, how were their family circumstances.. I've seen parents who find it hard to meet ends meet because they were lowly educated, pinning their hopes onto their children who are their future investment for a better tomorrow. (Likewise, my mum had the same expectations for me.) What if I had failed to fulfill that?

Next, I started to think who is the average Singaporean? When I look around now, I cannot say for sure how many there are, but definitely the population cannot be surely more than 3.5million who are Singaporeans (minus PR - if you check the statistics with governmental sites, there is no definite figure, the labour market numbers always include PRs). When we look at the GDP per capita, check this out - Singapore emerged as the top of the chart in a report by Boston Consulting for the greatest proportion of millionaires (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/06/10/singapore-is-a-millionaire-magnet/) -11.4% of the country. If we consider that fact, we have a skewed representation of where the country is in terms of economic distribution. Salaries are definitely not increasing proportionately to the country's growth, at least not for professionals.

Our country's government is asking for an almost double pay rise for ministers. Who is funding this? Taxpayers. Is the entire country's labour force getting an increase in salaries across the board (after taking into account inflation)?

I don't have the answers to the above, I am just an ordinary citizen of the country and I used to want to sit out of the whole discussion. Felt like I wanted to run away from this place I don't feel a sense of connection with. Now I'm starting to think deeply about what I can do for the people in my country. This is just a beginning thought, but let's see what goes from here. I hope I'm not one of those talking and who does nothing in the end.