Friday afternoon sentiments

The Impact of HIV/AIDS Behavioural Determinants on Antiretroviral Uptake and Adherence – Moderated by Fatalism, Spirituality and Volitional Control… …

try saying this aloud, really fast, three times over. I actually managed to do worse, I sat through this seminar for two hours being bewildered by what this researcher was trying to discover in his journey to Kenya. But time wasn’t wasted, because I was deep in the cognitive process of wondering how many free ham and cheese sandwiches I needed before I will get hungry again by mid-day. I didn’t come to any conclusion, not helped by the fact that the sandwiches weren't exactly what you would call gourmet delights. The programme says light lunch provided, which I suppose in Latin means it sucks and you will go hungry by 4pm, which I am at the moment.

I wrote a brief article to Straits Times earlier today, and I’m not too sure if it’ll get into the forum. I usually have my two cents published in the Streats, since there aren’t too many people who can be bothered to write up critical pieces on street planning in Seng Kang. I gave it a shot at ST, offering my views on how SMRT being tightasses needing to go through a bureaucratic charade before deciding if they will spend 100k to draw extra yellow lines, and 5million to erect safety barriers. The score this month reads: passengers who took the train at the wrong end – 4, fatality out of these four incidents – 3. I donno, should we spend 5million dollars in an overnight project to build metal barriers? Lets look at the economics, SMRT runs a business of 4.54 trillion transactions annually, my goodness, 5million dollars will put a 0.000000000001% (not exactly sure of the calculations, my SPSS programme doesn’t work by the trillions) in deficit of the overall budget. We are talking human lives here, public responsibility should always supersede economics.

Back to my predicament of sitting there and trying to digest the difference between fatalism and volitional control. Exactly, I had no idea what was going on. My mind drifted to a completely unrelated agenda, which was inspired by a forgettable incident last night. Really, what is it about sending e-cards and mass forwarded messages nowadays. It appears that we are moving into a new era where convenience takes precedence over sincerity. To receive an e-card, feels like collecting a set of binary codes preset by some IT freelancer working for Hallmark. I rather a personal sentence anytime, catered with exclusive sentiments if just to know that someone is thinking of you. Gone were the days of snail mail, and phone calls, when in today’s rat race, asking someone out on a date means, please refer to my online diary to arrange a time agreeable with my schedule. Welcome to the era of mass manufacturing, where conversation starters of ‘how was your day today?’ is retorted with ‘please refer to my blog.”

I need a break, please reward me with a good weekend. I’ll have a chat with the Chivas brothers tonight, 21 year blended sounds fine.