foreword

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I have to cancel a lunch date because I have work from 2pm all the way into the night. I’m just waiting for this week to be over.

And sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that you are just a prank, the exact same one that has continued being played since so many months ago.

So on Friday the bunch of us went to see Yasi off at Changi Airport – she was heading to Melbourne to study at a university with a name I can never remember. I’ll miss you loads, you’ve got a kind heart that so many have already lost by now. I really hope she has a good time there, and I’m definitely going to visit. It’s just a matter of when…..

Choonie, Wei, Yanni, Chua and I went over to the Starbucks at Siglap after for a couple of hours of Really Random Ramblings after. I really miss the ones we used to have after classes, be it just stoning around in our classroom or anywhere under the rainbow, with anyone at all – there wasn’t a specific group you had to be with, it was just a matter of who wasn’t too tired and had to go home or elsewhere. We’d have garbage spewing out our mouths, most of which were so lame we were just training up our abs at the same time.

We came up with a little pun too, with Yanni’s cap. Try and see if you can figure it out:

There’s an insect on the table and it bugs me bad. For moments in our lives that seem ever-fleeting, this is not one of them. Its literal form is harmless, but its connotations immense – a shadow in the glowing sunset. It instigates fear at the back of your neck, the insecurity of something unknown, the dial tone at the other end of the line saying ‘please try again later’; it’s monotone, it’s epidemicity. It’s crisis without warning or prevention – it’s terror sent in by God. For all the horrors we hear about human terrorists, we shake our heads to it while blatantly denying playing a part in its existence. But what about the other sort – the extent of the screams of pain, mourning, fear, or just of knowing nothing at all – that Man has had to endure periodically over centuries?

There’s an insect on the table just minding its own business, and it bugs me real bad.

Heard about the intended increments in the ERP rates? As a non-driver who has nothing better to do, I was looking at some articles on Yahoo news and came up with a list of some people’s sentiments about it. Take a read, it’s pretty interesting.

Cons

• National University of Singapore’s Associate Professor Chin Hoong Chor said: “If we say that the 85th percentile (speed) drops, then you raise the charge on BKE (Bukit Timah Expressway) so as to bring the 85th percentile speed again, what happens then is that there will be less traffic on the BKE and they will go on to the parallel road which is the Upper Bukit Timah Road. “And what happens if the (85th percentile) speed on Upper Bukit Timah Road… (drops) below the threshold, you will raise the charge on Upper Bukit Timah Road again. So it seems like you (are) going to keep (increasing) the rate just to adjust to the 85th percentile speed.”
• What all this means is that someone driving from Ang Mo Kio to the city via the Central Expressway between 8.30am and 9am could soon be paying $10 in ERP fees should traffic conditions worsen and warrant a $1 hike.
• However, ERP hikes and extensions have, in the past, raised a chorus of complaints from drivers about having to pay more, yet still experiencing congestion or “stop—start” traffic on those priced roads. Transport Minister Raymond Lim acknowledged as much yesterday.
• “We often hear feedback that the ERP has not helped to ease congestion on the highest demand roads like the Central Expressway beyond a temporary respite; that the ERP rate increases have little impact on travel behaviour,” he said. “There is some truth in this.”
• Bigger rate increments. Mr Lim noted feedback that the current 50—cent increment has “only a temporary impact on driving behaviour”. There were nine rate changes in 2006, but 25 were needed last year.
• Still, National University of Singapore transport researcher Han Songguang wondered how steep ERP rates would have to get before drivers consider switching to public transport. “I don’t think drivers would pay $70,000 for a car and then want to leave it at home.”
• Sales manager Felix Lim, 31, who uses his car to meet his clients, said: “I don’t think I am going to stop using my car or avoid travelling on priced roads as I do not really have a choice.”
• There are also suggestions for an Internet portal that can provide real time information to commuters on alternative routes at any given time.

Pros

• “Motorists that keep driving at peak times on these roads will pay more for higher, more reliable speeds than now, and more places will qualify for gantries sooner. But at least it should become much less common for traffic to slow down or stop on the roads that have ERP,” said the assistant professor.
• The bitter pill of more ERP was accompanied by some sweeteners, such as a permanent 15% cut in road tax for all vehicles and a multi—billion dollar improvement programme for expressways.
• “Remember, it makes no sense to drive everyone out of the highways. Otherwise, what’s the point of building the highways? So, that’s not the purpose. So we’re looking at only a small marginal change.”
• But accountant G T Kee, 54, who travels into the Central Business District several times a week for work, thought the changes fair as it would “deter those not essentially in need of that route and get them to use another route instead”.

I want to fly you out of reality. Across the nadir of incarcerations, into..? Out of or into; I guess we barely know which is which, how the dichotomy of our minds can exist – like how our existence is barely there. But marry you with dreams and they’ll say you’re disillusioned, pervade yourself within the world of the innocuous and they’ll render you obsolete. Quaint, but obsolete.

I want to keep every one of you safe in a thick cocoon, away from trying circumstances, away from materials and masks – yet the dilution would turn it into a catacomb, oh how swiftly the stain on your white dress would spread; how surprisingly the colour wouldn’t run. You can jump from block to block without any effort, you’re that man on the moon waiting for NASA to send out a Heineken bar, you’re ever so free.

You are also that bird who will never fly if you never fall.