When I saw the news that SBS is going to launch a "Flag the bus early" campaign, I almost fell off the chair laughing. Ok, I exaggerated. But come on, is there even a need to have such a dumb campaign?! It is like pointing fingers at us and claiming that it is our fault when the public buses sometimes zoom past the bus-stop even though there are people flagging for it. I don’t know how many people feel this way, but I for one think that the bus fare that we are paying is just unreasonably too steep for the service that we are getting. I can easily come out with a list of the kind of poor services that we’ve been getting all these years.

1. Driver can’t see you (flag):
Just within the past 2 years alone, I’ve succeeded in turning invisible for at least 5 times. No matter how early I flag, how big an action I made before the oncoming bus, the driver just "failed" to see me and happily drove past the bus-stop. On one occasion, I missed 3 buses in a row! Flag the bus early my f00t.

2.  Driver wants a race with you:
How many times have you chased after a bus, only to helplessly see it move off when you almost reached the bus-stop? I’m sure the bus drivers could have easily seen anyone running towards their directions, but they just simply bo chup and drove off pretending that the running person was a enthusiastic runner training for a marathon.

3. You wished the bus was not air-con: 

Air-con buses do not necessarily provide you with comfortable cool air. It is dreadful to wait for your bus for fifteen minutes in a hot noon, and then got into the bus realising that the air-con is faulty. We’re not plants, you know? Don’t make us pay money to be caged in a greenhouse.

4. Fierce coward:
This one is classic. A couple of weeks ago, I took a bus with a buddy to ECP for a blading session. As I mistook one of the bus-stop as our destination, I pressed the bell. Upon realising that it wasn’t the right place to drop off, we stayed in our seats while the driver stopped and open the door (we were upstairs). Guess what happened next? The bus driver took the trouble to get out of his seat, climbed up to the 2nd floor and shouted at me: Oei!You pressed the bell?! I was taken aback by such wonderful service, but clarified that I pressed wrongly. Don’t anyhow press ah, waste my time you know!, he shrieked again before returning to his seat. You were wasting more time by crawling up and down, I thought.

So, when I reached my destination, I couldn’t help but to walk to the driver’s seat, glanced at the bus plate number, and then showed the driver a no-nonsense face while explaining sternly that I didn’t do that deliberately and that his behaviour was totally uncalled for. To my surprise, he became suddenly so friendly and apologetic! After I got off that bus, he still gave me a thumbs-up through the window! Haha, scared I complain ah.

So, with all these problems, shouldn’t the bus company think of more campaigns to educate their drivers (those bad ones, not the friendly and helpful ones, yah? ) instead of educating us to flag that damn bus earlier?

Well, I can smell a "Lets not complain about SBS services" campaign coming. 

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

The above quote was from one of Suu Kyi’s famous speeches during a demonstration fighting for democracy in her motherland, Burma (more widely known as Myanmar now). There are two reasons why I’m writing about Suu Kyi. Firstly, I admire her strength and courage for tirelessly fighting (without violence) for the freedom of her country. The second reason that prompted me to write about her is that Burma’s military government has extended her house arrest for another year instead of freeing her.

To start, let me give some background of Burma. Burma had gained independence from UK in 1947 with the help of Aung San (Suu Kyi’s father). Unfortunately, not long after, a rogue leader from the military planned an assasination against the key leaders of the ruling party (including Aung San) and overthrew them. Therefore, since 1962, Burma has been under military rule (which was despised by many people in the world because of its terroristic ruling).

For a long time, no one managed to challenge the military government effectively. Then, Suu Kyi (who previously studied and worked overseas) came home to attend to her ailing mother. Seeing the bad state that Burma was in, and feeling the need to continue what her father had failed to accomplish (keeping the country in good shape) because of his assasination, Suu Kyi stepped into her country’s politics, formed the "National League for Democracy" party and ran for elections in 1990. Although she had a landslide victories over her military rivals, the military refused to hand over its power and nullified the results. The unhappiness shown all over the world did not help pressurize the military government into stepping down. Instead, seeing that Suu Kyi was a threat to them, the military had been putting Suu Kyi under house-arrests. 2003 was her most recent house-arrest and it was set to expire 4 days ago. Unfortunately, the military extended it for another year, refusing appeals from the United Nations.

Sometimes, doing things for a good cause doesn’t seem to pay. Like Suu Kyi, she has been fighting for her country’s freedom for half her life (and counting), but all she had gotten were obstacles and negative treatment from her political opponents. While we may not need to try accomplish something as noble as what Suu Kyi is doing, there’s always something good that we could play a part in. All it needs is enough courage, and having the heart to do it. Instead of submitting to obstacles, on the contrary, we should be made stronger by them and continue our cause (without the thought of getting rewards for doing good, of course).

You can read more about Suu Kyi and Burma here and here. 

(I apologise if any of you who read this post found the writings to be incomplete or badly phrased. I rushed it through. =P) 

I was browsing through the Channel News Asia Online when I came across this interesting news: New Zealand double amputee scales Everest.

Inglis showing one of his broken prosthetic legs during the climb

Inglis, now 47, had both his legs amputated below the knee level after he spent 14 days trapped in an ice cave on Mt Cook in 1982. But what admires me of this man is that he didn’t fall into slump after the unfortunate ordeal. Instead, he has proven himself to be just as capable of achieving feats that he’s been doing before the accident: moutain climbing.

The climb to the top of the world’s highest mountain was not one without any problem. During the climb, Inglis got into minor accidents like the snapping of one of his carbon-fibre legs. (It was a good thing that his team has brought along with them lots of spare prosthetic legs.)

Perhaps all of us have always been going through what Inglis has gone through, only to a much smaller multitude. In life, we always encounter obstacles, sometimes big, other times small. From Inglis’s achievement, he has taught us not to succumb to difficulties or problems that we might encounter in the quest of accomplishing our objectives, be it job-related or personal.

It is also definitely encouraging to see Inglis being able to continue living his life meaningfully and overcoming all adversity that he might face with his positiveness. Indeed, this is a great learning lesson for everyone of us.