Goodbye NDU, Hello NTU

Good evening, its been a really long time since my last entry. I've just moved into Ntu hall 2 with my classmate and church mate eugene tan. I took some pics but wasn,t able to post it cause my digi cam got no battery liao. Anyway, the good thing abt hall 2 is its location. its quite near to the lecture theatres and engineering blocks which happens to be the course im taking. Sitting at the canteen A(the canteen nearer engine blocks), i realise Ntu is a multi-national sch. i look ard me and see ang mohs, indian nationals and of course pple from china. The number of foreign students in Ntu is amazingly high. It seems that we Sporeans are the minority, now that is exaggerated la. But i did feel that way a couple of times. i dun really have time to write, so i will type wadever comes to my mind... enjoy...

University education is definitely not cheap. at least to me. Besides paying close to 6K per sem, the are other miscellaneous fees like printing notes and buying textbks. I just paid 17bucks for a full sem's lecture notes, on top of that, it is recommended that we get textbooks for the subject which i will study for 11weeks? And then, maybe i can use the textbook as rough paper??? No la, prob i will sell it to other freshmen next time. anyway i will get the second hand textbook frm my seniors doing common engineering. I'm sure that will save me abit of money.

University education also trains a person to learn fast. Today, i attended my first econs lecture. Funny rite, engine students also need to take econs. Thats our elective by default. So they were actually teaching abt opp cost, marginal benenfits and demand and supply, economic welfare and surplus. all that in a 2hr lecture. I was shocked at the pace of the lecture and how brief the explanation was. But i guess i will expect more of that soon. Teach less, learn more they say....

ok thats all for now... need to go attempt my tutorials.. dun wanna da pao modules!

Why donate when $600,000 is peanuts?

Hello, its been a real long time since my last entry. I've been busy and didnt really have the inspiration to write about anything. School is gg to start in two weeks time and i think when sch starts i will probably have to stop all these blogging unless i really have the time. I'm sitting at home and reading the newspapers, nothing much in the news... However, the controversy abt the NKF and its funds is worth mentioning.

Recently, the NKF has just sent me one of the donation cards again. This is probably the 3rd time i have received a donation card frm the NKF. The first two was in secondary school, still remember Ren Xian Qi came to Fajar Sec to sing some songs... that was in Sec2. This yr they sent me a donation card after an Indian woman called me at home asnd asked if i was willing to accept it. Actually i didnt want the card cause i feel i have donated enough over the past few yrs. I was thinking of maybe putting in 2dollars into the card this time. I remember in secondary sch the minimum amt was ten dollars and i would put in 20. Some students in the school managed to collect abt close to 200dollars, amazing... Now when i look back, i think to myself, how can the school force us to donate a minimum amt? this is a donation, a donation should come from the heart. Forcing pple to donate just doesnt sound rite... Ten dollars may not seem much to many, but to a sec2 sch boy, that amt could have easily been his pocket money for one week.
Too bad i was too naive and young to understand such things at that time, otherwise i would have questioned the authority of the school to force pple to put in a minimum amt.

Controversy has risen in the NKF since a Straits Times reporter published an article last year abt the Gold plated taps in the CEO's office. According to the Straits Times, the tap costs abt $900plus. Recently, the NKF took SPH to the court for a defamation suit. I read with great interest abt the salary of T.T Durai, NKF's CEO. When the court questioned him about his monthly salary, he claims he earns 25K a mth and on top of that he got a 10mth bonus for the previous yrs. In today's ST he also stated that he holds a director appointment in a company owned by another member of the NKF board. Whatever this guy does i dont really care, however i am quite disturbed by the fact that the NKF board actually pays him such a high salary w/o making it known to the public.
If he earns 25K a mth and gets like 10mth bonuses, he would have cost the NKF 1million dollars in 2yrs. One million dollars just to mantain him as a CEO of a charity orgainisation. That just sounds really ridiculous to me. What are the NKF board of directors thinking? I'm not trying to undermine the work this man has previously done, in fact I believe the NKF was setup for a good clause and that they have done a good job in raising funds for the needy kidney patients in Spore. Mr Durai also says he works 18hrs a day and eats and sleeps in the office. Ok, I salute u for ur effort Mr Durai. However,it just doesnt sound rite when u hear the CEO of a charity organisation receiving a salary and bonus like that. 1million in two yrs??? Futhurmore, that money comes from the public, normal pple like u and me who donate to the organisation thinking that it would benefit some kidney patient. Eventually, some of the money reaches this man's pocket instead of being channeled to the right source. Although an attractive pay is needed to keep the right pple in these non-profit organisations and also to prevent them from corruption, the amt is simply outrageous and inappropriate. How can anyone in the right frame of mind accept that a non-profit organistion's CEO earns 1.8million in 3yrs?

Another thing that is interesting is the comments that Mrs Goh Chok Tong made when asked if the CEO's pay was too high. Mrs Goh is also NKF's patron.I quote from the Straits Times, my reply comes after that,

Mrs Goh:"For a person who runs a multi-million dollar charitable organisation, $600,000 is peanuts as it has a few million in reserves."

Me:"Wait, Mrs Goh, if i remember correctly, I think that $600,000 which u have described as peanuts also comes from the public lei. So you are saying that it is right for the NKF board to take the public's donation of $600,000 and put it into the pocket of this man who claims he works very hard for charity. Ok la, then i guess u won't be needing my donation anymore. I was thinking of donating 5dollars into the NKF card, but looks like it won't matter now, since $600,000 of public donations is peanuts... How much can 5dollars be worth to the NKF rite? Thks for reminding me Mrs Goh."

No more donations for now until i can be assured that my donations reach the kidney patients instead of going to the $900 taps in the CEO's office. Its sad that the beneficiaries suffer because of the incompetent management. Don't worry, they still have 180million as for now...

After giving so many destructive comments, I have a suggestion. Why not the board of directors create a new hotline and add it to the 3 existing ones? The number to dial is

1900-where-I-want-my-money-to-go or 1900-wo-yao-wo de-qian-qu-na-li

for a 5dollar donation to go to

Mr Durai's $600,000 per yr salary press 1.

Mr Durai's gold tap/German toilet bowl press 2.

Servicing of Mr Durai's Eight Mercs press 3

NKF Defamation lawsuit costs press 4.

NKF Members First class travel allowance press 5

Kidney patients press 6

For other customer service options press 0

Maybe, that will make pple donate again.

Fantastic4... One gg  

My Jc classmates outside Marche. Gathering b4 qirong and zhaocheng go downunder.... 

Good use of a soft toy... Taken at Lynn's chalet. Thks to Lynn for her soft toy Putput(on the left) and oh i cant remember the name of the brown one. 

visiting my civics tutor...