The One About Inori

So I am going on in my life, just doing the usual stuffs, when I suddenly thought, “Hey, when was the last time I bought yarn?”

I can’t even remember the last time I bought yarn. So it means that it’s been ages ago.

And then I curl up in the corner, suffering withdrawal symptoms like foaming at the mouth and gagging on my own breathing.

Yes. As long as you don’t THINK of it, you wouldn’t notice the lack of it. But when you do, you’re going to suffer.

*Wanders off to browse eBay….*

I haven’t been doing much knitting nor online stuff for the past few days because I have been catching up on much needed sleep and also spending more time with Sunshine and Nad.

Sorry to those whom I am knitting for – knitting progress has slowed tremendously.

Off to knit a little with the happy little bouncy baby beside me.

The Straits Times Online

My comments in red 

April 5, 2008

JI MAN MAS SELAMAT’S ESCAPE Guards were negligent, says MM

His message: Those who think nothing can go wrong are being complacent

By Sue-Ann Chia & Goh Chin Lia

FUGITIVE Mas Selamat Kastari was ‘an escape artist’ who had evaded arrest many times, and Singapore’s security officers knew this, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said yesterday.

Yet, the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist leader was able to lull his minders at the Whitley Road Detention Centre into believing that they had him under control, before he gave them the slip.
Lull his minders? Did he burn lavender essential oils? Sang “rock-a-bye baby”? Please let me know because if I can figure out how to lull my baby to sleep, it would benefit me.

‘When you are complacent in handling a wily detainee, then you have been negligent,’ Mr Lee told The Straits Times in an e-mail interview.

No shit!

He responded to questions on the issue of complacency for today’s Insight feature which takes off from his earlier comments on Mas Selamat’s disappearance.

He said last month that the break-out was a ‘very severe lesson in complacency’.

“Very severe lesson” ONLY. 

Mas Selamat, 47, who had planned to crash a plane into Changi Airport, escaped from Internal Security Department custody on Feb 27. He is still on the run.

The Government has promised a full account of how he escaped, after a three-member panel completes its investigations.

The panel which inquires and then investigates and then reports to themselves. Noice. 

In answering questions posed by The Straits Times, Mr Lee addressed the issue of complacency among citizens, saying: ‘Anyone who believes nothing can or will go wrong in Singapore is living in a make-believe world.’

Where unicorns and leprechauns AND merlions exist. (And when lions are native to a little fishing town called Temasek.)

He said Singaporeans are being complacent when they believe that the Government will take care of all security matters.

If they can’t, then why are they being paid shitloads of money? Certain people are sitting in offices, shaking their legs and allowing security lapses AND THEN NOT BEING SACKED FOR DOING SO! Maybe… I dunnoo… just MAYBE, they are related to the big brother by marriage? 

MPs and political observers interviewed for the Insight feature said decades of peace and prosperity could have caused some Singaporeans to believe the Government had everything under control and nothing could go wrong.

Correction: It’s THE GAH-MEN that gives the common folks the idea that everything IS under their control and NOTHING CAN GO WRONG. Everything oso wanna control control.. cannot litter, cannot jump into train tracks, cannot have more than 3 people in a group, cannot anyhow tok about the gah-men loud loud in pubic public, cannot don’t sing national anthem in school……. if they control any further, people cannot even fart in public LIAO. How to not believe that nothing can go wrong liddat? The army oso keep calling people back to do reservist mah.. so many ah bing kor in the army.. the military airplanes and helicopters everyday oso fry here fry there……. how can anything go wrong lehhh??

How did complacency creep in? Some observers like former MP Augustine Tan blamed indifference or lack of understanding of the Government’s workings.

Lack of understanding of the Govt’s workings CAN NOT be more over exaggerated! EVERYTHING is top-secret!!! NOW THEY BLAME COMMON FOLKs FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING GAH-MEN TOP SECRET? Hey, what’s that coming out from that male cow’s ass?

Others felt the Government was partly to blame.

Pfft… partly??? Pffftttttt…. 

People’s Action Party MP Lim Wee Kiak called complacency a ‘side-effect’ of an overly successful Government and civil service.

Ehh… successful, blame the people. Unsuccessful, blame the people. Do they blame the wall when they walk into the wall? 

‘This has bred a dependency mentality in our population who will blame the civil service and Government if any of their needs are not met,’ he noted.

So, blame ourselves?  “I, the common folk living in the bowels of Jurong, blame myself for letting Mas Selamat escape.”

I give an example: If you own a company and your assistant or your employee screws a project or an order up big time and offended your client. Would you, as a COMPANY DIRECTOR take complete responsibility, do damage control and apologise and/or reimburse the client, AND THEN deal with your employee accordingly? OR would you tell your client, “Ohhh it’s not my fault.. it’s my employee’s fault.” 

Incidentally, we have had this situation where the boss of a certain company blamed her assistant for screwing up our application and left it as that. Did not refund our money. Did not apologise. Needless to say, we are not only NOT going to give them more business, we are also telling people to AVOID this company. 

But MM Lee disagreed that the Government deserved to be blamed. He said: ‘Complacency sets in when a people have not suffered any shock or setback for a long time.’

The Gah-men never gets blamed.  

Hence, his warnings against complacency over the years, ‘because most people believe that bad things will happen to others, not to themselves’.

And so we should rightly be living in fear all the time. Since now we know our Gah-men cannot protect us one lor.

Hey, did I stumble onto a little secret? That they really want us to fear for our safety and trust them even more but this plan backfired? Hmmm.. trying to be like 9/11?   

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Seriously, I smell rat. IF one were to commit murder, for example, the police would have hunt that person down in days. Look, Took Leng How murdered Huang Na and even though he managed to escape without a passport to Malaysia (hey, it’s not the border security’s fault ok… it’s errr… it’s our fault…) they tracked him down within weeks.

Heck, you commit credit fraud and you would be thrown into jail fairly quickly! No matter how you try to hide!

So, HOW can this guy still be at large?

And they always say people who leave the country are quitters, THEN they justify themselves by bringing in foreign talent (and paying them shitloads of money while the rest have to survive on $800 per month with a family of 5) to ‘replace’ these people who left.

I quote from one person on The Straits Times forum (apologies.. I cannot find that exact post so if you are the writer of the following and want to be credited, do let me know):

If your bucket has a hole, do you patch the hole or do you keep adding water into it?

Hehehhee, I got my bag swap package yesterday (Friday), finally!!!!!! (It takes forever for mail to travel over the desert from the East to reach the West… )

I was at work and Nad called me. He told me that the bag arrived and it was beautiful. It’s very blue and I would like it very much. Got me so excited. I wanted to fly home! He also said that there were chocolates and I had to beg him not to eat any just so that I can take pictures of them. XD

Look at this!

The chocolates have been claimed. I was lucky I had another bar of chocs already in the fridge as I had to wait till this morning to take the photos – bad lighting in the night. I know the lighting still does the bag disservice because it had been raining and it was still dark. But I couldn’t wait to take the photos. Ok… ok…. ok…… I couldn’t wait to eat the chocs coz I finished that one bar I had last night.

I know all chocolate should be rightfully mine, but I had to share. You feel happier when you share. I gave one to Ms Brins (Shazzy’s lovely little girl) when they came over this morning, and I took the double choc for myself and since I don’t eat mint and Nad likes mint, he took the minty one! *Love*

The foot pamper package is perfect for my tired feet since I stand/ walk all day at both my work places and hardly have chance to sit down. (How thoughtful my pal is?)

The bath salts – perfect for winter coz I can then soak myself in a tub of warm water with nice smelling bath salts instead of erm….. Johnson and Johnson’s baby bath……

I’m going to taste the tea now.. Wait a second…….

YUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Twinings tea. Most of the tea I have is Twinings. As long as it isn’t minty. (Nad loves peppermint tea… bleah.)

The most important thing in the package of course, is the bag! It’s crocheted (I cannot, for the life of me, learn crochet fast enough. I have tension issues and also I get lost whenever I turn the chains. I DON’T KNOW WHICH LOOP TO PUT MY HOOK THROUGH!!!!)

Anyway, the bag is great for my WIPs. I have been using ziplock bags as well as my sock tote bag from Shazzy as WIP bags. Since I have so many WIPs, this bag came just the right time to hold a small to medium size project! I can even fit Lulu’s skirt in there! *Love*

And, my lovely swap pal is no other than……………..KATE! Thank you, Kate for spoiling me!

I shall also post pictures of my package to my swap pal downstream, Lavendar.

One bag with a felted flower and swarovski beads in the middle, couple of chocolates, a card and a skein of worsted weight Malabrigo.

I pressed some lavenders for her too.

It helps to remember which book I put flowers into. Because, the night before I sent out the package? I was flipping through the 3923810 books on my shelves looking for those 3 flowers. -____-

Here’s a couple of pictures of the monster standing up all by herself.

Someone in the house can:

• crawl on tummy and sometimes on fours
• go from lying on tummy to kneeling and/or sitting position
• pull on objects (usually us) and hoist herself up to a standing position
• smiles coyly at her own farts

Watch out! Little monster is getting more and more mobile!!!!!!!!!

From here, it says of babies in their 7th month (Sunshine is a few days shy of being 7 months now):

1. Â Most babies can now sit unsupported - Yes.
2. When your child sees an interesting object out of reach, she may try to get it. - All the frigging time.
3. She’ll learn that she can hold herself up on all fours. She may rock back and forth with this new position, practicing for the next big movement: crawling - Yes. We say she is ‘humping air’.

For a baby’s 8th month:

1. These days, your baby is very busy. His hands are constantly moving. - Yes. We have the most active baby in the neighbourhood, I suspect.
   
2. He can handle objects well and continues perfecting the skill of using the opposable thumb. - Yes, but she only holds items for a while.
3. He has also learned how to use his index finger as a tool to push parts of toys and investigate small spaces. - Not yet.
4. Around this time some children start pointing at objects. - Not yet, but we are teaching her to!
5. He may now try to stand up. - Uh huh… Most of her waking hours are spent trying to stand up!

Other stuff she has been up to include:

• recognising herself in the mirror (since 5 months old) and smiles at her image
• babbling alot
• chewing her hand (yummy)
• growing too big for medium sized diapers
• knowing that we are leaving her alone for awhile and will wail her head off
• when she is sleepy, she will pull a blanket or a pillow over her head (have no idea why she inherited this trait from me – need to sleep with a pillow over my head)
• laughing at the dogs and cat – she somehow finds them very amusing, more amusing than I am

I think she might be a wee advanced for her age… but that’s okay.. we’ll handle it! Hehehhe. I love her so much.