Thanks!

Just wanna say,
"Thanks!!!" :):):)

Friendship

This morning I suddenly thought about friendship. I guess it was also influenced by previous post because I was looking back at my friendship with my friends since primary school up to now. I was also thinking of the friendship that I have in NUS and I talked to God about my friends this morning.

Thank you Lord for my friends that you send for me here. The fact that this is my fourth year makes me reflect how I've journeyed with some friends for 3 years. I might not know them well enough, but it's always nice to accompany them or to be accompanied by them. This morning God reminded me to cherish the friendship, especially because most of the times, I only realize how precious they are when leave.

Farewell was not in my dictionary when I was 2nd year coz I thought that I just came to Singapore and experienced farewell when I left Indo, but yes, there was a farewell. Imma left for further study in UK. I was quite sad that time and until now I still remember how she used to wake me up with morning call for mass. I think just before Imma left (or after?), a friend in Opus Dei also left to Rome, but farewell is not only about 'moving to another part of the world', it can also happen when people start a new phase of life. When my seniors graduated and started working, everything changed. That's why I am very happy that Krizia, Dom, and Paul are still in NUS Legion (and I can still meet Carina even though we are separated by green line MRT hehehe). It's kinda like God gives me more time to grow in this friendship with them before each of us move to next phase of life. Hmmm..how to say.. Okay it's like this.. When I came here, Andrew and Handy are year 3. When I was year 3 and I already felt close with them, they all moved out and 'bubye!' Hehehe. I still have chance to have dinner together with Legion seniors and it makes me happy coz now I already feel close with them and I still can journey with them even in my fourth year.

I'd like to talk about another kind of friendship. Hmm.. Something about chemistry? How it seems like there's chemistry between some friends and you feel comfortable with them even though you don't know them before. I experience this with Cui Shan and Sylvia. Me and Cui Shan were just random roommates for 2 weeks in Bangalore, but somehow I can feel the bond as friends :) I met Sylvia in the early weeks of school once, then since then, I feel that she's very nice to talk to and we just meet every week to catch up stories from each other. Hehehehe.

Someone said that junior feels closer to senior than how senior feels. I dunno how true it is, but I was so happy when at the end I talked to Brigitta through skype (thanks dom! :P). There's this unexplained joy when I can talk random things from 'useful' things to 'useless' things..hahaha..Actually I don't believe that we talked about 'useless' things, sometimes these 'useless' things that we talked about are the ones that make us laugh. HAHAHAHA.. When I received her postcard, I smiled as if I received $1000 (hmm, actually I don't know..I haven't received sudden cash before :P). Hahaha.

Thank God for the people you send to accompany me..
Amen..
:):)

sigh!!!!

status: cloudy

My friend complained after midterm "Oh nooo..I lost 4 marks.." It seems like she's sure about her other questions. To be honest, I felt so dumb because I wasn't even sure about my z-score calculation (it was the simplest question today).


I should just be like other people, no need to take this too-technical-module which is filled with people that scream "Oh noo..I have to submit homework every week, so unlucky" --> but she got A in every homework anyway.. or "Noo..cannot," when they were asked to write question on the whiteboard --> but they actually got it correctly on the tutorial worksheet. I should have just chosen "easy" modules to pull up CAP (or just to S/U). No one takes Level 3000 module as GEM while you know that you can't S/U it. Taking module out of interest? Huhhh..

I don't want to say this, but I'm tired of studying (I won't say that I've studied hard enough though..what am I tired of actually??) Each week passes like exam-quiz-assignment-quiz. I have to force myself to write email to my supervisor to meet next Tuesday (if not, I'll not make progress).

Sorry, it's just a normal complain. I'll be okay soon anyway.. HAHAHA.. Just need to throw this rubbish out of my mind. I complain each semester for 3.25 years already, at the end it'll be okay (I hope!!)
The funny thing is I know that I have not put enough effort. At this point, let me imitate Paul's prof's prayer that Paul told us yesterday "Lord, do not let me fail." It's quite hard to hope even to 'maintain' my CAP..

Hoooshhh..HOOssshh...go away rubbish..hooshh..hooshh..fall-get up-fall-get up..Lord please help me to get up again..:) Amennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.........

Wedding

I can't help not to write this post! Hahaha..

This Thursday I'll be witness for my friend for registration of marriage. They're my close friends, as in, the girl is one year older than me and the guy is my senior 2 years university year older than me. Their wedding will still be held next year, so even after Thursday's ROM I will still count them as 'engaged', hahaha, but still..I'm so excited!!!

Furthermore, just now my friend (Thanks to Dennyz for ur post) mentioned about "axioo" new fee. It's a wedding photography company. Hahaha. Four of us like to watch their clips or just browse the wedding photos on that blog (despite the fact that only Nyz already has boyfriend :P). I dunno...these comments just make me knock my head and remind me that I'm 21. It was sooo fun in high school. Look at guy A and scream (on phone lah, not in front of the guy), "Kyaaa. So nice, so cute, or so and so..." Now our conversation once in every semester is like this, "Ok girls, time to update." Most of us will say: "Guy A is bla bla bla, BUT...." "I like guy B, BUT ..." or  "Hmmm..see how..nothing's special.." this "BUT" is an indicator that we are in real world, not in Disney movies. Unconsciously (or consciously), as we grow up, when we discuss about guys, we project the 'ideal' as future 'husband' (not only as boyfriend, my goodness, it's weird to write 'husband'). It doesn't mean that we want to look for a perfect guy, but we are much more careful than when we were in high school. We do talk about stuff that we foresee will be 'obstacles'.

This matter is even more interesting when we start talking about vocation. I used to think that when you say 'vocation', it means a calling to be a religious (nun, priest, etc), but when I attended vocational retreat in high school, I realized that marriage is also a vocation and that everyone is called to be holy, whether you are a religious, married, or lay-person with celibacy state. Hence, while my mom is always telling me to pray that when I like a guy, "God show me whether he's for me or not", I 'secretly' pray about the possibility of 'other' vocation too.. I mean, you never know right? We might be called for other paths.

My principle is "never say no or it's not possible" coz I know that some priests told us in homily that they were used to be bad boys too! hahaha, yet they were called too. At the same time, I guess I need to admit that it's very hard to say "yes" too. People do ask questions, I ask questions too.

Have you ever wondered why does God give some 'feelings' for us to some guys with whom relationships seem impossible? Or perhaps, the case is the reversed. Some friends were 'chased' by some super-persistent guys whom they really don't love (or don't love anymore). I told my mom that "I'm still young, can we please not talk about this?" (I won't say that she's chasing me to get boyfriend, but she's just worried that I study too much! HAHAHAHA), but to be honest, I think soon the pressure will be coming. Well, it's not only about pressure, but as you grow up (and especially if you stay alone somewhere out there), there are moments when you wanna have someone's special next to you. Somehow me and my friends start to feel 'trapped' in weird relationships that we never had before when we were high school. Things like you feel close with a guy, you go out together quite frequently (two of you!!), you expect more, but he doesn't. Initially we feel hurt, then after we get over it and move on, we've realized that it's just a part of life and 'wait' for another one to catch our eyes. HAHAHAHA..

My mom sometimes scolds me because I always tell her (not always, sometimes...) that "No mom, it's impossible" at the early stage of 'start-liking-someone'. Sometimes it's quite tiring to like (love?) someone, feels close, and "woosssh" the person just disappeared and you know that you are NOTHING..literally nothing.. But at the same time, you miss the feeling to love someone, do crazy little things for him to 'hint' him, hahaha, or just to make him happy :):) Especially once you reach a point when you don't care about yourself anymore and just want the best for him, wahhh..that's a very beautiful feeling coz you are even ready to let him go at this point.

For my best-friends, Nic, Pril, Nyz... This post is dedicated for four of us, have I summarized our most-favorite-topic-since-primary-school-till-now? Hahahaha.. Miss you all!! :):)
For Pril, who's somehow-always-at-similar-situation-with me, I haven't heard any updates from you! :P
For Nyz, happy saving for axioo! HAHAHAHA :) ps. you are going to work soon!
For Nic, hmm, I've said what I wanted to say in my SMS :)

Getting around 'city'

I don't feel like studying now, so let me post something about my feeling today.
After 3 years in Singapore, I still can't remember the ways around 'city' (Orchard Road- Beras Basah Road-Marina Square) =.= I also still cannot estimate how much time needed to go from one place to another place (I forgot that Orchard Road is crowded on Sunday!!)

I don't really feel sad about it, but today I was kinda reminded how rarely I go out during school term. There's nothing bad about it, but I can't help comparing it to my family ritual in Indo.

We attend mass at 8.30 am, then we always eat noodle together. In the afternoon, most of the times we go out to a shopping mall with my uncle's family. We don't really walk together everywhere in shopping mall. We usually split after we had lunch or dinner, but anyway, it's a family 'ritual' to go out together, especially 2 families. If I teach on Sunday, we'll attend the earliest mass at 6.30 am or Sunday evening because we usually go out on Saturday evening too.

When I was in Indo, I have this principle "NEVER STUDY ON WEEKEND!" I did study on Sunday, but only half a day. I only broke this principle when I was preparing myself for NUS Entrance Exam. Here in NUS there's no such principle. Actually now I don't really study on Saturday, but I do my homework at night. I usually study on Sunday (at least TRY to study on Sunday), but not because I want to study, it's because I'll end up feeling lonely if I don't study. But...when I was in Indo, my Monday to Friday was superhectic!! I really studied every day. There's no such thing like stoning in front of laptop doing useless thing (like what I do every day in NUS, now the bad habit is slightly decreased, thank God!). That's why I feel reluctant to NOT study on Sunday, coz I don't think I deserve the whole day as a break. :(

Anyway, the post doesn't match the title (as usual).
Gonna have dinner now and seriously study. At least this post is a reminder for me to make good use of my time. I'll take a proper break next Sunday and study well the whole week. Promise! :)

talking about the poor - part 2 - my promise to post my script

A response to Thomas Pogge’s book chapter

Chapter 8: Eradicating Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend

in “World Poverty and Human Rights” (Pogge, 2002)

Global Resources Dividend is a form of compensation paid by richer countries to the poorest countries. Those who consume more natural resources should compensate those who involuntarily use very little. Here is the illustration of GRD. Let’s say we charge $3 per barrel GRD on oil extraction. Because this dividend will be split among all end-users of petroleum products, the effect of the rising price is only 7 cents per gallon. The money will be disbursed to poor countries.

GRD needs to be done because the current system is unjust, hence many people are at the extreme end of poverty. Actually we can see poverty in two ways: first, we might fail in fulfilling our positive duty, which is the duty to help other people, or second, which is more stringent than the first one, we might fail in fulfilling our negative duty, by holding injustice, keep contributing to or profiting from the unjust poverty of others.

Pogge argued that seeing poverty as a violation to positive duty does not provide strong moral arguments and people choose to support the good cause that they want to help rather than put effort to help ‘strangers’ in extreme poverty. However, by showing that poverty is a violation of negative duty, there’ll be better moral conviction to solve extreme poverty problem that happens in other parts of the world. Previously, the poverty is an unjust radical inequality, which are defined as a condition where the poor’s condition are very bad both in absolute and relative terms and it’s very difficult to improve their lives, while the rich is really rich and can improve the situation of the poor without becoming poor themselves.

Nevertheless, these conditions are not enough to say that we have violated our negative duty. As an illustration, if we know that the people on Venus are very poor and do not do anything to help them, we surely violate a positive duty, but we do not violate our negative duty because we do not profit from their misfortune or contribute in maintaining their poverty. Hence, Pogge proposed 3 grounds of injustice which he believed can classify the current radical inequality as unjust and the maintenance of this unjust system as a violation of negative duty, so if we can approve these 3 approaches, we should reform the system and move towards justice (which can be done through his GRD proposal). In this presentation I will defend the first two arguments because these arguments can show that the poor’s right to access to basic needs (ie food) has strong moral foundation, just like other civil and political rights. However, I will show that the third approach has weakness which can make his whole arguments trapped in the dichotomy of liberal vs socialist or Western vs Asia sentiments, just like other debates in human rights, and defeat the whole purpose of raising moral conviction of this issue.

The first approach is there is a global system that is shaped by the rich and forced on the poor and the maintenance of this system causes the radical inequality. This radical inequality cannot be traced to extra social factors such as genetic handicaps or natural disasters. As an illustration, most people will think that the governments in the poor countries are corrupt. The fact is many of these governments are bribed by foreign investors who have more economic power. Other examples are “the  exporting hazardous waste, economic sanctions that deprive poor countries of basic resources, financing development projects that displace people, enforcing restrictive patent laws (book, medicine)” (Chong, 2010). Hence, the global economic system is so interconnected and it has benefited the rich, that’s why many people maintain this injustice system and this is a form of violation of negative duty because we keep getting profit from this unjust system.

The second approach is the disproportionate use of natural resources. Even though the poor are paid for selling their natural resources, most money go to the other rich people, the middle-men, between the richest and the poorest. High price of oil based on demand and supply made exclude the poor from the access of basic needs, such as food. The money that the poor receive is not enough to afford basic needs. Hence, what is happening now is the rich exhaust most natural resources and limit the access to these resources by letting the demand and supply decides the price. 

Anwander (2004) argued that we should differentiate “merely benefiting” from the injustice from “contributing” to the injustice because benefiting from the injustice is not always wrong. Hence, the rich who pay the normal price for the natural resources do nothing wrong because the current system is already based on demand and supply. They don’t have moral obligation because the only way not to be in the unjust situation is by paying higher, but it is impossible to be done because the price of the wealthy’s basic needs is also different. They also need to survive. However, this example also shows that as Anwander (2004) himself admitted, benefiting from injustice almost always involves some way of contributing to it. 

If we step back from these two approaches and look at the bigger picture, Pogge actually goes to the basic arguments of “claiming” the poor’s rights. As Donnelly mentioned, “when a right-holder exercises his right, he claims it and thus activates the duty-bearer obligation to respect that right”. While the first approach put the developed countries as “duty-bearers” by showing the interconnectivity in economic system, the 2^nd approach strongly puts the developed countries in the angle of violation of negative duty, by holding into the systems that always benefit them and always exclude the people at the bottom of pyramid.

The third approach is the radical inequality is the effect of a common and violent history, for example, colonization. I think this argument backlashes the previous two approaches because it contradicts the second approach. The end of these three approaches is justifying GRD proposal, a form of compensation. Based on 2^nd approach, US should pay higher compensation, but based on the third approach, it needs to pay little compensation because it ‘only’ colonizes the Philippines. The same problem will happen to many rich countries which did not colonize, eg Switzerland and Finland. 

Furthermore, this third approach neglects individuals in the colonists’ countries and the various types of colonization. While he put disclaimer that he concerns on ‘persons’, not ‘continents’, to say that even though without colonization poverty will occur, but not to the same individuals actually living in particular continents (hence, it’s not a predictable poverty caused by a systematic injustice), his third approach treat the colonists as one chunk of population. He undermines the fact that many individuals in colonists did not agree with the policy to exhaust the colonies’ resources and these individuals also proposed a compensation (eg Dutch ethical policy in Dutch Indies). He also did not take into account the different form of colonization with its indirect positive impact because the colonists leave the infrastructure and technology there. As an illustration, British colonies inherit a developed railway system and relatively a good education system. This factor is also intertwined with the state’s own cultural and geographical factors, eg both India and Singapore are British colonies, but Singapore’s strategic location makes it developed by the British as port city. Existing cast system in India makes it has different dynamic in terms of policy making and struggling against poverty, compared with Singapore, hence, radical inequality is not merely an effect of a single historical process.

Hence, there have been many complex challenges in legal approach to subsistence rights (Chong, 2010). There are also controversies over policies that would achieve freedom from poverty, such as economic growth vs redistributive policies. Some see extreme poverty as in fact a violation of human right. Furthermore, the debate has never been free from liberal vs socialist debate. Pogge’s effort in using logical arguments on morality to claim the poor’s rights makes this issue stands at the same position with other civil and political rights. Nevertheless, the third approach seems like a deliberate attack to developed countries with particular ideology, making this debate falls into other similar ideological debates. My conclusion is in looking at these approaches, we cannot deny that many historical processes must be taken into account. 

talking about the poor

The more I read about poverty and human rights, the more I feel the whisper to do something. Two weeks ago my friend said, "Fear exists in the calling. When you feel something that you are worried of A,B,C and scared of A,B,C, it might also be a sign of a calling." You might have read my post on my crazy dream and one of it is one day I'd like to set up an NGO.

When I attended the leadership training in my high school, some students actually said that the leadership training was a "brainwash-process" to think that poverty is the fault of a large system. Now I know that it was not a brainwash process without reasons. The problem is it's always easy to think that the poor are lazy. It's quite normal to think that "If we don't allow free trade now, we'll never be competitive enough to fight in international trade." Now that I read Thomas Pogge's chapter and found some other articles in my coursepack, I realized that there is a huge debate out there in this topic. There are various philosophy and political thought behind the argument that they planted in me when I was high school. I'm grateful that the leadership training in my high school set the foundation for me to be opened to this unpopular view, the non-capitalist view.

At this moment, how I wish I could talk to the nun in my school who facilitated our training that time. How I wish I could discuss my reading and presentation next week with my other ex-facilitators and said, "Hey, thanks for what you all told me 4 years ago!"

Ok now let me finish my presentation preparation and I'll post my 'script' tonight. Hehehe. Then you can understand more what stuff I'm actually talking about. :)