well well well. i have no idea why, but it seems i've been having migraine/headache attacks the past few days, either due to too much or too little sleep. haha~ i always seem to be losing sleep on weekdays, say surviving on only 3 hr of slp for what reason i have no idea, only to have long hours of good, undisturbed sleep on weekends. making any sense? dont worry, it doesnt to me either. suffice to say, i have a wierd body clock which makes me tired and drained on days where i have to go to school, and impossibly awake and alert on days when i dont have to. hmms.

doing my research on apathetic youth and ethnicity for my cnm proj. sad to say, there really arent any sites out there addressing this issue. if u ask me, i think it's a huge issue. i mean, we have gotten to a point where we couldnt even be bothered to share about the differences in our culture and religion with each other anymore. it's more of a blind acceptance of another without wondering about the uniqueness of that person. it makes me miss those secondary school days on the phone with dustin, where we talk about everything, from comparing singapore to malaysia and philippines, sharing the differences in culture and religion, and lively debates on christianity vs buddhism. at the end of it all, we both grew richer in terms of knowledge, and came to appreciate the other party's religion and practices more.

in contrast, i had lunch with a friend of mine sometime last week, and since NUS has both muslims and non-muslims, our utensils, when we return them to the tray-return point, have to be separated into halal and non-halal. my friend, a chinese, was having nasi briyani, which is halal. i was having potato salad and pasta, which is not halal. at the end of the meal, being the classic gentleman, my friend placed by bowl on top of his plate, to my great horror. for one, common sense should tell you that halal and non-halal utensils cannot be mixed together. come on, why else would there be 2 sections at each return point in the first place, and not one, if both could be mixed together? and to make things worse, when i asked him to separate them, he said it doesn't matter. we can just return them like this, and the cleaners there will separate them. such ignorance. but honestly, could we find fault with him? he is sadly, one in a few hundred singaporeans who have little or no idea about our fellow racial counterparts. did anyone bother to find out about the differences between the chinese,malays and indians, and what makes each group so special in their own way? did anyone find out why there's halal and non-halal separations? after that incident, i was so glad that i came from assumption english school, although not a good school, but the huge racial and ethnic mix there allowed me to get to know more about others and appreciate these differences even more. in fact, most of my good friends are malays, and i love them to bits. i miss those malay guys in my jc class, in fact, they're so fun to be with that the chinese guys in my class adopted their way of talking and actions. and i miss my sisterhood of nadiah, qam and yati, and my english-speaking gang of friends of jasmin, nisa, zakiah, idayu and pei xuan. sigh... it's funny how after 6 years, i'm back in a predominantly chinese environment hanging out with fellow chinese. it's not bad, but its sad to see that the chinese stick with the chinese, the indians with the indians and the malays with the malays. i think if they were to see a gathering of a3 girls in the canteen or at mac in engine for a catching up session, they may have a heart attack. in nus no less. something should be done to bridge this gap up.

well then, at least i have a gd fran whose aware of this difference btw halal and non-halal. once, when we forgotten that kway chap contained pork and were on our way to al-ameen, and we realised our mistake, we did not feel comfortable eating there until her kway chap made its way into my bag and stayed there. putting it on the chair and on the table(gasp) was a huge no-no, it made her so uncomfortable until i offered my bag as a place to put it in. haha~ i think hanging around with nadiah and qam and yati has rubbed off on us somewhat.

ok, back to researching on youth and ethnicity. *crosses fingers* hope that something good will pop up. maybe my entry will appear instead, wahaha~

edited and added: found this really great blog by a singaporean. cool bananas. anw, i particularly like what he wrote about the "issue of students misusing blogs" from the ST article on 29th sept. read it here: http://www.djourne.net/singaporeink/index.php/archives/2005/09/