Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Our bright-eyed, bushy tailed days

I met two very young job candidates today, whose enthusiasm reminded me of when I first graduated. Ironically, I'd also just read Gloria Steinem's ('57) commencement address at my undergrad school a few days ago. How I miss our community of kindred spirits who cherished freedom, knowledge, wisdom and compassion, and who felt that our generation of women could literally change the world!

As you should expect from any Smithie worth her salt - real or fictional (say Cristina in Grey's Anatomy, Charlotte in Sex and the City, Ellen in Gilmore Girls) - expect strong feminist opinions ahead!

On mothers and daughters:
My generation of young women said things like, “I'm not going to be anything like my mother" ... Now, I meet many young women who say something like, “I hope I can have as interesting a life as my mother.” Not the same life, but as interesting. And when I hear this, it brings tears to my eyes -- because I know there is not only love between generations, as there always has been, but now there is respect, learning, a sense of balance, even an invitation to adventure.


On career and family:
Your generation has made giant strides into public life, but often still says: How can I combine career and family? I say to you from the bottom of my heart that when you ask that question you are setting your sights way too low. First of all, there can be no answer until men are asking the same question. Second, every other modern democracy in the world is way, way ahead of this country in providing a national system of childcare, and job patterns adapted to the needs of parents, both men and women.

So don’t get guilty. Get mad. Get active. If this is a problem that affects millions of unique women, then the only answer is to organize. I know it may be hard for women to believe that men can be loving and nurturing of small children – just as it may be hard for men to believe that women can be expert and achieving in public life as they have.... But raising young children – or being raised to raise children – is the way men are most likely to develop their own full circle of human qualities, and stop reproducing the prison of the “masculine” role. Just as our role in the public life frees us of the prison of the "feminine" role.

For that matter, our kids do what they see, not what they’re told. If children don’t see whole people, they’re much less likely to become whole people – at least, not without a lot of hard work in later life.

On society and family:
Which leads us into the big question of violence. Gender roles provide the slippery slope to the normalization of control and violence in all their forms, from sexualized violence to military violence – which is the distance from A. to B. Until the family paradigm of human relationships is about cooperation and not domination or hierarchy, we’re unlikely to imagine cooperation as normal or even possible in public life.

It’s already too dangerous in this era when there are more slaves in proportion to the world’s population – more people held by force or coercion without benefit from their work – more now than there were in the 1800s. Sex trafficking, labor trafficking, children and adults forced into armies: they all add up to a global human-trafficking industry that is more profitable than the arms trade, and second only to the drug trade. The big difference now from the 1800s is that the United Nations estimates that 80% of those who are enslaved are women and children.

On community and revolution:
It won’t be easy to hang on to this vision of possibilities in ourselves and in others if we are alone in a world that’s organized a different way. We are communal creatures. So make sure you’re not alone after you leave this community at Smith. Make sure you meet with a few friends once a week or once a month; people you can share experiences and hopes with – and vice versa.

While we’re at it over the next fifty years, remember that the end doesn’t justify the means, the means ARE the ends. If we want joy and music and friendship and laughter at the end of our revolution, we must have joy and music and friendship and laughter along the way. Emma Goldman had the right idea about dancing at the revolution. So, my beloved comrades, yes this is the longest of all revolutions and that will mean a lot of struggle, a lot of organizing together and a lot of unity, but that also means a lot of dancing.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

A Tai Tai life for me?

Maybe being a tai tai ain't so bad after all. At least one of us will have a life.



Then I can redecorate the house, go prospecting with those eager beaver brokers during this hot!hot!hot! property market, shop around Orchard/Marina/Vivocity, take that jazz or kickboxing class I've been eyeing recently, plan long weekends in nearby exotic islands .... maybe even cook again, so that when hubby comes home for dinner---

Wait. He doesn't ever come home from dinner. And rarely has free weekends. And didn't I do exactly all of the above when I was in between jobs not too long ago?

Sigh.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

When all else fails, call Tech Support

Dear diary:

Today was a bad tech day.


4:00 PM My laptop gives a beep, reminding me that the batteries are running out. While plugging it into the power socket, I knock over my glass of water.

4:02 PM Water soaked up. I sit back down to resume work while the table dries.

4:10 PM Laptop blanks out. I try everything I learnt in laptop care 101, from hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL to holding down the power button to pressing "!@$#%QWERTY" in frustration. Nothing happens.

4:11 PM I take out my battery. Breathe in. Breathe out.

4:12 PM I SMS a colleague and receive our 24 hour IT hotline.

4:13 PM I call the hotline, explain the situation, and get two valuable pieces of advice. 1) Shut down your laptop, take out the battery, and let it "cool down" or "dry out" for a few hours. 2) If there's smoke coming out of the laptop, you've got a big problem.

4:15 PM I make plans for dinner and Spider-Man 3 tonight. Decide to deal with my laptop (and all those presentations I need to prepare) on Sunday.

12:18 AM I come home and am praying that all my work has not been lost! Otherwise, tomorrow will be a REALLY bad day.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

How's your hardware?

Who says Singaporeans don't know how to have fun?

Viagra-maker Pfizer has unveiled a new erection hardness tool which will enable men to take more control of their erectile dysfunction (ED) management and measure the success of their treatment. This new tool is based on a 4-point scale which identifies grade four erections as the optimal treatment goal for men with erectile dysfunction.

Evidently, to make it easier for your average banana, err.... guy, to digest, Singapore’s Society for Men’s Health proposed to allow men to rate their own hardness with four categories: cucumber, unpeeled banana, peeled banana and tofu (bean curd).

Fancy a cucumber, anyone?

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Foraging for food reviews

One thing I miss about New York is the diversity of food options, and the ease in looking up reviews and making reservations online, be it at the ultra pricy Daniel where hubby and I reflect fondly on both the food and the cost, to PINCH, our favourite neighbourhood joint that literally customises and sells pizza by the inch.

I'd only seen a smattering of online and printed food reviews in Singapore. The most popular being Makan Sutra and Eat Shiok Shiok, as well as several indy blogs, e.g. Chubby Hubby. I commented on this waaay back in one of my first few posts here.

To my foodie gastronaut delight, a friend told me about this new local online interactive site, aptly called Hungry Go Where. It's a young promising initiative - and there's plenty of room for improvement, e.g. sorting by ratings and reviews, tracking discrete user hits, enabling notifications on comments/major account updates, searching by zip code - and heck, maybe even a tie-in to some location-based mobile services? (PS - If the business owners are keen to adopt any of these ideas, let me know).

Still, it works and I've not only signed in as a member, but have also written a few reviews. No surprise for those of you who read this blog as to what my pseudonym there is. Check it out! Meanwhile, if you're not eating, think about where you wanna eat next....