In 2012 I have decided to bite the bullet and shift my blog off the safe familiar confines of WordPress.com to a self-hosted space and WordPress.org.

It might take a couple of days to sort out what is going on with the http://kirstenhan.me domain, but if you want to check out funny little world’s new home now, head on over to http://kirstenhan.com and it should all be up and running already. (If you do encounter any problems, though, let me know so I can figure out how to fix it, or just cry until someone else takes pity and fixes it for me.)

Issues I know I will have: dead links, from when I linked to other posts in the blog – once the domains are all sorted out I think those links won’t work anymore, so if you find any let me know so I can update them. Also lots of the older posts don’t have featured images because for some reason the featured images didn’t port over and I’ve had to manually add them. I’ve done up to page 6 of 16 pages of blog entries before I got tired of it and gave up. I might carry on later.

For those who subscribed to my blog via email, you should still be subscribed to the blog. For those who just follow me on WordPress, I’m sorry but I don’t think I can shift those over (unless someone knows how?) so you either have to subscribe by email or follow me on FB or Twitter or something.

Thanks guys!

1. The world will end on 21 December 2012, allowing people to spaz about how cool the date 20122012 is (and also making it trend on Twitter) before meeting their end the next day.

2. This will probably be the last year we have on this planet before things come to an end in a catastrophic yet visually impressive fashion.

And, most importantly:
3. Only friends of John Cusack will survive (in giant arks that have gift shops). If you’re the intelligent and good-hearted Indian scientist who actually discovered the impending doom in the first place, I’m sorry, you’re fucked. You can haz giant tsunami wave.

I haven’t yet met a person who really believes that we’re all going to die at the end of next year; after two bung Rapture predictions this year I guess we’re all a little “meh” about these things. Still, since I have a bit more trust in the ancient Mayans than I do in Harold Camping, I’ve decided to be a little bit prepared in my list of resolutions (which in itself is something special, since I generally don’t make resolutions).

1. Live to the full

If it’s going to the be the end of the world next year, then 2012 had better be super-awesome. I don’t want to be thinking, “Aw, I should have done ___ and ___” as I watch that giant fireball come plummeting towards us.

This is why I’m planning to do quite a bit of travelling next year: I’ve applied for a fantastic-sounding 10-day journalism course in Mexico, I’m hoping to go back to Thailand (sooner rather than later), my mum and I might be going to Ladakh and I hope to visit friends in New Zealand before going to Cardiff. I want to visit new places as well as the old, to make new friends as well as reconnect with old ones.

That said, all these plans are up in the air at the moment, because I believe that living in the moment is also part of living to the fullest. I don’t want to get myself into a situation where I feel like I have to do something, even if it’s something as fun as travelling. If circumstances change I want to be able to change my plans to go with it.

2. Love my family

If the world is going to end, then I should make the best of the time I have with my family, or the way I behave with them, even when I’m away (which I might be for quite a lot of the time). How I think about them factors in too – less frustration and impatience, more consideration and communication!

3. Write, write, write

I’ve written heaps this year, and I still love writing, which says something. In 2012 I aim to be paid for some of this writing, because that was the one aspect of writing that I utterly and completely failed at.

If anyone wants to hire a freelance blogger/writer, hit me up please. As a Spud, I’m happy to give anything a try.

4. Read, read, read

Since I’ve developed an Internet/social media addiction, my reading has slowed down a lot. Which is very bad.

If it’s going to be my last year on Earth, I would like to go out having read some amazing books.

5. Save some money (just in case)

Of course, one cannot deny that it is highly, highly possible that the world won’t end next December after all, and so provision needs to be made for that. It wouldn’t do for me to spend all my money recklessly in 2012 only to find myself still alive in 2013, but debt-ridden and poor.

In 2012, I aim to do less impulse spending (*ahem*online shopping*ahem*) and to establish more saving goals, even as I spend money. In other words: don’t turn into a scrooge, but be mindful that money spent on the Internet is still real money.

Happy New Year, world! Keep on being crazy and wonderful.

What are your last year on Earth resolutions?

And that’s just how I feel. I can’t even begin to imagine how the family of a death row inmate feels. I can’t even begin to imagine how the inmate himself feels. I don’t think anyone can.

One weekend in January this year, a small group of us gathered over lunch. We chatted, we laughed, we ate. It was just like any other gathering of friends, but that weekend all our thoughts were going to a young, scrawny-looking boy sitting in a cell in Changi Prison. Most of us had never actually met or spoken to him, but it hardly seemed to matter.

Lighting candles and sending a birthday wish to Vui Kong.

We lit candles on a cake and sang a birthday song to Yong Vui Kong that day, and many of us wrote about/to him. We put the finishing touches on a birthday banner, which he eventually got to see for a brief moment in court. I don’t think anyone actually mentioned it, but I know that the thought passed through each of our heads at some point or other: could this be Vui Kong’s last birthday cake?

It’s almost been a year now, and Vui Kong is still with us. A message has been sent out through a volunteer who visited him: “Vui Kong said to tell all of you, thank you. For standing by him, for believing in second chances and for fighting so hard. Let’s hope for an even bigger miracle next year.”

We Believe in Second Chances and the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign (SADPC) are jointly organising ‘Happy Birthday, Yong Vui Kong‘ at Hong Lim Park on 15 January 2012 to mark Vui Kong’s 24th birthday. We’d all really appreciate – just as we know Vui Kong will – if you all came to show your support for the campaign to save his life. The fight is not over; Vui Kong has not yet received an answer to his appeal for clemency.

Click here for more information about the event, and also to RSVP.

I was rather surprised to read this news. From my own experience of sex education while in high school, I already thought that there was too much emphasis on sexual abstinence. How can there be any more emphasis, short of insisting that all teenage girls take the veil?

The Yahoo! article only quotes from Catholic parents with children in Catholic schools, which is strange. Did the Ministry of Education consult with other parents and teachers and experts before they decided to change the programme? It would certainly be worrying if the SEP was changed for all Singaporean schools just because Catholic parents disapprove of contraception. Isn’t our education system supposed to be secular?

Perhaps this is what we need for our girls? (Image: culturemap.com)

That aside, the very idea of emphasising abstinence over contraception is problematic. Firstly, what is the definition of “emphasise” that is being used here? As I already said, my experience of sex education in school did not at any point give me the impression that contraception was being emphasised at all – unless the term “emphasised” is supposed to be read as “mentioned”. If that’s the case, are we to assume that decreasing “emphasis” on contraception would involve decreasing the amount of time educating students about it?

I would really like to see what this ‘Breaking Down Bridges’ programme is like, and just how it emphasises abstinence.

Emphasising abstinence isn’t necessarily a great idea. Although it is true that it is the most effective way of avoiding teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases/STIs (the same way never leaving your house is the most effective way of avoiding getting hit by a bus), the idea that teenagers/young adults are all not going to have sex is just highly impractical.

It’s dangerous, too, because if you emphasise abstinence too much and shy away from talking about safe sex and contraception, you’re just going to get generations of confused teenagers who are probably going to get up to some hanky-panky anyway, but very little idea of how to protect themselves.

That said, I have no problem with teaching abstinence as a possible path to take. It’s a personal choice, and one that everyone should respect instead of mock. But what I have a problem with is the singling out of one path above others as more desirable, because then we’re no longer on neutral, comprehensive educational grounds, but subjective moral arguments pushed onto people who might not hold to the same value systems. That’s when we turn it from a personal choice into a “behave like this or society will shun you” scenario.

Image from queenslyfe.com

Very often the teaching (or “preaching”) of abstinence becomes tied up in highly subjective moral values (and, as we can see from the quotes from Catholic parents, religious values too) and judgement. We might end up finding that teenagers will end up abstaining from sex not because of the potential pregnancy/health concerns, but because they have been taught that it is a shameful thing, because teenage girls who get found out for having sex will be judged as “sluts”, because sex is big and scary and bad, very bad.

“What’s wrong with that?” one might ask. “If it keeps our kids safe from teenage pregnancy and STIs, scaring them is fine with me.”

Okay. But what happens when they grow up, and still carry that fear and stigma with them? Then you have a whole generation of sex-negative people, who not only judge other people for their sexual choices (even if these choices are consensual), but also feel ashamed of their own bodies and urges. Is this really healthy?

When we teach sex education in schools, we’re not just talking about STIs and unwanted pregnancies. We’re talking about how we view our bodies, how we view sex and how we judge each other’s attitudes on the subject. We’re talking about relationships and how we deal with intimacy and being comfortable with another human being, and being able to express our desires/discomfort because we aren’t afraid of taking ownership of our own bodies. It is about so much more than teenagers wanting to go all the way.

We need to stop getting into a moral panic about our kids knowing about sex. Providing a comprehensive sex education doesn’t promote pre-marital sex, or encourage more teenagers to have sex. Learning about sex and intimacy in school doesn’t make one into a sex maniac. After all, I learnt about science in school and I didn’t become a scientist.

Is it the Christmas tree in the corner of your living room, decorated with baubles and shining lights? Is it the reindeer dolls and red-and-white colour themes? Is it the shopping sprees, checking out every sale? Is it the food, or the presents? Is it the snow and the fireplace, or the sun and the beach?

Christmas decor at Changi Airport.

I’ve spent Christmas in a many different places in my life: at my grandparents’, stuffed with char siew mee, or at a restaurant in Rome, a shrill soprano determinedly blowing her way through White Christmas right into our ears. In a crowded backpackers making too much food in the shared oven, or in Ministry of Sound trying not to inhale too much cigarette smoke. Each venue had its own up and downs, but they all taught me one thing: it really doesn’t matter where you are. Only the people matter.

They don’t even have to physically be with you. In fact, Christmas has always been a time where I think about the people who aren’t with me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like the people I’m with, but there’s always someone I wish could be here too.

I’m in Hong Kong this year, where we’re coming to the end of pre-production for the feature film. It’s my first winter Christmas since my mum and I were in Italy in 2004 (where the above-mentioned soprano threatened our glasses with her high notes). It’s my second day here and I’m enjoying it so far; I love walking in the winter air with my hands in my pockets. More often than not I turn out to be walking in the wrong direction, but I don’t mind so much.

Right now, I’m sitting in my room, thankfully big enough to accommodate both my person and my suitcase, fingers over the keyboard. I miss my family and I miss my cat, obviously, but there are also many other people I would love to share Christmas with.

There’s Jono and Natalie, my old classmates and housemates. We did practically everything together, from short film projects to eating Nutella with tablespoons. We watched a lot of Green Wing and quoted inappropriate lines to each other. When others wiggled their way out of it, they stayed late with me to give the ‘tech studio walls a new coat of paint for our multi-cam production.

Three years after graduation we’re all living different lives in different cities, only getting to say hello once in awhile on Facebook or in an iMessage. I wish they were with me this Christmas, so we can drink Baileys Irish Cream out of mugs and laugh about anything and everything.

I was looking for the right photo to share and realised that it doesn't get any better than this.

There’s the New Media Workshop 2010 gang, people like Paan and Mark and Grace, and my debate teammates Thuy and Ko (in the middle). We were only thrown together for two weeks, but two weeks is a long time when you’re staying up all night, preparing for debates and bonding over bad food and WiFi. These people were my first friends from all over Southeast Asia, and helped me realise just how lucky I am to be living in this region.

We all went our separate ways after the two weeks, onwards and upwards. With everyone so busy chasing their dreams all the time, it’s never easy to visit each other. If we were together for Christmas, all we’d need are a few beers. And my goodness, Mark is a perv. (I just had to say it, Mark!)

Vui Kong (far right) with his brothers.

There’s Yong Vui Kong, and all the other death row inmates we’ve heard of and fought for.

Vui Kong was not even supposed to have seen Christmas 2009; he had been scheduled to hang in early December 2009, but received a stay of execution at the eleventh hour. Today, he remains on death row, still praying for a second chance at life, a life he is willing to spend behind bars devoting himself to studying Buddhist scriptures. It’s a holiday miracle, a miracle we hope will culminate in clemency for this boy who has learned and changed so much.

Vui Kong’s story was the one that woke me up and made me want to find out more about my country and what it does in my name. His story made me want to become a better person, and I wish that I could have told him that in person this Christmas.

Last, but not least, there’s you, and everyone who’s supported this blog since the beginning. I’ll not mention any names since there have been so many who have been kind enough to leave comments, re-share/retweet posts and recommend this blog to others. I never really expected all this when I first started writing. I’m still learning as I go, and sometimes it feels like I’m just stumbling along blindly. I’m often agonising over how good everyone else’s writing is (just a few hours ago I read a really great post about Singapore that made me admiring and jealous all at once) and how it’s just so difficult to measure up to them, yet there are so many here who have been nothing but encouraging, even though we might disagree from time to time.

This Christmas I just want to thank everyone who reads this silly funny little thing; you’ve made a Spud very happy.

Happy Holidays!

This October in Manila I met up with an old friend. We had dinner, then took a stroll to one of Manila’s many (too many!) Starbucks. We chatted, talking about everything and nothing in particular.

Halfway through the conversation he stopped and asked, “How did a quiet shy girl in a polkadot uniform become… this?” He gestured with a laugh, referring to the travelling, the documentary filmmaking, the campaigning, the activism, the lobbying politicians, the socio-political blogging… everything.

I thought for a bit, but I didn’t know how to answer him. Truth be told, if you went back in time and told a 16-year-old me about all the things I’ve done this year, I would never have believed you. Perhaps I would have thought it sounded quite good, but I wouldn’t have believed that I would become someone who would do all these things.

But now I am doing them, and hoping to go even further. 16-year-old me would lose her shit.

In 2011…

…I walked into a relationship, then walked out of it.

This would be one of the few things that happened this year that I do not look back upon with satisfaction. If I could go back and do things differently I probably would, although the end result would still be the same.

…I voted for the first time ever.

I was also a last-minute counting agent for the Singapore Democratic Party, which was really interesting. It was such an exciting, charged time of the year, when everyone was excited and fired up and anything seemed possible. Friends who had never shown the slightest interest in issues before were suddenly talking about things, which was wonderful.

I might have hoped for different results (especially for some GRCs), but for the most part I think we’re taking baby steps towards something better. We just have to not forget that fire we all felt in May.

…I won an award for this blog!

That was very nice – thanks again to everyone who voted! I still have a whole bunch of random little freebies in a corner of my room that I can’t bear to start using ‘cos they’re so pretty. I didn’t get to go on the trip to Melbourne in the end, but the win was enough of a confidence boost.

…I made new friends.

It was my second year at the Effective Communications Training/media camp, my first as a trainer. Just like in 2010, I met lots of amazing people and made really good friends in the short span of two weeks. It merely served to lengthen my travel wishlist: how and when will I get to go to Portland?!

…I left The Online Citizen.

(Sorry, I don’t have a photo of this!)

The Online Citizen was the first thing I got involved in when I moved home in 2010. Through TOC I have met many people I would never have had the chance to know. I got to see a whole new side to Singapore that I had never even heard of before. I made many close friends who have played big roles in shaping who I’ve become in the past two years.

This year, I continued to be a regular contributor, administrator and team member after the gazetting, and even did a stint as the Deputy Editor. But things just got too crazy – between work, travel and all the other things I had got myself involved in, it just got harder and harder to give TOC the time it needed and deserved.

…I got accepted into Cardiff University.

Very, very exciting stuff. It’d always been a bit of a dream of mine to live in the UK, even if it was for a little while.

I’m applying for various scholarships to help me fund this at the moment. Here’s hoping for some success!

So, those were some of the highlights of my 2011. It’s by no means a complete list, because so much has happened in this year. But it’s enough to just look back on these for a little while before I look forward once again to 2012.

NOTE: The featured image is of Crystal’s oldest daughter E, with baby sister in the background. I picked it because I think it’s a pretty good representation of my crazy year, much of it spent glued to some form of tech gadget.

The Philippine government (not just this one, but many previous ones as well) chose to open up the country to foreign investment. They’ve encouraged huge multinational companies to set up shop in their country, and to employ Filipinos. According to the people we spoke to, this is the Filipino economic policy in a nutshell.

It wouldn’t be a problem, if only economic benefits didn’t come at the expense of workers. But when we were looking into the story of Hanjin Heavy Industries in the Philippines, we met so many workers and villagers whose lives have taken a turn for the worse since Hanjin entered their lives.

It’s hard to know what to do, and where to go from here, but the activists aren’t backing down. No one wants Hanjin to up and leave; no one wants to give up the investment money. What they do want, though, is to be treated with respect, to feel safe at work and to be given what they’re due.

Meanwhile in Singapore: Singaporeans are up in arms complaining over public transport breakdowns and inefficiencies.

Sounds really petty and trite, doesn’t it? But that’s the trouble we Singaporeans have with our issues: they’re really big and important to us, but sound really small in the global scale. This leads to lots of people criticising us for complaining by saying things like, “Just be glad that there isn’t high crime/union strikes/violent protests/civil war/natural disasters/meteor strikes.”

But does the fact that we don’t suffer from these large-scale problems invalidate all our criticism and complaints of the things that affect our lives? I don’t think so at all.

Firstly, gratitude for what we have and frustration for what we don’t aren’t mutually exclusive. I can be grateful that Singapore’s trains are safe enough for us to take after dark, while criticising SMRT for their huge failures in the past two days. And I don’t think we’re being brats for not being grateful when the train works. After all, that’s what it’s meant to be doing, and we pay for it to keep on doing it. Now, if people were to start criticising Isaac Ong (who is organising #freerides) for not being fast enough or not providing good service, then I’d say they were brats.

When governments and companies enjoy boasting about their “world class” service (ironically, our Transport Minister was in Cambodia talking about transport systems when this whole thing went down), then why should anyone be surprised if people are unforgiving of lapses in the “world class” service?

In a country where even peaceful public protests are outlawed, and there’s only one little park where people can speak freely, public discontent and frustration manifests itself in other everyday issues. These issues may seem petty to some, but they really aren’t because they’re symptoms of unhappiness, and there’s no other way for us to express ourselves.

In fact, situations like these become even more aggravating (to me, anyway) when we don’t have strikes and protests. Weren’t we told that these things were a “trade off” for law and order, and having things running smoothly? Didn’t we give up these rights precisely so we could have everything working perfectly? So why are they not working now?

The recent taxi fare hike and this SMRT debacle, although not directly the fault of the PAP, appear to be just another instance of big organisations over the little people – big companies prosper, little people suffer. Conspiracy theories have abounded that the MRT breakdowns have been planned to make people take taxis. It’s a bit out there, but it certainly wasn’t helped by the message sent out to all SMRT taxi drivers calling the breakdown an “income opportunity”.

The whole fiasco has just been compounded by the Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew being in Cambodia talking up our transport system, and our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong going on leave. Hello, PR disaster.

When I read Jillian C. York’s post, I decided that it was time to write one of my own as well. Of course, no blog post I ever write will be quite enough; I have lived a blessed 23 years on this Earth, and have had the wonderful good fortune to have met many, many people who have added to my life in a way I had never imagined to be possible. There is too much to be grateful for to put in one modest post. Also, I might be a little late because we’re now in the early hours of December 16.

But perhaps I could offer up my humble excuse: I was out most of December 15 with my mother, running errands and just hanging out. Incidentally, there is no other way I would prefer to spend my day of gratitude.

We drove around town with Adam Lambert and Darren Hayes playing off my USB stick on the car stereo, but it got difficult to hear the lyrics since we kept talking over them, cracking jokes and being silly. I had to run an errand at the IT mall (which later turned out to be pointless) and then we were going to do some shopping. The original plan was to get me a new laptop bag after my last bag fell completely to pieces, but we ended up getting a new bag each, a Christmas present for my dad, and I ended up buying a new pair of boots.

By our standards, that’s a huuuuge amount of shopping.

I have much to be grateful to my mum (and dad) for. Beyond the obvious of giving me life, both my parents have worked hard to make sure that my life has been a charmed one. Even though I’m (mostly) grown-up now, I can quite safely say that I’ve never truly experience deprivation, nor have I ever really wanted for anything.

But even more important than that (as if that in itself weren’t important enough), my parents have always been happy to let me find my own way in life. They have never tried to interfere with my choice of school, subject, career, boyfriend or general path in life. They might not always like everything that I do, but they know that sometimes I have to make my own mistakes and find my own way. I would never have had the courage to do all that I’ve done and hope to do if they had not allowed me this space to write my own story.

All I need to do is take a look around me to know that I’m incredibly lucky to have parents like them. Not many parents are as comfortable as mine are at letting their kids figure things out for themselves. I don’t blame them; at the end of the day they are just trying to do the best they can for their children. But I will always, always feel fortunate for parents who support me even when it comes to making my own mistakes.

Thank you, Mum and 爸爸!

With my parents on 30 November, when an innocent lunch became my 23rd birthday ambush (it wasn't even my birthday, that's why it was so surprising).

No matter what I say about Singapore, I live in a beautiful city. I might wish for it to be more vibrant, more spontaneous, more artsy and more alive, but it doesn’t change the fact that Singapore is a pretty city as it is. It’s just that sometimes, when it’s hot and humid and we’re running late and the train is crowded, it’s easy to forget.

I shot this video using my iPhone 4 and the iSupr8 app (created by a couple of awesome guys I was in film school with) while in taxis, in buses and on the street of Singapore, just to remind myself to look at things in a different way from time to time.