Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Good Grief, It's the Last Month of 2014!

I'm not one who knows what the date of each day is. Today it took me awhile when someone told me that she and her family moved in to a new place on December 1. In my head, it's like December is still a concept in the future, not realizing we are already in December. The more I think about it, I can feel that I'm gonna freak out more if I let the thoughts of having this year end and a new one start soon to occupy my head. Freaking out that will lead to depression because I will think about me getting older and then I'll end up examining my life and what I have accomplished in life and where I am now. Where I am now is pretty much where I have been all these past years. It's not a stretch to say I am stuck and let's not go there, let's not talk about this, because it's just gonna make me upset.

Alright, let's talk about a few mundane things. Watched a few things. The Walking Dead had its mid season finale this week and I was pretty sad about the death that happened, sigh. As for the cinema, well I really don't have the time to go anymore. Watched Fury which was better than I expected. Shia LaBeouf is a really talented actor, but too bad all the antics are clouding his talent. I thought it's a shame, but some of the weird things he did, he brought it upon himself. I also watched The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and felt kinda annoyed with Katniss in it because I felt she's kinda weak and whiny. I also thought Philip Seymour Hoffman was great and how sad it is that he tragically died.

On other news, last week found out that my credit card was blocked due to security reasons. Got the news in a text and I was told to call a number immediately, which I didn't. My lack of concern was perhaps worrying, but I was thinking that the card was going to expire in January, I would have to get a new card anyway, so I didn't care much about it. The next morning, the bank called me. Turned out someone had tried to use the card to buy something online. Since it's an online transaction, we don't know from which country this is coming from, but the transaction was in USD. I was pretty shocked hearing the news that I don't remember how much the transaction was. Either way, it failed and the bank quickly blocked the card. The lady from the bank just wanted to confirm it's not me trying to buy some vitamins online (the thief is health conscious?) and she told me that I would get a new card mailed to me in the next few days. I'm thankful that there is system in place to detect this kinda thing and thankful that DBS did a good job in protecting me. Still, it's very shocking that such thing could happen. I am assuming this is from some evil staff who took credit card information from legit places where I have used my credit card. All and all, there were extra prayer that night thanking God for the protection.

Got a new passport. Confused and disappointed about it because I was expecting to get a biometric passport and turned out it isn't :'( Can only hope that at the very least, it's machine readable. I had a big problem getting a usable finger print scan when I was applying for it. I was thinking if I should write about what happened here, but I chickened out and wrote it in my diary instead. I guess I'm not ready yet to talk about my condition, a condition whose name I finally found out in these past few weeks after googling on how to deal with it on a particular situation. This led to finding out that there are people like me and while it's comforting to find out there are others who know exactly how it feels like and reading the same things I have been dealing with, it's also kinda sad because somehow it's all official now that there's something wrong with me. Wrong is perhaps too sad of a word to use, perhaps not perfect is better, but no one is physically perfect, no? Also since I have been living with this my whole life, it's strange that finding out the exact medical term for it caused me to feel sad. With or without the name, I have what I have and it's unfortunately a really annoying condition to have, especially at important times. Anyways, I talk too much about it already.

So new passport, not biometric, super disappointed. I googled a lot about this and I wonder if the applying process in Indonesia (at least Jakarta) will be a more integrated effort. The thing is, Indonesia rolled out e-ID card in the past few years, which means our new ID card has our biometric information. It was a very thorough attempt, not only there's finger print scan but there's iris scan. The moronic thing they did though was to put an expiry date on the ID card. It's like saying there's an expiry date on being an Indonesian citizen. I thought it's a waste of resource. I think one should only change their ID if there are major changes in the data, like your picture doesn't match you anymore. That is what Singapore does and if you change residence, they just stick a new address, so there's no wastage. Unless the reason they're doing it is some benevolent reasons that the government would like to check on its citizen and see how they are doing. It's as ridiculous as I write it no? Anyways, if they can connect these data and the passport data, then the country would have a more integrated and meaningful data of its citizens. I did my passport in the embassy and for sure they're releasing these passports without linking back to the citizen's data in Indonesia. They didn't ask for my Indonesian ID number, instead they asked for a Singapore one. The chances of me being the only Eka Buntoro Dewi Putri in Indonesia or in the world right now is very high, so it can be easy to identify me in case of emergency, terrorism activity, or whatnot, but still I would hope that they're making more of an effort to get all these data be centralized, like if they do a search on a passport number, all the information about the person, their ID number, name, address, biometric data can be retrieved. Right now I don't think that is the case. Is it weird that I would like such a system? Pretty sure that there are people in places like America who would be terrified with such a system and think it's an invasion of privacy. Anyway, hopefully the new ministries can be smart about this, especially after all the spending on this.

Moving on, went to Gardens by the Bay after collecting my passport yesterday. They had their christmas decoration on and I feel like it's getting harder and harder for me to be amused anymore. There were teddy bears and christmas trees such as this with small teddy bears decorating it.

Then there's a fake fireplace with teddy bears in christmas stockings. The fireplace part is actually a tv showing crackling fire.

Then this is new for me and I found it to be very disturbing. It's from a French sculptor and it's called Les Voyageurs (The Travellers) if I'm not mistaken. It's gifted from Changi airport to the garden and the sculpture is to represents this family going to Changi after making memories in the gardens. Maybe it's because I just watched The Walking Dead the day before, but I found it to be really disturbing with parts of the people missing and they're not actually looking happy. I was so surprised to see this and I wonder if I am the only one thinking that it can give nightmares. Seriously, are kids okay seeing this?

Moving to the center area, there are little houses with little snowman decoration, teddy bear santa, and fake white snow which I didn't dare touch because I don't know what they are.

Towards the exit, there are two last teddy bears. By the way, glad to see the rose garden section back though there are still not a lot of roses in it.

I decided that I would come back again when it's darker, so I went out to look around the areas and ended up having dinner. After ice cream, it was dark enough for the lights to be switched on and it does make the flower dome look more mesmerizing than in the daylight. Below is the center area with the houses and the light tower where there are actually lighted flying reindeers on some parts of it, parts of the reindeers pulling Teddy Santa's sleigh.

Then I went outside to the super tree areas where the Spalliera is. Copying this from the website, Spalliera: A crown of lights, some 17m tall and 31m wide. Enter and be enthralled.

I was enthralled for like a minute or so. There was to be a snowy blizzard thing at 7:30 pm so everyone was waiting for it. By snow, it's foam, just like everywhere else where this is promised in Singapore. Can't they throw shaved ice instead? Also maybe it will work better if the machines were actually propped up high instead of shooting it from the ground. Blizzard is overstating it. It was very light and it's over in 10 minutes. I was amused for like 30 seconds. There were little kids who seemed to like it, but I think the general feel is not that of high excitement and wonder. There were actually a lot of crisscrossing wires to light up all these lights and the foam settling on them made them more visible.

That's about it peeps. For pictures, please go here.

:) eKa @ 4:55:00 PM •