What would stop me from picking up a cigarette?

Open their eyes
TO GET youth to banish cigarettes from their lives, it may help to give them a personal glimpse into the mess smoking can create.
While serving in the Red Cross back in secondary school, I visited a nursing home and met an elderly resident who used to be a chain smoker but was now [...]

Post-it art

A WANDERING artist is giving Singaporeans ‘art for thought’ on quirky, enigmatic ‘Post-it’ notes plastered all over the island.
Each piece of art is drawn on the ubiquitous yellow, rectangular sticky paper found sticking out of textbooks, on work desks and in office supply stores.
The modus operandi of the anonymous artist (or maybe there is more [...]

140-character Tweets just cannot describe our colourful lives

LIKE my friend says, a Tweet sounds like the sound a car makes as you back dangerously close to the kerb.
When you finish chuckling over the silly name of the latest social media application Twitter, let’s move on with our lives.
After all, life is more colourful, complicated and crazy than can be contained in 140 [...]

Twitter: Hot or not?

THE Feminist Mentor is my friend on Twitter.
Well, I’m not sure if it was really Dr Thio Su Mien who acquired a Twitter account and added me during Aware’s impassioned, seven-hour extraordinary general meeting (EGM) at Suntec City on May 2.
But whoever helmed that account certainly showed her – or his – humorous side.
For the [...]

What makes us ready for a Singapore beyond Lee Kuan Yew

Sound values ingrained in system
SINGAPORE’S model of good governance, built on the principles of meritocracy, fairness and efficiency, has propelled it to great success.
Future leaders from my generation will have to ensure that this system continues to work well. Fortunately, we have what it takes due to the education we have received that is better [...]

For fresh grads, a Catch-22 situation

IT HAS been nine months and 10 days since I graduated – for me, a transitional period that I call bittersweet.
Now, with a recent letter from the Central Provident Fund Board requesting I repay in cash the amount withdrawn for my university education, I’m reminded that I am among the statistics of fresh graduates struggling [...]

Helping dad cross the digital divide

WE ALL know that technology makes our lives easier. Or so I thought, until my dad became my friend on Facebook.
Ever young at heart, he decided some time last year that it would be cool to jump on Mr Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking bandwagon.
But what started out as a cyber-paradise for him soon morphed into [...]