With all the fiasco about racial tolerance these days, it’s abit dangerous to start talking about racial differences n prejudice, but i gotta say my perhaps, worthless piece. As a child, i’ve been told that if dun behave myself, the abu neh neh or the bang-kali would come kidnap me, and it never failed to scare the shit out of me.. How else would u react to someone whose skin is so dark n different from u.. n yea, moustaches, they were terrifying to me… so yea, dark skin with moustache..killer combi..

I never saw a single indian/malay in my primary, sec schs and jc, cheena schools all the way.. but i think army changed me alot, mixed ard with various ppl, not just of different races, but different education levels, diff. places in society. How many ppl can claim that he has spoken to a drug addict/thief/serial awolee..

My malay frens in camp would sometimes call me cheena babi..n i would taunt back by making fun of the so-called mat attitude towards life. Jokes about chinese, malays or indians are laughed by all, and i dun really think that’s a problem.

A guy wrote into Today recently n said that racial harmony shouldnt be just about tolerating, cos by tolerating we still see the difference as a problem, just that we chose to remain silent in order to maintain the peace, and/or to prevent themselves from going ISD for kopi session.. Tolerating a problem does not solve it, the tap in the kitchen is dripping, you solve it by getting off ur bed to close the tap fully; you tolerate it by wearing earplugs.

Celebrate the differences, step out today to find out more about another religion or race…go enrich yourself alright?

I like to tell u all about this wonderful guy in my lab, i nearly wanted to say “this wonderful prof in my lab” but i realised he’s not there yet..but no worries…someone as impressive as him would definitely be up there, rubbing shoulders with the barber, 肥猫，teddy bear, and bus driver-lou in the dept…

Who else but Dr Tok…ok wait i realised he’s assoc prof…but i’m sure he will go higher soon…y do i say that? cos he’s definitely the most professional, most 敬业乐业 guy i know..

• He is very concerned for our safety in lab, so advises us not to play music on laptop, esp when wearing earphones, cos in case alarm or anything goes off, what if we can’t hear.
• He tries his best to enforce dress code in lab..long pants n shoes..i mean, if the gyroscope drops on our feet, he wun be responsible for it u noe…still, he’s just concerned for our safety.
• He doesnt let us eat in lab, cos whoa! what would happen if we spill, create work for cleaners.. or worse, drop radioactive source unknowingly into chendol..if not for A/P Tok, we might become ninja turtles the next day w/o us knowing
• He discourages us from talking in lab, so that we can pay full attn to our experiments. This also creates a very quiet lab and to some ppl, the perfect environment for conducting highly complicated and difficult experiments.
• He tells us not to discuss the experiments using mandarin, cos it’s not professional. I would have never thought of that point, remember hor sci ppl..next time ur PRC lab demo tries to explain to u in english, dun stop him or her, cos he or she is trying to be PROFESSIONAL
• He raises his voice to tell us to keep quiet in lab when doing expt, if not we should leave if we have already finished. What can i say, concern for our effective use of time.

Such a good prof, go where find… i’m not joking..i can’t even find a bad point to write about him… wait till u see my end-of-sem student’s review of him…and incase u trying to spot him in sch, imagine him with specs and ekin’s hair