MayDay Concert

Went to Mayday concert over the weekend! It was great, truly enjoyed the concert except for the sound system that I think was not working very well.

I did not know I will be able to go until the day before the actual event. Had a budget of $100 from my friend which was also what I was willing to pay. I started searching online for the tickets a week before the concert. As Mayday is a popular band and the concert was a full house, some people were trying to sell the tickets for higher values than its ticketed value. And the original ticketed prices were already not cheap eg 108, 148, 188, 208.

Only during the last few days, price started to drop. I made a few bids even though I knew I would not get them. Thought better to try than do nothing. Thus was bidding $240 for a pair of $188 tickets (worth $376). They were rejected as the people were asking for $300 or more. Then try a few others to no avail even when I offered $200 cash + $50 vouchers. I had a few different kinds of vouchers. I reckoned to use them now to sweeten my deal than to spend more money buying things with the pretext of using the vouchers.

Thought I would not be able to get the tickets anymore on the last day until I saw a posting at about 5pm. The seller could not go to the concert at the last minute. A pair of tickets worth $376 and she wanted to sell it for $300. I contacted her with my offer ($200 plus $50 vouchers) and she accepted it. It was probably a bit too late for her to find buyers and meet them to pass the tickets which was why she accepted my offer. Under such win win situation I got my tickets.

Was quite happy with the deal! And was glad to have gone for the concert. I like Mayday for their songs. Some of their songs are quite inspiring, imploring people to go for their dreams and to love and believe in themselves.

Many of the audience were their diehard fans. Even though we had seats, we were standing more than half of our time as the fans in front of us rose up from their seats to sway with the songs. We all have to stand too in order to see the band.

There was no dancing etc, just singing. And their songs were infectious! Especially like the part where everyone was literally jumping/swaying and singing along with them! Cool! :)

Gender Ratio

One of my foreigner colleagues was asking me on the demographics of the people in the company. The topic naturally progressed to the gender ratio of Singapore. He mentioned that he thought there are more working females in Singapore which I concurred based casually on the fact that I seemed to often see more female passengers in the office lifts.

He thought the female ratio is higher as the males may have left Singapore to skip NS as some of his friends in Australia does. This may be true but I was not so sure it is the main reason as I believe there are not many such "escape" cases. I was wondering whether it could be due to work mobility as in males may be more willing to relocate for work.

Digging further, I went to look for the official statistics as pasted below.



As we can see, at least during the productive working years, there are many more females than males in Singapore.

Under natural birth rate, the ratio of males to female should be higher though with increase in ages, the ratio will creep lower as female has higher life expectancy. Looking at the statistics, during birth, there are more males to female. However the gender ratio turned somewhat dramatically for population between 25-39. I am guessing that it may be due to differences in work mobility for the genders. This is interesting, maybe such numbers are/can be looked if we need to draft some action plans for social issues.

Photos....

Was searching for my photos over the past few days only to realize they are all missing. They must have disappeared when my computer crashed last year.

Very much like to scold myself.... How can I not have any backup to these photos... especially since I do not have many to backup in the first place....

For someone who take few photos, each photo is relatively precious. I am afraid memories will fail me someday and the photos can at least remind myself of the experiences.

Further proof that I cannot take anything for granted. Remember to backup your photos, friends.

The Big Open: On Foot Across Tibet's Chang Tang

Is a rather interesting book. The book allows me to follow the journey of Rick Ridgeway (the author) and his teammates on their journey to discover the migration route of the chiru (the tibetan antelope).

What is special is that it is a journey on foot across inhospitable terrains. They are helping the wildlife biologist George Schaller to track/discover the chiru breeding ground.

Chiru is a protected species that is hunted to make the Shatoosh shawl, the world's finest and most expensive shawl. Unfortunately to get the wool, chiru is sacrified. The project is a success as the information gathers during the expedition is used to make the case of making the shatoosh wool illegal in many countries.

Is quite a amazing journey and makes me one to see a Chiru in real next time! :)

Snow Storm

My first experience of snow storm. Today I woke up early to take the domestic flight to Newark. It was snowing heavily when I left. The whole plane was covered with snow. The first thing the captain mentioned was that there might be some delay as the plane needed to go through de-icing.

First something was sprayed on the snow and the snow melted away.

Then a green liquid was spray on the plan to prevent the plane from forming ice.

It was pretty interesting watching the whole procedure. During the flight, we were able to watch TV and the main news story was about the snow storm. They were reporting the inches of snow in different area and what the city was doing to prepare itself.

Reached Newark later than I thought thus missed the connecting hotel shuttle that came every hour and needed to wait for a while. Once checked in, took the train to New York and then another 1 hour bus out.

Was tired when I finally returned to my hotel at around 11 pm. A long day indeed with lots of travelling and walking. Walking was pretty slippery as the snow melted on pavement with heavy traffic. And with the winter attire... I am still not used to wearing so thick layers, they felt quite heavy and seems to drag me down with every hour. It was also still cold. Nevertheless a good first snow storm experience. The whole landscape is white.

Spare Change News

Today I actually planned to join a community service day. I bought food stuffs from the mart and went to the place an hour earlier. Handing them over the donations, they said I have to come back an hour later. It seemed they may have too many volunteers etc. I figured I just go to a nearby cafe to spend that hour reading books. I realized there were more volunteers waiting at the cafe too. Mostly students that need to clock in community service hours.

Thus I decided to read my book instead. Maybe it would have been better to join other volunteer programs that was not so mass scale and thus help will be more needed.

I spent my afternoon sitting at 3 different cafes/bookshops around the area reading my book as I wanted to eat dinner at the last cafe. Needed a change of place to eat than in the hotel room. :)

As I was walking a lot in the same area, I passed this man a few times on the street, selling newspaper. I saw him 2 days ago too selling newspaper when I went to recee the area. It was so cold and yet he was still walking outside for hours asking every passer-by whether they want to buy the papers. I did not see anyone buy from him yet.

On my third time passing him today, I figured I should buy from him. The paper costs $1. It is a small edition, with less than 20 pages and is called "Spare Change News". I have yet to encounter this paper on my few times to Boston. Reading it, it is actually a paper by the homeless. People selling it are homeless and it is meant to provide some income for them. Many of the articles are written by people living in shelters and give their thoughts on life. Is quite a good idea that they are doing this to have gainful employment.

I am not sure how many papers the man managed to sell in one day. But I know he is hardworking and doing what he can to survive.

My new record for temperature

http://www.boston.com/weather/#
Current Conditions:-11°C; -22° C RealFeel

This is my new record. A new experience indeed! Actually I am not so sensitive to the temperature of today and yesterday. Both are cold to me. But the locals are more sensitive. The bus driver was also saying that today is really cold.

Is fine for me now back in the room. It must be tough to be homeless in such a temperature. I saw the homeless around the area setting up their blankets outside buildings by 7 pm. I think the most important thing is to block the cold wind from penetrating.

I wonder how does the homeless survive in places like Russia and Alaska where the temperature during winter must be worse than this. I remember reading reports that people (homeless and people who cannot afford heating in their house) die during harsh winter. It must be a tough world for them.