Posts

Posted on

Robin Hood Taxes

I once wondered why governments need to make things so complicated with complex tax systems and all that.

When the government gave out relief on GST to citizens a while ago, I thought to myself, “If you’re going to give the money back anyway, why not abolish GST in the first place?”

The answer came to me today as I studied the Singapore Budget 2012.

It’s like the Robin Hood style of stealing from the rich to give to the poor. But in this case, taxing the rich more, taxing the poor less.

And to do this, taxes are enforced for most financial transactions and then tax reliefs are given to people based on the size of their homes (rich people usually live in larger homes). Not 100% accurate but the gist of it is somewhere there.

Posted on

Japan 2010 – Day 3

Woke up around 11am. P made breakfast and it was delicious.

After breakfast, P and S sent me off at the train station near their home. I made my way back to the hotel to unload the clothes I bought the day before and set off to Harajuku park.

It was a Sunday and there’s a lot of people here at this huge park. Very different from the parks in Singapore.

You can hear people practicing their music in less crowded areas. Kids playing football. Teens making dance videos. A large group of old people playing ukuleles.

I headed down to Roppongi next, to check out an exhibition at the Mori Art Museum. I’m not into arty stuff. I just enjoy looking at things.

Last event of the day was to check out a matsuri at Asakusa. It’s crowded. Lots of stalls along the way. I bought lots of food here and brought them back to my hotel room for dinner. It was too much so I kept the remaining food for breakfast for the next day.

Posted on

2012

Ha, I can’t remember clearly what new year resolutions I made last year. But I think it’s something along the lines of working harder for more money, and take up a part-time degree course.

I did work harder than I was in 2010. But I never got around to getting that degree because I was given a chance to work overseas for a year and I was keen on taking up that offer.

Then I got approached with a job offer, with same pay but much better working environment, more challenging work.

Maybe in a year or 2 after things are stable with this new job, I will look into studying part-time again.

With freelance work and a new job taking up most of my time, I doubt I have enough spare time to pursue other things.

So this year, I shall focus on my Japanese language skills.

I took the N2 JLPT test on 2011 Dec. The results won’t be out till a few months later. If I pass, I might try for N1 this year.

The problem I’m concerned is even if I can get an N1 certification, it only means that I can understand Japanese well.

I know very well I can’t make up sentences in conversations well enough yet.

Also in my Japan trip in 2010, when I met up with my Japanese friends there, I had a hard time understanding what they are trying to say when they speak among themselves.

Native speakers speak very fast and are very different from what you hear on Japanese dramas and animes. From what I’ve heard, people who appear on TV and voice actors have undergone training in their speaking.

Hopefully the current SGD – JPY exchange rate recovers back to what it was 4 years ago. Currently it’s 1 SGD – 59 JPY.

Seeing photos of my friend’s trip there makes me want to go back there again.

Hmmm… It’s there where the real JLPT is.

Posted on

the next stage

After I graduated from my polytechnic education, I lazed around at home, jobless for 6 months until deciding to find a job.

My first job interview didn’t go well. It was too technical for me to handle at that time. Needless to say, I didn’t get it.

But I wasn’t concerned, that place was too troublesome to commute to anyway.

Some time later, my math teacher from my polytechnic called me up and told me her friend was looking for a web developer. I went for the interview, showed the forum I coded during my polytechnic days in ASP, with a notepad, and got the job

I worked there for 8 years. (Since October 2003)

There were ups and downs, a very long period of stagnation because of my addiction to online-gaming and things happening that left me in a feeling of despair.

Thankfully, I pulled through.

The last 2 years have been very fulfilling. I revamped the way we churn out websites in my company. I designed a centralized CMS system so that we don’t have to install it for every website. A front-end system that simplifies and reduces the repetitive tasks that needs to be done each time we work on a website.

It was until recently, I felt the need for more money and my day job wasn’t giving me enough. A friend from my polytechnic days just so happened to approach me with some freelance work and I took it up.

Everyday after work, I would spend 2-4 hours at MacDonald’s, on my laptop, coding away on a CRM and invoicing web application. I could feel myself learning something new during each coding session.

I accomplished a lot each day and night to the point cheap SG$1.60 beer tasted satisfying.

Although things didn’t go well with the client requesting many changes and additional requests that required me to change a lot of my code, I told myself it’s just for the learning experience and just hang on there.

Word of me working on my freelance CRM project actually helped me land a job opportunity at a new startup company with flexible working hours and dress code. Overall, the pay would be slightly lower but the founding team will be given stock options.

I could now live the kind of life developers and programmers in Silicon Valley get to live.

I’ve officially tendered my resignation yesterday. In about 26 days, I should be able to start working at my new company. Can’t wait to move on.

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
 – Thomas Jefferson