totz

"Of course, the terrible things I heard from the Nuremberg Trials, about the six million Jews and the people from other races who were killed, were facts that shocked me deeply. But I wasn't able to see the connection with my own past. I was satisfied that I wasn't personally to blame and that I hadn't known about those things. I wasn't aware of the extent. But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me, and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler. And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out." —Traudl Junge (interviewed during the movie Der Untergang (English title: Downfall)).

i rented the movie 'downfall' last mon..watched the movie before at e cinema but felt like watching again after 'sophie scholl'..it's still refreshing to me..e almost real depiction of hitler's last days in his bunker..tis time round prob focused more on each character's devpt instead..many feelings but e above statement left e deepest impression in me..sophie scholl was same age as traudl junge but yet one was inquisite and took an active approach towards life while e other was not reali ignorant but prob led a simple life..how to explain dat? prob junge saw more when she went thru this life experience..eyes more open n enlightened perhaps..guess it reali struck a chord in me..ignorance is prob not a bliss esp as a Christ follower..with God's love in us..desiring to live and share about Him..reali got me to make better use of my time..not to be passive or reactive..

"In asia, singapore may not be as exciting a city as hongkong or even mumbai. but it is much greener and far less polluted. it is not as wealthy as tokyo or as sophisticated culturally, but it is a lot friendlier towards expatriates."

"singapore is not a global pioneer in reusing water. orange county, southern california has been doing it for 30 years. where singapore has been a remarkable success is that it is not only cooping with a dire necessity but is also making a virtue out of it."
-Andy Mukherjee, Bloomberg news columnist, quoted from straits times review, 7th sept 06

i was reading tis article..i tot it reali brings out wat singapore is..many a times, we face stereotypes from ppl, how we should have this or lack dat..even among ourselves oso..there's always this perceived hopefuls that we wanna achieve in our small island..or make a big fuss over rising costs yet when others look at us from their point of view..it's not neccesarily e way we look at it..in fact, e article brings out e many distinctives that singapore has..even e tight security measures that we took at e ongoing imf meetings..haha..quite a trademark of us man..do believe dat we still can retain our distinctives in this global world..n even export our textbook model how to build a country to other developing ctys just like we have been trying to do so in e middle east region..