By2
Saturday, August 9, 2008
So today as I was helping my aunt search for an oldie on the Internet(okay, I admit I downloaded music, but none of my computer can rip songs from a LD), I chanced upon this banner featuring two young female singers, Miko and Yumi, with the kind of generic cute face. Out of interest (purely, I swear), I clicked on that link and it auto-played some music that wasn't too bad. I liked it actually. I was like "Hey, who are By2? Never heard of them." And there, this is By2:
Like I said, they have generic cute faces. You (fans) can differ, but that's not going to change my stance about that anyway. Well, that's not important anyway.
There's a few reason I chose to blog about this pair of sisters.
1) They are Singaporeans
As a dutiful and country-loving citizen, (lol) I feel that it is important to support fellow countrymen in their path to stardom. Okay, I am half joking on this point.
2) They are merely 16
Yeps, they are younger than me if you haven't realised. And this is the relevant part.
Just for your info, they are no longer studying and have quitted school. It seems that they were from Yio Chu Kang Secondary School according to this link.
I gathered the following information from their blog. It's totally in chinese and thankfully, singlish is almost non-existant (except for the usage of a few hokkien words). Here's an excerpt:
今天就要把休学的信交给学校的主任老师，由于公司要求休学原因尽量保密，所以我们心里有点紧张，担心老师会问太多问题。放学后朋友们陪我们一起去见主任老师，说关于我们休学的事。老师问原因，我们就很简单的说要去国外念书，老师接着问了很多问题，幸好有朋友们帮忙cover-up，才没有被老师看出破绽.
Their resolve deserves some applause. Not many people would have dared to take this step of quitting school, especially when they aren't even in tertiary education. Initially, I wondered if their parent supported them doing this. But upon further reading of their blog, I realise their deceased father encouraged them to pursue their dream of becoming singers. So yea, they got support from their parents, though it's hard to imagine parents letting their child quit school to work so early. (Okay, maybe that's only applicable for mine.)
Not only that, they have decided their direction in life at that age too. Quit secondary education at 15, professional singers from Ocean Butterflies International (OB-I) by 16. That is, again, something that I won't be able to do because I am sitting here, trying to do my homework and totally unsure of my future, whereas this pair made up their mind at 15 or younger. I believe most of us are just studying for the sake of the promised place in the working population which we don't even know of (or changes sporadically) too. You would probably think that being in the working class is still something quite distant at that age.
And many people seem to think that they have quitted school because they were forced by OB-I. Well, they have to quit school if they were to take proper lessons on singing, isn't it? And another bunch has this misconception that they lied to their teacher or something (refer to the excerpt above). That is not true though: 最后一天，当老师当着全班宣布这件事，看到同学们脸上惊讶的表情。 但最让我惊讶的是，老师竟然当着全班说‘玮芬和玮玲要休学是要去当明星！’ This statement has already clarified that their teacher knew of their choice. By the way, I had to type this because it's a damn common misconception if anybody only read the first part. I conceived similar ideas when I was looking for information pertaining to them too.
With that being said, they have chosen an unconventional path (for Singaporeans at least), done what people their age shouldn't be doing, started working before everyone. I wish them luck in their career for they'll need it on this risky endeavour.
Anyway, their debut album is titled 16岁未成年 NC16. The songs are pretty nice in my opinion.
By the way, from this layman's point of view, they certainly dance well.
Okay, back to my homework!
Like I said, they have generic cute faces. You (fans) can differ, but that's not going to change my stance about that anyway. Well, that's not important anyway.
There's a few reason I chose to blog about this pair of sisters.
1) They are Singaporeans
As a dutiful and country-loving citizen, (lol) I feel that it is important to support fellow countrymen in their path to stardom. Okay, I am half joking on this point.
2) They are merely 16
Yeps, they are younger than me if you haven't realised. And this is the relevant part.
Just for your info, they are no longer studying and have quitted school. It seems that they were from Yio Chu Kang Secondary School according to this link.
I gathered the following information from their blog. It's totally in chinese and thankfully, singlish is almost non-existant (except for the usage of a few hokkien words). Here's an excerpt:
今天就要把休学的信交给学校的主任老师，由于公司要求休学原因尽量保密，所以我们心里有点紧张，担心老师会问太多问题。放学后朋友们陪我们一起去见主任老师，说关于我们休学的事。老师问原因，我们就很简单的说要去国外念书，老师接着问了很多问题，幸好有朋友们帮忙cover-up，才没有被老师看出破绽.
Their resolve deserves some applause. Not many people would have dared to take this step of quitting school, especially when they aren't even in tertiary education. Initially, I wondered if their parent supported them doing this. But upon further reading of their blog, I realise their deceased father encouraged them to pursue their dream of becoming singers. So yea, they got support from their parents, though it's hard to imagine parents letting their child quit school to work so early. (Okay, maybe that's only applicable for mine.)
Not only that, they have decided their direction in life at that age too. Quit secondary education at 15, professional singers from Ocean Butterflies International (OB-I) by 16. That is, again, something that I won't be able to do because I am sitting here, trying to do my homework and totally unsure of my future, whereas this pair made up their mind at 15 or younger. I believe most of us are just studying for the sake of the promised place in the working population which we don't even know of (or changes sporadically) too. You would probably think that being in the working class is still something quite distant at that age.
And many people seem to think that they have quitted school because they were forced by OB-I. Well, they have to quit school if they were to take proper lessons on singing, isn't it? And another bunch has this misconception that they lied to their teacher or something (refer to the excerpt above). That is not true though: 最后一天，当老师当着全班宣布这件事，看到同学们脸上惊讶的表情。 但最让我惊讶的是，老师竟然当着全班说‘玮芬和玮玲要休学是要去当明星！’ This statement has already clarified that their teacher knew of their choice. By the way, I had to type this because it's a damn common misconception if anybody only read the first part. I conceived similar ideas when I was looking for information pertaining to them too.
With that being said, they have chosen an unconventional path (for Singaporeans at least), done what people their age shouldn't be doing, started working before everyone. I wish them luck in their career for they'll need it on this risky endeavour.
Anyway, their debut album is titled 16岁未成年 NC16. The songs are pretty nice in my opinion.
By the way, from this layman's point of view, they certainly dance well.
Okay, back to my homework!
Labels: Music
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Lesson in Economics
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20, "declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.
Source : snopes.com
Well, I chanced upon this online but couldn't find the original source. Not that it matters anyway. A humorous attempt to explain tax system generally. If this isn't cynical enough for you, you can visit here for politics infused into this explanation. I found the latter too cynical (and crappy imo) for my taste so I'll rather stick with this story.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20, "declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.
Source : snopes.com
Well, I chanced upon this online but couldn't find the original source. Not that it matters anyway. A humorous attempt to explain tax system generally. If this isn't cynical enough for you, you can visit here for politics infused into this explanation. I found the latter too cynical (and crappy imo) for my taste so I'll rather stick with this story.
Click to read entire content!
