scholarships and npra

2 things are causing me much grief right now.

first one's the scholarships. okay maybe this one is worth all the headaches and frustrations if i actually manage to nail it. chances are, it's not gonna happen. my results in poly ain't exactly fantastic and i think i didn't leave a very good impression with my lecturers.. hm wonder what chee hock wah wrote in my (confidential) character reference report. anyway no use thinking about all this. i'm just gonna submit the applications and hope for the best. hey no harm trying right? i'm applying for 4 different scholarships btw.. nus, mas, ocbc and keppel. wish me luck!

alrighty the second one.. now this one's the real killer. npra - normanton park residents' association. that's the association where i live. there's an issue going on right now regarding the purchase of the common properties in normanton park (let's just say np from now yeah?). you see, the flats that the residents live in are owned by them. no surprises there. but the common property (walkways, field, playground, swimming pool, etc, etc) are owned by mindef. shocking isn't it. i had no idea about this as well. ah to cut a very long story short, npra wants each unit to pay $25k for the purchase of the common properties. problem is, i ain't got so much cash. take up a loan then they say.. yeah but i'll incur a 6% interest.. that's an additional $1500.00 of money going down the drain. it's kinda hard to afford that luxury when my family is already neck deep in debts. on top of that, my sister don't give two hoots and my mum can't really be bothered, my dad's in china so i guess that leaves me having to deal with this. i'm thinking to myself why do they have to purchase the common properties because of an en-bloc potential. the key word is potential. there's no real offer coming up yet because technically npra can't sell the place if they don't own it. so then why in the first place do we have to prepare for a potential en-bloc that might not even happen? why can't we just continue to rent the place from mindef? i don't really trust npra.. they're made up of ex-army officers and who knows.. npra's dealing with mindef here of all the government bodies. yeah they can pull strings but they might be pulling the wrong strings.. pulling the strings for themselves, not the residents. there's an extraordinary meeting coming up this sat. my mum's working so she can't attend. my sis can't be bothered. so... that leaves me again doesn't it? so... anybody willing to accompany me there?