My stay in SG [part 6 - the scholarship's aftermath (cont'd)]

Alright, here is the 6th part of my soon-to-end long story (honestly, I even start to think that this may be its penultimate episode). For some of my friends who kept reminding me that the story hasn't yet reached its closure, I'm sorry guys. I just couldn't manage to wrap this one up last week (and the week before) immediately after the 5th part. I was kinda busy for the past 8-10 days, going through my probably-applying-to grad schools list for the...well, I don't even know how many times I've done it...God knows.
Oh btw, I decided to remove the previous post (the intermezo thingy) as I had been told, like four times in a row, that it may just be a hoax. I actually got it from this guy who has been a trustworthy source (so far), but apparently even Ega makes mistakes...oops... So, due to my lacking time, I didn't bother to re-check if that was really a nonsense and yeah, "just delete it" seemed like the best option. Sorry ga, I accidentally typed your name. But who knows if some random Hollywood producers happen to visit my blog and be interested in you lol.
Well well, I'd better start now before this post keeps getting longer and longer having nothing to do with the story itself. So, where was I? Yeah, my request for the original deed (still, if there was any).

May 2008, nearly 3 months from the very beginning of the case and I hadn't received any satisfactory email or notification from the "sponsor" regarding the existence of the deed. Well, I did get an email from NUS RO telling me that I didn't have to worry (what?!? I didn't have to worry?! These people must be nuts!! What did they expect me to do? Get laid??), that the deed was not gone, that the company just needed more time to return it to me (may I know why, dear fuckin' people??). Come on, did they seriously think I'm that stupid to realize that there was something wrong? Of course, I kept giving them the same answer too, that no matter what, I had the legal right to get 1 of the 2 copies of the original deed and that just an email wouldn't do me any good. I guess they just didn't have any idea whom they are dealing with. It's me and yeah, I can be way more stubborn than they could possibly imagine. Indeed, it's not about being stubborn or patient in this case; it's about being smart or being lied. More than anything, I never let people ruin my plan. If it happens, they're surely going down with me.

Few weeks passed, and at that stage even the people at the RO seemed to be giving up. I don't know if they had indeed been involved in all the lies during those 3 months, but apparently they then realized that it was about time to reveal the truth, admitting to me that the deed might be gone (or had been burnt in hell, maybe). They told me, however, that the company wouldn't in any case admit that they had lost the deed. So this one had not given up yet (what a headstrong!!) BUT neither had I. The NUS RO then suggested that I could just go on with my plan going to the States to pursue my graduate degree and safely assume that the deed was gone. Safely assume?!? Hell no. What if I followed their moron suggestion, preparing everything for going, applying for visa, buying the airline ticket and all of a sudden those bastards showed up on the day of my flight telling me that everything had to be canceled? "Can you guarantee that such a scenario won't happen?", I asked. Instead of giving me a yes/no answer, they came up with what they thought might be a good solution for me, telling me that, in the case that the company could finally locate the deed and used it as a reason to stop me from going, NUS'd work it out with the "sponsor" telling that I should be given time to finish my post-grad degree before serving my bond. For God's sakes, why didn't they just do it from the very first time? It was, unfortunately, too late. My concern was no longer on pursuing my post-grad study, yet on having a clear closure for the case. So, of course, I turned it down, not to mention the fact that my offer was no longer valid by then.

I realized how important it was to get the original deed as soon as possible, or to get a formal notification that it was gone. If the deed was really gone, they had to legally admit that the agreement was no longer valid. Think about it!! That scholarship clearly didn't worth my life. By no means did I want to be in such an obscure position for my entire life, not knowing if I still had any obligations to the "sponsor". I couldn't just play around assuming that it had been lost and spend the rest of my life in such an uncertainty. What if, say, 20 years from then, when I have settled down with my life, the "sponsor" comes to me telling that they found the deed from 2 decades ago that I have to come back to sg?

So, with all those that happened, I was no longer the only one against them. My family had definitely put much concern on this and by noticing how all those bitches and sons-of-bitches worked, we had no choice but to tell them that we wanted to break the bond immediately. This seemed like the best thing we could do, because in order for both of us (me & the "sponsor") to have a definite closure on the case, the latter had no choice but to show us the original deed or to admit that it had been lost. The signed agreement letter was clearly needed for us to be liable for paying back the Liquidated Damages. Otherwise, without the deed, they'd get nothing, not even a penny.
We also made it clear that, should they keep dragging the case without giving a satisfying answer, we wouldn't hesitate to look for a legal help, to bring the case up to media attention as well as to the court of law. If the "sponsor" didn't want its reputation tainted by this surely-unimportant-for-them case, they'd have to be gentle enough admitting their mistake. This was exactly what I told the RO to convey, and that I urged them to give me the contact details of the company for me to address my legal issue. They had no choice, I guess, or else the legal issue would be wrongly addressed to my loovveeelly university as the third party (note the cynicism). So, submitting a legal request would hopefully get us to the one behind all those chaoses.

The "sponsor" then asked for a 2-week time to give an answer. Answer?? I didn't even pose any question. Why'd it take them 2 weeks just to give me their address? Was Osama bin Laden hiding with them??
What came after 2 weeks was unimaginable. The sponsor, miraculously, finally agreed to let me go and pursue my post-grad study. Wowwww, wasn't that great? Yes, if my offer was still valid. As I had to provide an answer to the university giving me an offer by a certain date, this "good news" came a lil bit late; I had informed the university that I wouldn't be able to attend the program in Fall 2008. So, I turned down this "kind-hearted" offer from the "sponsor" who apparently had been kind enough letting me go at the end.
If there was any, this counter-offer that I got would only serve as another mean to convince me that the deed had indeed been lost. If not, why would the company change their decision that drastically? From insisting that I may not go to letting me go? Those people behind all the appeal processes must've realized that they could no longer win, that my request was just impossible to entertain. They prolly thought that I'd be exhilarated being allowed to go, forgetting the chore problem that the deed was gone. Well, I ain't that stupid. I told them how it was too late and how I had firmly decided to break the bond so as not to have any affiliation to such an irreverent party.

Being informed that I'd still want to break the bond and get a proper closure on the agreement, be it with or without getting any legal consult involved, the NUS RO told me that the "sponsor" needed another 2wk time to prepare everything. Now you see how all the processes almost drove me crazy, it took me more than 3 months just to keep waiting without going anywhere. I was running out of patience and thx to this case, I no longer disliked sg-I officially hate it. I just couldn't wait any longer and told the RO that it'd be the very last time I would ever want to wait. If those 2 weeks still got me nowhere, I'd no longer give them any more time. They wouldn't have to bother contacting me again as I'd stick to my plan and let a legal consult do everything for me.

(to be continued...)

My stay in SG [part 5 - the scholarship's aftermath (cont'd)]

Now, can you still spot some other stupidities in the company's argument? Well, how about this one: the reason that they rejected my request was because they had changed the policy, wasn't it? They changed their policy from requiring the scholar to put a security deposit of 10% to 100%. To me this doesn't make any sense at all. How could they just change the policy that drastically. From 10% to 100%? Hell they must be joking. In fact, from the scholarship agreement that I borrowed from 1 of my friend, since I have never even read mine, there wasn't any part stating how their policy might be in considering the scholars' appeal for pursuing a graduate study. So this is how sg defines a scholarship. Well, as far as I'm concerned, a scholarship is usually given without involving any contractual obligation or else it should be called a business deal instead. Even if there should be any contractual obligation, all the procedures of changing the policy must be made clear, don't you think? One of the parties involved in this business deal can't just change the policy without letting the other know.
So, motivated by this thought of mine, which I believe some people may be arguable to, I asked the NUS reg off to send the "sponsor" (my business partner indeed) to issue me a formal letter with its own letterhead stating when exactly the policy was changed, which clearly must be within June 2007-January 2008, referring back to my senior's case where the old policy still applied. And as I prolly have mentioned earlier, I had actually been having no contact with the "sponsor" whatsoever. I didn't even get any of the company's email to NUS reg off forwarded, let alone to get the direct contact number of the person in charge of all these stupid scholarship things. The staffs in NUS reg off only told me that all requests pertaining to my appeal must be made through them, and all answers from the company would as well be communicated to me from them. WTF?!?!? Who the hell do they think they are? The scholarship agreement, again if any, was initially made between me & the company, and in this regard the reg off has no right at all to go into the case. That was really one fuckin' experience anyone would never want to have. It was so complicated doing all things via a third-party when the "second-party" itself remained silent and unknown.
Oh btw, as I had expected, none of my request was entertained, like always. Even until today, there hasn't been such a formal letter from the company with its own letterhead stating anything regarding the policy change. Now I really doubt if this company does exist.

Now I'm about to end this part here and for those of you who are still wondering how this stupid unimportant scholarship thingy finally ended, please wait for the 6th part which will come real soon, prolly after weekend (yeah, I value my weekend seriously).
But as a closure, let me tell you something. At that time when I was still busy submitting my appeal, I even still had the email from this person called AO previously mentioned in the 3rd part of this story, which stated that I'd only be required to pay 10% of the LD. So I printed it out, brought it with me when I went to the NUS reg off to ask them how things could become totally different. I insisted of meeting this AO with the email prepared. I waited there asking someone to tell her that I was waiting. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes....I was still waiting. Then came another staff of the reg off. This time I told this guy how I had been waiting for 30 minutes, and that I'd really appreciate if I could meet her asap. He went in, but the one that came out to meet me turned out....someone else. What the heck was going on??? Had this AO been dead?? This other staff then told me that AO was very busy for the day, working on some financial aid thingy that were supposed to be finished on that day. "Oh what a coincidence," I replied, "so she can't even meet me for a minute?". Of course, the answer was a no.
Weeks later, this AO called me on my cell, telling me how the appeal process had been and she then said, "But you did receive the scholarship from them. Now can you with your conscience say that you didn't?". It didn't have to take me more than a second to reply, "Oh, speaking about moral and conscience, what do you think I should call someone who kept her guest waiting for more than 30 minutes without meeting him at the end? Don't you think that such a person is..well...morally challenged?". There you go, 1 for each of us.

N.B.: Now that I've analyzed all flaws in the company's argument, I'm sure that I'd get a 6 should this come up as a question in the Argument Essay part of the GRE General Test.

My stay in SG [part 4 - the scholarship's aftermath (cont'd)]

Now, continuing my previous post, what's so weird about the scholarship? Let me just start from here: all those 4 years from 2004 to 2008, I had thought that I was supposed to get 1 of the 2 copies of the original scholarship agreement, be it signed or not. I realized that I had not actually been given any one of those, but I didn't care about it at all. Maybe it's just the way they do things, so I thought, trying to be positive thinking that I'd definitely get one prior to graduation. Only after I encountered the previously mentioned problem with the sponsor regarding my request for defering the bond did I realize that I was the only one who had not received any formal document from the sponsor, if there was really any sponsor. There were 3 of us who got the same scholarship 4 years ago (again, if there was really any scholarship), and the other 2 had gotten their documents since we were in sophomore year. So, what makes me so special that my case is different, that they'd do anything (including hiding the documents) to stop me from going? Woww...am I indeed the Superman that they'd need me to work for them directly after graduation before it's too late when Lex Luthor comes with tons of cryptonites? Maybe I should really try to fly after this, and if I was really Superman, I'd fly directly to....Vegas??? Well if Superman does read this, sorry dude, I know you don't gamble.

Well, back to reality. At that time I guess it was already too late for me to settle everything like visa, etc. to go to the States. So I just knew that I couldn't attend the graduate program in Fall 2008, and my concern was then switched to getting the documents, to prove if I really got any single penny from the "sponsor". After all, mathematicians need proofs, we even prove that 1 is greater than 0. The NUS Registrar Office, with whom I had been having contact with, kept giving me some absurd reasons why the company had not entertained my request regarding the scholarship agreement documents. They told me that the sponsor was interested in looking at those documents and that they were using them to consider my appeal. How lame, it didn't sound like a good reason to me at all.
[Lesson learnt: apparently Singaporeans not only have to learn about good customer service, they also have to learn how to lie in a smart way]

So I told them to tell the sponsor (gosh this is so frustrating that I have to always write me-NUS-sponsor and sponsor-NUS-me, but this is exactly how it all worked; I'll explain this in the 5th part), that they were not the only one interested in looking at the documents; I was too, like freakingly. In fact, since they had 2 copies of the documents, why'd they need all 2 to consider my appeal? Couldn't they just use 1 and make a million copies out of it if there were really a million people involved in considering the appeal? And btw, don't you think there's something really flaw in their argument? Let me put it this way: they came up with this reason saying that they were using the documents to consider my appeal, but at the same time, the scholarship documents that had been held was only mine, with me being the only scholar who wanted the pursue a graduate degree outside sg. What a coincidence! Do you get what I mean? So apparently "my sponsor" had this sort of psychic power. Back to 2004, they must've already known that 4 years later, in 2008, this scholar Sie Haskell would submit an appeal for pursuing his postgrad study overseas, and that the other 2 scholars wouldn't. So they intendedly held my document to use it in 2008 to consider the appeal. Wowww....now shouldn't I be proud? I apparently had been sponsored by a company with such a great power of predicting the future. Even statisticians can't predict such a thing. Where does this company come from? Is it from out there, say Mars? Some kind of aliens or UFOs turn out to be generous enough sponsoring an ordinary Indonesian student to pursue an expensive Science course in NUS, the supposedly-ranked- number-29-in-the-world university. Now I should really contact them again asking for help to predict when on earth I can leave this god damn island.

Btw, I just remembered that there's also this moron reason they came up with weeks after my 1st appeal was rejected. They told me that my appeal had been rejected because I was about to pursue a PhD program which'd take 4-5 years, significantly longer than a Master program which'd take only less than 2 years to complete. Make sense? Maybe, if they hadn't previously sent me an email which explained that scholars may be allowed to defer the bond for pursuing either a Master program (for a maximum period of 2 years deferring the bond) or a PhD program (for a maximum of 5 years in deferring the bond). Now let me ask you a question. What's the point of them listing a PhD program as one of the options if a Master program'd be the only one given real consideration in the end? In mathematics, I guess this is what we call proving by contradiction. I even tried to convinced them that they could hold my degree scroll as a guarantee that I'd come back to sg to serve my bond after I get my post-grad degree, because I wouldn't be able to find any job in the world without that letter anyway. Even this proposal was rejected as well. Oh yeah, I kinda forget...I'm Superman remember? They need me to save the world asap, people can't wait for 5 years for Superman to start doing things.

(to be continued....now this really sounds like a Superman movie)

My stay in SG [part 3 - the scholarship's aftermath]

So, that was November 2006, my 5th semester in NUS, when I first had this thought of pursuing a Master degree outside sg, albeit not knowing where to apply. So I sent the NUS Registrar Office an email, telling this person (to be called AO from now on) that I might want to defer my bond for a postgraduate study and thus asking how the procedure would be. She then replied my email explaining that I'd be required to either provide 2 SPRs who are willing to sign a supplemental agreement or to put a security deposit in a bank of 10% of the total amount of the scholarship, which'd be around 7k SGD. Either procedure was meant as a guarantee that I'd come back to sg to serve my bond immediately after being conferred the master degree from overseas. So, that was a bit of a consolation to me, knowing that there's still a chance to do my master anywhere in the world but sg.

Time passed by and I was then in my final year when I heard that one of my senior, who was also under the same scholarship with me, had started his graduate program in one of the universities in the United States. I tried to ask him the formal procedure for deferring the bond, and what he had gone through was exactly the same with what I had been safely assuming, according to the email I previously mentioned.


Not knowing if I was good enough to get an offer from any university in the US, I decided to give it a try. I sent 3 applications to 3 different universities following the grueling month (note the singular form) of GRE and TOEFL preparation. Weeks later, I learnt that 1 of my application was successful, and the offer I got was indeed from the university I had been dreaming of. Wow....wasn't that great? Yeah, but this 'dream' was soon to be ruined into pieces.
After confirming that I got everything I need for the entire duration of the graduate program, I sent this (what I thought as) good news per email to the same person I had contact with, Ms. AO. I told her that I had gotten an offer of admission, together with a teaching assistantship which'd cover all my expenses as well as the tuition fees. I can still remember where I was at that time; I was at the Statistics Lab (S16 Level 5) doing my FYP presentation slides (or slacking, maybe). I was about to go home when I checked my email and...there you go, 1 reply from the Reg. Off. I couldn't believe what I read, but this is how it sounded (based on the true excerpt):
Dear Sie Haskell
Please send in an appeal email to us stating your reason for choosing to do the PhD Program overseas instead of locally by Friday 22 February 2008.
Please also note that there is a change in the policy for deferment of overseas postgraduate study. Under the new policy, if your appeal is successful, you will be allowed to defer your bond by putting a security deposit with us in the form of a Banker's Guarantee. The security deposit will be 100% of your liquidated damages. Scholars who have not completed the Tuition Grant bond are required to seek the Tuition Grant Unit's approval to defer their TG bond as well.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further clarifications.
Thank you.


Surprise surprise...yeah, it was so surprising that it nearly killed me. I didn't know what to say, what to do or what to reply, so I just went back to PGP, called my KTB off, and tried to fix my mood writing a reply. Luckily I was still kind enough using "thank you" instead of "fuck you" at the end of the email.
Despondently, I sent an email which I haven't stop regretting to date. As expected, it didn't do any good. The next reply I got was only to tell me that they'd submit an appeal on my behalf to the company (or maybe to themselves) regarding my request of paying only 10% of the LD. Btw, in case you haven't realized it, 100% of the LD amounts up to around 75k SGD or about 500 million Rupiah. Fuck it. And fuck the other LD as well....which LD? Yeah, aside from this 75k thingy I still have another obligation which'd cost me 87k SGD to break. How awesome.


Ok, now that I was only one more step from being unnecessarily stranded to work in sg when I wasn't ready, I had no choice but to contact the university offering me a graduate admission. I had to tell them that, unfortunately, I might need to reject the offer for the time being due to this horrible scenario I had not anticipated. That was the worst choice I'd ever make, and the feeling was bad...really bad. Knowing that I had gotten everything, from admission offer to scholarship, but ended up not being able to go was such a nightmare. Ok, I'm not trying to be so religious or anything, but I did keep asking God why it happened. Why would He give me all I'd need yet at the same time let me have such a huge problem? Wouldn't it be better if I just got rejected from all 3 univs? But well, soon enough I realized that we human are incapable in many aspects of our lives. No matter how well we have everything planned, God rules. None of our plan will come to reality if He says no. This, at least, taught me not to rely fully on myself.


Enough being so spiritual. Now comes the evil part. I did mention that I'm not trying to be so religious, didn't I? Hell yeah, I'm by no means being religious. When it comes to forgiveness, I just don't buy it. The fact that those people are the ones ruining my plan is more than enough for me to hate this island and its people more completely. Indeed, I did have the right to question all those that happened because the way my appeal was processed was just wrong. *well, I do think that this deserves its own part. So, let me just finish it here and continue on the next one*