WHEN I was young, my parents and teachers taught me that when you walk on the road, you always had to keep to the right side of the road, because vehicles would always keep left. You would then be able to see vehicles coming towards you and take appropriate action. Today, I do not see this being emphasised because most roads have broad pavements on either...

WE REFER to the letter ''Could PCF space at void deck be better used?'' by Sng Y N (March 8). The void deck unit at Block 122D Rivervale Drive was let to PCF for use as a kindergarten and was returned to HDB in June last year. HDB is in the midst of inviting a new tenant for the unit. The PCF Punggol East branch was exploring alternative uses with the...

I HAVE been living in Punggol for the past three years. When I moved in, it was a very peaceful place, quiet and full of greenery. People flew kites in the open fields and you could always see plenty of children running around having fun on weekends. But all that changed when they started building a school beside our estate about a-year-and-a-half ago. The...

I was recently at the ICA Building to collect my 16-month-old son's passport. As passports have to be collected by the holder, my young son was with me. I arrived at 2pm and was stunned as there were 800 people ahead of me in the queue to collect passports. I later learnt that was the largest crowd the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority had encountered...

In my job search, I have sent almost 550 resumes to various companies, but only five replied to inform me that I was not successful in my application. It's much easier for anyone below 45 to get a job. To help older Singa-poreans gain employment, perhaps the authorities could hold more job fairs targeted specifically at us older workers.

IT IS heartening to know that an English Language Institute is finally being set up in Singapore, with the purpose of spearheading efforts to raise the standard of English here. However, Education Minister Ng Eng Hen's statement that ''the ability to write and speak the language well remains an essential skill to cultivate in the young'' should extend to our...

THE use of plastic bags here is excessive. The place is littered with plastic bags everywhere you look. In the past 12 months, the canal near where I live has progressively become more polluted with plastic bags (picture). A major supermarket chain here tried to do the right thing environmentally by encouraging customers to bring their own bag on Wednesdays....

FOREIGNERS are allowed to buy flats in private condominiums freely in Singapore. While there are rules to prevent the formation of racial enclaves in public housing, there are no such rules when units in private condominiums are sold. Recently, there was a suggestion to extend this rule to include foreigners who have become citizens and are buying resale HDB...

MANY organisations, both public and private, ask for our identity card numbers and birthdates before we are able to speak to their customer service officers. Calls to the traffic police, some banks and the HDB need either one or both items before a call is put through to its service officers. Why do we have to divulge such private details just for simple...

My husband and I were travelling to Kuala Kumpur by coach about a month ago, Upon alighting, my husband dropped his handphone in the bus. Our attempts to retrieve it met with failure when our calls to the phone were unanswered. My husband bought a new phone and we almost forgot about the incident until about two weeks later when I received a call. The person...