tea with President

Well, a tea session with the President. Much more fun than I thought it would be.. Let's see, two of the more meaningful incidents..

Firstly, a short dialogue (not really verbatim) between him and Dr Vivian Balakrishnan that went something like this:
President: "One day you'll have a female president or prime minister. (pause). The spouse will be male."
Dr Vivian: "Hope so!"

Eh.. that was just funny. more meaningful was his reply when asked by one person "Who was your role model in your youth?" and when asked by another "What were your dreams?"

His reply? "I had no dreams, no role model. I was living hand to mouth. We were not afforded the luxury of dreaming." He went on to say, "Even now, in schools and in workplaces, you see these people, preoccupied with tomorrow. But things come. You have opportunities, or people lift you up."

To me, that seems to say, that we should not be thinking about trying to encourage people to dream. Uplift them and naturally, they will dream? This is still a thought-in-progress.. Cos many people don't dream, even when they don't live hand-to-mouth... It's more like how people live day-to-day, not considering the journey, but looking down at each brick in the yellow brick road.

Funniest thing was when the forum organiser (names shall not be named to protect the not-so-innocent) ended with a closing summary and misquoted the President... Trying to bring his comments in line with NYC's "Dare to Dream" slogan, he said that the President had said that in those days they didn't have dreams, but times are different now.."

What happens when reality meets a slogan?