More Books
I read the Asian perspective of "Teaching and Classroom Management", written by our local academicians. It puts its finger on the educational problem all right but failed to offer as many concrete solutions.
Another book "The Cult Of Personality Testing" echoes exactly my sentiments about how personality profiling is misguided and often a complete hogwash.
The Meyers-Briggs (which many an institution here is using), for instance, was invented by a , read this, housewife in the 1940s. Different sittings of the test has yielded different results. So what are we supposed to make of this test?
I am borrowing this book home to read in lieu of Professor Bryan Sykes' "The Seven Daughters of Eve" and Bill Bryson's book on the English language.
"An Encyclopaedia of True Crime" (a book which was unceremoniously dumped onto my couch by a young couple - possibly because they saw the stack of books there and thought it a dumping ground with no one in sight - I glimpsed them when I came back from a toilet break) listed Bonnie And Clyde (one a homosexual, the other a nymphomaniac) as partners in crime (The Perons too), evil women (Imelda Marcos as the Steel Butterfly) , murderous men and war criminals (Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and Sadam Hussein)
A Trip to Kinokuniya
On my first trip to Kinokuniya after a very long lapse, I couldn't help noticing that there weren't too many new books out on sale. Apart from Vincent Ng's muscle-rippling "Ten" (whose first few pages were torn right down the middle - a target of an overzealous fan perhaps?) and "Singapore: The Encyclopaedia", everything else looks almost the same. I was hoping for Professors Andrew Parker and Bryan Sykes to have written their sequels that they mentioned they would. But I didn't see any.
On my way back, after I had browsed copies of the "New Scientist" and "The Economist", a group of galls (who looked like university students) were drivelling away at the bus-stop. Among their chatter were a guy friend's bisexuality and an amorous (or eccentric) lecturer. Golly! The things galls talk about! Unbelievable!
Getaway
I recounted to Muiz about how easy Alvin got his interior finishing job. This had me thinking that should there be nothing else left for moi to do here, I could probably do what he did in another part of the world - most likely an advanced economy.
1st October Fare Increases
Don't forget that besides the time spent travelling to Springleaf Tower, there is also the issue of cost - $1.25 per trip (excludes return) and discounting the fare increases two days from now.
Too Much To Blog About
I could blog on all my working experiences in commercial and public schools, financial and medical companies. But it would mean a lot of soul-searching, reflection and delving deep into the past. That would take such a long time and so many pages of blogs, I am not sure I am up to it. And you too I presume .
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
My 4th Interview And My Real Pain The Last Few Days
My Real Pain
I have not been in the best frame of mind recently. I have this tension building up in me. With no job (and no real good job) in sight, I am not in a very comfortable position. At home, I can't roll over on a single bed, there is no TV , no computer, no nothing for home entertainment and I feel restricted and stifled as I can't bring friends in. It is just NOT HOME.
I worry about the days ahead especially over fast dwindling finances. My investment had not grown as much as I wanted it to and I have to be really tight-fisted. I can't buy my own place yet and I can't do any single thing.
It is my head that suffers the most. There is this throbbing pain centred between my eyebrows every time I am anxious or tensed up. When I am stressed like this, I can't think straight and I can spiral into despair and depression very quickly.
Every little incident or demand triggers negativism and I feel like I am snapping in two and breaking down when I am like this.
I just hope to get myself out of this rut real soon. I can't go on like this forever.
I have not been in the best frame of mind recently. I have this tension building up in me. With no job (and no real good job) in sight, I am not in a very comfortable position. At home, I can't roll over on a single bed, there is no TV , no computer, no nothing for home entertainment and I feel restricted and stifled as I can't bring friends in. It is just NOT HOME.
I worry about the days ahead especially over fast dwindling finances. My investment had not grown as much as I wanted it to and I have to be really tight-fisted. I can't buy my own place yet and I can't do any single thing.
It is my head that suffers the most. There is this throbbing pain centred between my eyebrows every time I am anxious or tensed up. When I am stressed like this, I can't think straight and I can spiral into despair and depression very quickly.
Every little incident or demand triggers negativism and I feel like I am snapping in two and breaking down when I am like this.
I just hope to get myself out of this rut real soon. I can't go on like this forever.
I really wanna kill all those FUCKTARDS (schools, government agencies, wimpy landlords and everyone) who push me into this unenviable and precarious situation. They are like pushing me to the brink of death without a single regard for my well-being and health.
FUCK YOU ALL, FUCKING BASTARDS!!!
The bus journey to get to the interview
I set off at exactly 3.30pm. The bus didn't come till 3.45pm. When I reached the bus-stop near the interview venue, it was almost 4.35 pm. Walking round MAS building to get to Springleaf Tower and taking the elevator up to the 19th floor took a good 7 minutes or more at least. I made it to the office at about 4.45pm.
A total of 1 hr 15 minutes (give or take 5 minutes) . And this is during the off-peak hour. Bus service 162 meanders its way through Thomson Road, Upper Thomson Road , Orchard Road and Shenton Way, all high-traffic areas with many stoplights.
The interview venue
A glitzy outfit redolent with the air of too much corporatism when it should be education.
Filling in the application form
A standard operating procedure. But of course I can't speak for the sanity of some of the particulars required.
If it is me they are employing, why does it have to involve my parents, spouse and children (some even need your siblings' information).
There is a column for naming the dialects I can converse, read and write in, with ranking ranging from excellent to average. Ihave to fill these in.
I deliberately left the reading and writing parts out as all Chinese dialects are read and written in the two standard Mandarin forms : simplified or traditional. It is only the spoken form that differs.
There are other application forms I have filed which need academic grades for every subject you sat for in all the major exams, right down from secondary to pre-university level. As if grades are any real measure of performance and competence.
The interviewer
A Vice-President of Administration and Student Affairs. It is also very sad that all the calls I have received so far (and previously) with regard to a schedule for an interview appointment never had the caller identifying who she/he is (or at least from what department) and who I will actually be meeting up with at the interview.
She was purposeful, full of questions and regal. I found myself loosening up a bit and softening my rigid stance. I warmed up a little. That is because this is already my 4th instance of interview and by now I am more than amply prepared. Questions were too fast and furious though and I would have preferred more time to reflect on them.
I must hand it to her - by far the best interviewer I have had- so far.....
The interview
I had to talk about myself. I talked about why I like education and training.
It went on to my teaching experiences in commercial schools and that was when the past rankled just a little.
For one, I won't be writing materials for anyone except unless I am tasked and paid to do so.
What the interview raked up from the past
Lots of assessment books to work on. That was exactly what two commercial schools did. And the books were not the really well-written kind.
Another had one master copy for moi and I had to xerox copies for the class. I had to supplement this with my own materials. The school had none whatsoever and worse, there were no audio tapes for the listening comprehension section. I had to read it out.
Talk about adequacy of administrative and educational support.
Conclusion
This is probably a job I can do over the next few months untill what I desire most comes along.
Gut feels
If what I experience here is extrapolated to the way Singapore conducts business with the rest of the world, I can't keep feeling that not many would be impressed or would even like to transact with us.
It leaves one cold and administratively burdened to sift through tonnes of paperwork like this. Not to mention dealing with issues of legality , rules and regulations.
That could explain some of our limited success in the international sphere for doing business or even in diplomacy and in general human relations.
It is like this kindly and friendly old lady down at the coffee shop who serves up rojak on a platter. She has a ready smile, is easy going and sincerely good at putting people at ease. Not a hardened female dominatrix.
No wonder she has won scores of ardent fans hankering after her food. Maybe we should all take a leaf from her. A BIG LOTUS LEAF.
Let It All Hang Out
Disclaimer: I Am Not In The Best Of Moods - SO FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, KEEP OUT OF MA WAY
Warning! You have read the above and have been forewarned. Anything untoward that happens to you should you not heed the above is entirely undertaken at your own peril. You may find yourself in various stages of undress and stripped down to your barest minimum or even buff naked. I am sure you and I will like that very much. *Wink.
I got invited for my 4th interview but this isn't really what I want. What I really, really, really want is that lecturing position at the Centre for English Language studies at the local university. Or teaching at an all-boys school or at the poly or jc. MY GOD! Where are these jobs? Gone to the foreign dogs?
Mooncakes
Count the mooncakes among our roti-pratas and pancakes which now have such exotic fillings and texture like the snowskin truffles for instance. This is a far cry from the traditional, double-yolk, crusty, baked types. Incidentally I prefer the snowskin sort much better. Especially the durian flavours.
Get A Life Or At Least Give Me Yours
What does the university don involved with a China gal karoake dance hostess tell you? They have too much free time on their hands and way too big wages for their own good to be able to fritter away and lavish expensive luxuries, gifts and cash on their paramours like that.
Knock, Knock, Who's There?
Knock, knock...
Who's there?
Pluto.
Pluto Who?
Pluto is out of the solar system but plutocracy is in almost all democracies
More Cheers, Singapore
Now that Genting and Universal look set to win the Sentosa IR bid, Singapore can cheer that this will be another feather in its cap to capture a BIG slice of the resorts, entertainment , lifesytle, conventions and gaming sectors of the tourism market.
I remember myself cheering too when we had our NEWater. In fact, I was visiting a trade exhibition where I happily unleashed my newfound good cheer upon a Malaysian trade delegation hucking their wares there. They took it in good spirit and wittily retorted that we were drinking sewage water and pooh-pooh the whole idea.
Foreign Encounters
I spoke with Alvin last Saturday evening. Alvin, just in case you wanna know, is a Filipino interior finisher. The story he told me of how he got a job here had me amazed beyond words.
Alvin came to Singapore on 31st May. His two lady companions also got jobs here, months and a year ahead of him. Within two weeks of scanning the local classifieds, he got a job and his "S" pass was duly processed after two months (though he was initially rejected but successfully appealed).
When I spoke with a Filipino years ago and broached the name of the Marcoses, I could sense his defensiveness and anger. Apparently despite all that the Marcoses had done, they still command loyalty, respect and support among the populace back home. Alvin affirmed this.
Some time back when I put through a call to a virus software foreign manufacturer, a distinct drawl greeted me (it was outsourced to a country in the Pacific region) and I could not make head nor tail of what was being said. It was the same story again at the sport retail shops here as I strain to listen to the sales pitch.
I can't imagine how all hell must break loose with the opening up and relaxation of more "S' passes!
A Malay Barber's Bad Hair-Cut And My Bad Hair Day
He was pre-occupied taping his fish tank (which housed an arowana) with a friend by his side when I walked into the shop. To me, the BIG UGLY fish looks to be the centrepiece of his business and a hair-cut is just a side-line.
Several minutes later, without even cleaning his hands, he attended to moi.
He asked what I wanted for the back of my hair and I asked him what was I presently having. He answered "layered" , so I requested for him to keep it. Being a barber, I trusted him to know better. It was actually slope and you can imagine how with a short cropped top and sides, a layered back looks awfully out of place.
Throughout I had to grin and bear with this lout and his rough handling as he snipped and shaved away to thy kingdom come, almost tearing my hair out.
He had been in the hair trade for 9 years which would put him right about at the peak of the financial crisis of 1997. He closes early as he also runs stalls at flea markets. If you ask me, he was probably like another I met long ago, originally a technician who switched to barbering.
Like all the factory operators, hair dressers, flight attendants, timber merchants, insurance and real estate agents flocking to the education business.
He whined about everything. Gosh, nobody asks for the world but a decent enough hair-cut will be nice even though it costs only $8 and on this he can't even provide.
Lasting no more than 5 minutes, it was all over. He did not even show me my hair after he has cut it like all good barbers do with that customary hand mirror.
I went home and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I was almost bald with patches of hair here and there. THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!
I walked all the way back to the barber shop, met a lady along the way whom I commiserated with over my bad haircut and she told me she never sent her son there.
I demanded a re-cut, made known to him what I thought was wrong with him and his cut and then left. This will be my first and last visit to the shop.
The Simpsons And Philosophy
If Homer Simpson thought that cartoons are just "some stupid drawings trying to draw some cheap laughs", he can't be any more wrong. Matt Groening studied philosophy in his university days.
Out came this book with a slew of philosophy writers expounding on all manner of philosophical traits and themes found in the characters and in the episodes. From Aristotle to Nietzsche, every essay was a profound philosophical elucidation.
The Simpsons, being an animated fiction, makes it even easier and absurder to caricature life, what with its unfettered physical humour and exaggerated takes on life.
What Is Wrong With Education Here - A Partial Review
Schools, like the libraries, can take a leaf on how they can help students to help themselves in learning.
They can make available more copies and varieties of good-sized, comprehensive and fully-illustrated dictionaries (like the Longman or Oxford kind) as well as world atlases. These are as indispensable a tool for learning as is the mouse or keyboard for surfing the INTERNET.
In fact school libraries are so poorly stocked with books that they are hardly resource centres for students to do their own research and independent learning. Private libraries (book stores) have yet to be rivalled in terms of sheer quantity, range, availability and up-to-the-minute resources.
The envisaged digital library, as has been recently confirmed, has books (and even then NOT YET ALL THE BOOKS IN THE WORLD) in three main modes for viewing : snippets, preview and full view, with far and few books in the third category.
This means the print media (books, magazines and journals) will remain the major source for reading, research and learning.
Students cannot research topics of study or interest in schools but outside school and outside curriculum time. They can only present their findings or hand in assignments during school hours.
To me education is pro-active and students learn best this way, reading up on a topic extra-curricularly to gain different and additional insights (sometimes even attaining crystal-clear understanding of a subject which prescribed textbooks cannot illuminate), looking up words in a corpus and tracing the development of events with an atlas.
Certainly, speaking for myself, I learn better and much more this way.
John Holt wrote his book prior to his death in 1985. The American education system then was riven with the problems he wrote in his book. By now, hopefully, things have changed for the better.
However if Singapore hasn't and we are still emulating their educational system of the early and mid 80s (which the Americans must have acknowledged to be not quite right and redressed ), then woe befall us for all the future educational and national problems we will bring upon ourselves.
Warning! You have read the above and have been forewarned. Anything untoward that happens to you should you not heed the above is entirely undertaken at your own peril. You may find yourself in various stages of undress and stripped down to your barest minimum or even buff naked. I am sure you and I will like that very much. *Wink.
P.S: This is only if you are a buffed and hunky beefcake and strictly for GUYS ONLY, please!
O Elusive Coveted Plum Job, Wherefore Art Thou?I got invited for my 4th interview but this isn't really what I want. What I really, really, really want is that lecturing position at the Centre for English Language studies at the local university. Or teaching at an all-boys school or at the poly or jc. MY GOD! Where are these jobs? Gone to the foreign dogs?
Mooncakes
Count the mooncakes among our roti-pratas and pancakes which now have such exotic fillings and texture like the snowskin truffles for instance. This is a far cry from the traditional, double-yolk, crusty, baked types. Incidentally I prefer the snowskin sort much better. Especially the durian flavours.
Get A Life Or At Least Give Me Yours
What does the university don involved with a China gal karoake dance hostess tell you? They have too much free time on their hands and way too big wages for their own good to be able to fritter away and lavish expensive luxuries, gifts and cash on their paramours like that.
Knock, Knock, Who's There?
Knock, knock...
Who's there?
Pluto.
Pluto Who?
Pluto is out of the solar system but plutocracy is in almost all democracies
More Cheers, Singapore
Now that Genting and Universal look set to win the Sentosa IR bid, Singapore can cheer that this will be another feather in its cap to capture a BIG slice of the resorts, entertainment , lifesytle, conventions and gaming sectors of the tourism market.
I remember myself cheering too when we had our NEWater. In fact, I was visiting a trade exhibition where I happily unleashed my newfound good cheer upon a Malaysian trade delegation hucking their wares there. They took it in good spirit and wittily retorted that we were drinking sewage water and pooh-pooh the whole idea.
Foreign Encounters
I spoke with Alvin last Saturday evening. Alvin, just in case you wanna know, is a Filipino interior finisher. The story he told me of how he got a job here had me amazed beyond words.
Alvin came to Singapore on 31st May. His two lady companions also got jobs here, months and a year ahead of him. Within two weeks of scanning the local classifieds, he got a job and his "S" pass was duly processed after two months (though he was initially rejected but successfully appealed).
When I spoke with a Filipino years ago and broached the name of the Marcoses, I could sense his defensiveness and anger. Apparently despite all that the Marcoses had done, they still command loyalty, respect and support among the populace back home. Alvin affirmed this.
Some time back when I put through a call to a virus software foreign manufacturer, a distinct drawl greeted me (it was outsourced to a country in the Pacific region) and I could not make head nor tail of what was being said. It was the same story again at the sport retail shops here as I strain to listen to the sales pitch.
I can't imagine how all hell must break loose with the opening up and relaxation of more "S' passes!
A Malay Barber's Bad Hair-Cut And My Bad Hair Day
He was pre-occupied taping his fish tank (which housed an arowana) with a friend by his side when I walked into the shop. To me, the BIG UGLY fish looks to be the centrepiece of his business and a hair-cut is just a side-line.
Several minutes later, without even cleaning his hands, he attended to moi.
He asked what I wanted for the back of my hair and I asked him what was I presently having. He answered "layered" , so I requested for him to keep it. Being a barber, I trusted him to know better. It was actually slope and you can imagine how with a short cropped top and sides, a layered back looks awfully out of place.
Throughout I had to grin and bear with this lout and his rough handling as he snipped and shaved away to thy kingdom come, almost tearing my hair out.
He had been in the hair trade for 9 years which would put him right about at the peak of the financial crisis of 1997. He closes early as he also runs stalls at flea markets. If you ask me, he was probably like another I met long ago, originally a technician who switched to barbering.
Like all the factory operators, hair dressers, flight attendants, timber merchants, insurance and real estate agents flocking to the education business.
He whined about everything. Gosh, nobody asks for the world but a decent enough hair-cut will be nice even though it costs only $8 and on this he can't even provide.
Lasting no more than 5 minutes, it was all over. He did not even show me my hair after he has cut it like all good barbers do with that customary hand mirror.
I went home and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I was almost bald with patches of hair here and there. THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!
I walked all the way back to the barber shop, met a lady along the way whom I commiserated with over my bad haircut and she told me she never sent her son there.
I demanded a re-cut, made known to him what I thought was wrong with him and his cut and then left. This will be my first and last visit to the shop.
The Simpsons And Philosophy
If Homer Simpson thought that cartoons are just "some stupid drawings trying to draw some cheap laughs", he can't be any more wrong. Matt Groening studied philosophy in his university days.
Out came this book with a slew of philosophy writers expounding on all manner of philosophical traits and themes found in the characters and in the episodes. From Aristotle to Nietzsche, every essay was a profound philosophical elucidation.
The Simpsons, being an animated fiction, makes it even easier and absurder to caricature life, what with its unfettered physical humour and exaggerated takes on life.
What Is Wrong With Education Here - A Partial Review
Schools, like the libraries, can take a leaf on how they can help students to help themselves in learning.
They can make available more copies and varieties of good-sized, comprehensive and fully-illustrated dictionaries (like the Longman or Oxford kind) as well as world atlases. These are as indispensable a tool for learning as is the mouse or keyboard for surfing the INTERNET.
In fact school libraries are so poorly stocked with books that they are hardly resource centres for students to do their own research and independent learning. Private libraries (book stores) have yet to be rivalled in terms of sheer quantity, range, availability and up-to-the-minute resources.
The envisaged digital library, as has been recently confirmed, has books (and even then NOT YET ALL THE BOOKS IN THE WORLD) in three main modes for viewing : snippets, preview and full view, with far and few books in the third category.
This means the print media (books, magazines and journals) will remain the major source for reading, research and learning.
Students cannot research topics of study or interest in schools but outside school and outside curriculum time. They can only present their findings or hand in assignments during school hours.
To me education is pro-active and students learn best this way, reading up on a topic extra-curricularly to gain different and additional insights (sometimes even attaining crystal-clear understanding of a subject which prescribed textbooks cannot illuminate), looking up words in a corpus and tracing the development of events with an atlas.
Certainly, speaking for myself, I learn better and much more this way.
John Holt wrote his book prior to his death in 1985. The American education system then was riven with the problems he wrote in his book. By now, hopefully, things have changed for the better.
However if Singapore hasn't and we are still emulating their educational system of the early and mid 80s (which the Americans must have acknowledged to be not quite right and redressed ), then woe befall us for all the future educational and national problems we will bring upon ourselves.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
I Am Reading Like I Have Never Read Before
Reading all these books is making me feel alive again. The last few days, I have been onto all sorts of books on "Leadership", the English language and even popular philosophy (ala The Simpsons).
I straightened out my thoughts on the development of language (philology) and of the English language in particular.
That settles it then. We may be linguistically competent (which runs the gamut of phonology, semantics and grammar) but we may not be communicatively competent (pragmatics in various social settings).
I am certainly practising moral philosophy. My own line of reasoning leading to decision-making, independent of religious codas.
It was also great to sort out my thoughts on the various approaches to leadership and its practises.
Hail All to Great Books!
I straightened out my thoughts on the development of language (philology) and of the English language in particular.
That settles it then. We may be linguistically competent (which runs the gamut of phonology, semantics and grammar) but we may not be communicatively competent (pragmatics in various social settings).
I am certainly practising moral philosophy. My own line of reasoning leading to decision-making, independent of religious codas.
It was also great to sort out my thoughts on the various approaches to leadership and its practises.
Hail All to Great Books!
Monday, September 18, 2006
More Architectural Wonders, Monster House , Gymnos And Poor Dwayne
Architecture Now (Vol 4)
A must read for all architecture buffs. Hey I may be a movie buff too but I am selective.
Besides the ones I have listed previously, there are other note-worthy buildings. These are all contemporary designs unlike the ancient types of the Classical, Baroque or Romanticism periods (egs. Houses of Parliament in England)
The Nobel Peace Centre (Oslo, Norway), The Copenhangen Opera House, the Scottish Parliament, the Olympic Park (Munich, Germany) and The Guggenheim (Mexico, not the ones in Bilbao Spain or the USA).
They are spacy, futuristic and unobstrusive, blending well with the background they are built on and not some sky-high towers that obliterate views and look out of place.
Check these out!
What is happening at the community library
The crowd at the library is finally thinning. But in the late afternoons, evenings and on weekends, it is a social gathering of sorts, with coupled or groups of teens, hanging out to study or do projects. It is also a stamping ground for families to visit and gawk.
It is almost like school. I am kinda getting used to it but if you seriously wanna do a spot of reading, research or computing, don't count on not being distracted by handsome dudes trekking up and down, across and all over the library's hallowed halls.
I can't get down to work like this, hunky dudes. Gimme a break. *Smiles.
And of course, the headphone wires are still short, even if you uncoil them at the back of the monitor.
Monster House
The animation is so good, it looks like the real thing, right down to the falling red leaf in autumn. The plot is one which the writers must have cudgelled their brains scripting - simple yet intriguing. The characters are teens who are about as real as the ones we get in real life.
There is DJ, the boy who lives across from the spooky house which is inhabited by an old neighbor and the spirit of his "Monster Wife", thus the name of the movie in the first place. He would holler and confiscate one and all who set foot on his lawn which is what his wife would have wanted.
DJ has a basketball buddy Chowder. DJ's parents are leaving town for a while and has Elizabeth to nanny DJ. Elizabeth isn't your run-of-the-mill "babysitter". She is wickedly hip and conniving. It doesn't help that she has a punk rocker of a boyfriend too.
The last straw was when a girl came a-calling, pre-Halloween and almost got walloped by the Monster House. That is when the trio decided that they have to do battle with the forces of evil.
They cooked up a plan that consisted of sending out a vacuum cleaner of a scarecrow filled with sleeping medicine to quell the Monster House but almost got arrested by the neighborhood police who happened to patrol the place just at that moment.
However once they got their old neighbor on their side (who was admitted into and then discharged from the hospital) tamping down the evil wife's spirit was a cinch. They blew up the house with a stick of dynamite.
Don't forget to stay on for the closing credits as there is a final scene where Elizabeth's bf, the police and a dog scramble out of the house alive.
Gymnos
I was walking around the sports hall and there was this noise coming from inside. There, in one corner of the multi-purpose hall, some school gymnasts were half naked and had such wonderful bods (apart from Dwayne's of course), I drooled.
That aside, they were running up to the horse vault to do their little somersault thingy. After that, they climbed a rope (which is now a discontinued event in the Olympics). That got me intrigued, I mean the sport not their bods.
I discovered that "gymnos" means naked in Greek and gymnasiums were places where the sportsmen in Ancient Greece trained in the buff. WHOA! That got me all heated up. If only we could do that now!
Poor Dwayne!
Today I surfed and blogged at a LAN shop. At the libraries, I can never get to read the chatterboxes as they are never there (the legislators have curtailed all chatter at all the public institutions).
As I have not been following the thread of chatter for such a long time, I was shocked Dwayne had been spammed and stalked by a certain unsavoury character who happens to be schooling at his alumnus.
My heart goes out to you Dwayne! And that doggy post is cute! But the stalker sounds like HE likes you. Why dont you just give him a frigging chance to know and like you too.
Muahahahahahha. Burp.
A must read for all architecture buffs. Hey I may be a movie buff too but I am selective.
Besides the ones I have listed previously, there are other note-worthy buildings. These are all contemporary designs unlike the ancient types of the Classical, Baroque or Romanticism periods (egs. Houses of Parliament in England)
The Nobel Peace Centre (Oslo, Norway), The Copenhangen Opera House, the Scottish Parliament, the Olympic Park (Munich, Germany) and The Guggenheim (Mexico, not the ones in Bilbao Spain or the USA).
They are spacy, futuristic and unobstrusive, blending well with the background they are built on and not some sky-high towers that obliterate views and look out of place.
Check these out!
What is happening at the community library
The crowd at the library is finally thinning. But in the late afternoons, evenings and on weekends, it is a social gathering of sorts, with coupled or groups of teens, hanging out to study or do projects. It is also a stamping ground for families to visit and gawk.
It is almost like school. I am kinda getting used to it but if you seriously wanna do a spot of reading, research or computing, don't count on not being distracted by handsome dudes trekking up and down, across and all over the library's hallowed halls.
I can't get down to work like this, hunky dudes. Gimme a break. *Smiles.
And of course, the headphone wires are still short, even if you uncoil them at the back of the monitor.
Monster House
The animation is so good, it looks like the real thing, right down to the falling red leaf in autumn. The plot is one which the writers must have cudgelled their brains scripting - simple yet intriguing. The characters are teens who are about as real as the ones we get in real life.
There is DJ, the boy who lives across from the spooky house which is inhabited by an old neighbor and the spirit of his "Monster Wife", thus the name of the movie in the first place. He would holler and confiscate one and all who set foot on his lawn which is what his wife would have wanted.
DJ has a basketball buddy Chowder. DJ's parents are leaving town for a while and has Elizabeth to nanny DJ. Elizabeth isn't your run-of-the-mill "babysitter". She is wickedly hip and conniving. It doesn't help that she has a punk rocker of a boyfriend too.
The last straw was when a girl came a-calling, pre-Halloween and almost got walloped by the Monster House. That is when the trio decided that they have to do battle with the forces of evil.
They cooked up a plan that consisted of sending out a vacuum cleaner of a scarecrow filled with sleeping medicine to quell the Monster House but almost got arrested by the neighborhood police who happened to patrol the place just at that moment.
However once they got their old neighbor on their side (who was admitted into and then discharged from the hospital) tamping down the evil wife's spirit was a cinch. They blew up the house with a stick of dynamite.
Don't forget to stay on for the closing credits as there is a final scene where Elizabeth's bf, the police and a dog scramble out of the house alive.
Gymnos
I was walking around the sports hall and there was this noise coming from inside. There, in one corner of the multi-purpose hall, some school gymnasts were half naked and had such wonderful bods (apart from Dwayne's of course), I drooled.
That aside, they were running up to the horse vault to do their little somersault thingy. After that, they climbed a rope (which is now a discontinued event in the Olympics). That got me intrigued, I mean the sport not their bods.
I discovered that "gymnos" means naked in Greek and gymnasiums were places where the sportsmen in Ancient Greece trained in the buff. WHOA! That got me all heated up. If only we could do that now!
Poor Dwayne!
Today I surfed and blogged at a LAN shop. At the libraries, I can never get to read the chatterboxes as they are never there (the legislators have curtailed all chatter at all the public institutions).
As I have not been following the thread of chatter for such a long time, I was shocked Dwayne had been spammed and stalked by a certain unsavoury character who happens to be schooling at his alumnus.
My heart goes out to you Dwayne! And that doggy post is cute! But the stalker sounds like HE likes you. Why dont you just give him a frigging chance to know and like you too.
Muahahahahahha. Burp.
I Am Finaly Well Rested
Architectural Icons Of The World - Can We Learn From Them?
Thumbing through the pages of a book on architecture, my eyes popped wide open when I caught sight of several truly architectural wonders of the world. There are many compiled in this book but I will name just a few. The last entry isn't but just my general comments on our up and coming Marina IR.
The Allianz Arena
Since Singapore is building its new National Stadium soon, I hope they can perhaps take its cue from this football stadium which can change colour because of light, situated in Munich, Germany (maybe it is already too late as the blueprint must have been finalised by now?). It is shaped like a spherical tyre with a crater as its centre-piece.
The Liaunig Museum
This must be the latest thinking in architectural concepts - topographical insertions. Sorta unobtrusive, rising out of the landscape but congruent with the surrounding kinda precept. This museum in Austria even has its architectural outline echoing the mountains in the distance in a kinda undulation.
The Musa, Spain
Several low-storey buildings linked with one another. What stands out is the multi-coloured window glazing effect and rows of exhibit spaces arranged in waves.
The Holocaust Museum
Built to blend in with the hillside, it is sprawled over Jerusalem, Israel. It has pyramidal interiors punctuated by skylights and floored glass burial grounds for exhibits of the Holocaust.
Flyotel
5-star hotel in Dubai, UAE which has a kinda tear-drop shape, strung out in the middle of the bay like our Marina IR is.
Marina IR
So far the double-helical bridge and the Singapore Art Park look really good. The rest can do with a rethink and re-design. If we are gonna pay XXX amount of dollars, we should at least get the value we deserve for the few architectural monuments serving as meccas for tourists.
Bush - Get the Hell Outta America And Stay Out
Just reading his speech on the Day of Mourning post 9/11 was infuriating enough . In just a few words, he professes to chart the course of mankind and that this destiny will affect millions. Bush, the only course you are steering mankind on is to WAR, DESTRUCTION and DEATH. You would probably go down in the annals of history as THE American president to lead not millions but billions, to their decimation with your World War III rhetoric.
What's more on the educational scene?
The more I think about it, the more it wasn't just the interrogation the job interview turned into. Dennis, like all the Pharisees were doing to Jesus in the Bible, was kinda luring moi into a trap with his questions. Testing, tempting and tamping down. The ridicule and the mock.
If I ever had my way, no commercial schools would be left today except for the handful. They would be the ones who can provide educational alternatives. But schools can always do this too, if there is a collective will, all the way from the top.
All my good research materials are gone
When I sold off my place, I have not only lost all my good electronic goods (those made in the USA and Japan stuff) but all my good research study materials. I had all those fantastically written Oxbridge language books and a very good reference book from the Ohio State University on "Linguistics".
I was fuming mad to say the least. In fact I wanted to kill somebody.
John Holt's "Instead Of Education" Thus Far
John Holt distinguishes between "schooling", "education" and "learning". The last of the three usually means doing instead of just learning. He laments how schools have turned into institutions that humiliate, label, rank and belittle students, especially those less academically inclined.
In Winston Churchill's words, "education isn't about finding out what students don't know and thus help in rectifying that but to then ostracise or mark him out from those who do know"
Think of our alpha-numeric grades (A-F and 0-100 ) and streaming . Is this necessary in the first place if we only seek to help students correct their mistakes and to help them know the things they don't? Aren't we labelling and ranking them?
John Holt suggested resources like libraries, trade journals, free-schools and sports amenities to help students to help themselves. We have lots of that here but they are all on a commercial-fee paying basis except for the public libraries. But public libraries can never beat private libraries (the book-stores) in sheer range, availability and quality of books.
He then listed the kinda qualities good teachers would have - as support, guide, feedbacker, orderer of tasks , sparkers of curiousity and thus further learning. He also suggested ways students can help themselves - learning and observing role models, mental picturing, experiencing and so on.
John Holt finally read books on Maths that illuminated his earlier learning. One of which was Euler's formula. I had the same insight too when I came across Pythogarus Theorem much recently. I had never grasped its mathematical significance until I stumbled upon its geographical/mapping importance.
A diagonal of a right-angled triangle (which would be subsumed within a square or rectangular-shaped figure) is always shorther than the sum of its two other sides. Therefore it makes sense to cut across a field diagonally than to traverse its whole length and breadth if you wanna make headway in time and distance.
Thumbing through the pages of a book on architecture, my eyes popped wide open when I caught sight of several truly architectural wonders of the world. There are many compiled in this book but I will name just a few. The last entry isn't but just my general comments on our up and coming Marina IR.
The Allianz Arena
Since Singapore is building its new National Stadium soon, I hope they can perhaps take its cue from this football stadium which can change colour because of light, situated in Munich, Germany (maybe it is already too late as the blueprint must have been finalised by now?). It is shaped like a spherical tyre with a crater as its centre-piece.
The Liaunig Museum
This must be the latest thinking in architectural concepts - topographical insertions. Sorta unobtrusive, rising out of the landscape but congruent with the surrounding kinda precept. This museum in Austria even has its architectural outline echoing the mountains in the distance in a kinda undulation.
The Musa, Spain
Several low-storey buildings linked with one another. What stands out is the multi-coloured window glazing effect and rows of exhibit spaces arranged in waves.
The Holocaust Museum
Built to blend in with the hillside, it is sprawled over Jerusalem, Israel. It has pyramidal interiors punctuated by skylights and floored glass burial grounds for exhibits of the Holocaust.
Flyotel
5-star hotel in Dubai, UAE which has a kinda tear-drop shape, strung out in the middle of the bay like our Marina IR is.
Marina IR
So far the double-helical bridge and the Singapore Art Park look really good. The rest can do with a rethink and re-design. If we are gonna pay XXX amount of dollars, we should at least get the value we deserve for the few architectural monuments serving as meccas for tourists.
Bush - Get the Hell Outta America And Stay Out
Just reading his speech on the Day of Mourning post 9/11 was infuriating enough . In just a few words, he professes to chart the course of mankind and that this destiny will affect millions. Bush, the only course you are steering mankind on is to WAR, DESTRUCTION and DEATH. You would probably go down in the annals of history as THE American president to lead not millions but billions, to their decimation with your World War III rhetoric.
What's more on the educational scene?
The more I think about it, the more it wasn't just the interrogation the job interview turned into. Dennis, like all the Pharisees were doing to Jesus in the Bible, was kinda luring moi into a trap with his questions. Testing, tempting and tamping down. The ridicule and the mock.
If I ever had my way, no commercial schools would be left today except for the handful. They would be the ones who can provide educational alternatives. But schools can always do this too, if there is a collective will, all the way from the top.
All my good research materials are gone
When I sold off my place, I have not only lost all my good electronic goods (those made in the USA and Japan stuff) but all my good research study materials. I had all those fantastically written Oxbridge language books and a very good reference book from the Ohio State University on "Linguistics".
I was fuming mad to say the least. In fact I wanted to kill somebody.
John Holt's "Instead Of Education" Thus Far
John Holt distinguishes between "schooling", "education" and "learning". The last of the three usually means doing instead of just learning. He laments how schools have turned into institutions that humiliate, label, rank and belittle students, especially those less academically inclined.
In Winston Churchill's words, "education isn't about finding out what students don't know and thus help in rectifying that but to then ostracise or mark him out from those who do know"
Think of our alpha-numeric grades (A-F and 0-100 ) and streaming . Is this necessary in the first place if we only seek to help students correct their mistakes and to help them know the things they don't? Aren't we labelling and ranking them?
John Holt suggested resources like libraries, trade journals, free-schools and sports amenities to help students to help themselves. We have lots of that here but they are all on a commercial-fee paying basis except for the public libraries. But public libraries can never beat private libraries (the book-stores) in sheer range, availability and quality of books.
He then listed the kinda qualities good teachers would have - as support, guide, feedbacker, orderer of tasks , sparkers of curiousity and thus further learning. He also suggested ways students can help themselves - learning and observing role models, mental picturing, experiencing and so on.
John Holt finally read books on Maths that illuminated his earlier learning. One of which was Euler's formula. I had the same insight too when I came across Pythogarus Theorem much recently. I had never grasped its mathematical significance until I stumbled upon its geographical/mapping importance.
A diagonal of a right-angled triangle (which would be subsumed within a square or rectangular-shaped figure) is always shorther than the sum of its two other sides. Therefore it makes sense to cut across a field diagonally than to traverse its whole length and breadth if you wanna make headway in time and distance.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
The Educational Scene
My 3rd interview and counting
I got a call from Dennis and clinched my 3rd interview for the year. There were some conversational exchange of an offer of partnership and his chain of schools employed mostly ex-NIE trained teachers, some 90% of them on his payroll.
I told him I wasn't any NIE-trained teacher. But that if I do not measure up, I could always be fired or better still, I would fire myself (if anyone has a conscience, he/she would - speaking for myself that is).
I also told him that I wasn't particularly interested in any partnership as my educational vision may not be what his schools envision. If it happens, it happens. If it doesnt, I will just go on concentrating on teaching in the only way I know how - the edutaining way.
The interview
Just as I set off for the venue of the interview the next day, I got a last minute call to go to a different location. This place had a cafe fronting its premise. The interview turned interrogative and I wasn't exactly prepared for it.
He sounded like another egotistical He-Ape. He belonged to that same pioneering group who left in the late 80s and early 90s to embark on private education when they sniffed out the market potential back then.
The market potential was simply because there was this BIG plug to up the ante on exams and grades. Public schools can't handle that kind of pressure, what with schools' ranking , excellence awards in all fields of endeavours, competitions of all sorts, the number of credit passes in the major examinations and the string of distinctions they had to produce for their schools.
This private education group has since done very well. If He-Ape is a benchmark with his landed property and big Mercedes . In fact Dennis' chain boasts an impressive 10 odd schools in all. A decade is a long time for anyone to prosper.
The only way schools knew how to rid themselves of this HUGE LOOMING dire responsibility was to turn this over to the private sector. If a kid didn't do well in school and he also has the benefit of private tuition, nobody is to blame for his predicament. So there, we all wash our hands of him.
Never mind if academic studies may not be their cuppa. Technical and vocational training is. Or that some are late bloomers. Or not all are A-graders. Or some improvement of sorts isn't good enough.
Worse I think like He-Ape (who left because there wasnt much of a career prospect back then and he certainly hankered after wealth more), this same group hasn't kept in touch with much of what is happening in and around the schools. They are just shadowing the same system in schools, duplicating the exact numbers and feeding off the poor naive and undiscerning masses.
I told him that if I had my way, besides putting students together according to abilities, they could also be sub-grouped into the "passives" and the "actives" with lots of hands-on for the latter. The final crunch would be for very academically weak students and the disruptive personality sort to engage in a one-on-one private tuition. This would be so much more appropriate, not in a class of 10, 20, 30, 40 or even 50 people.
This job isn't what I really hanker after. It is a stop-gap . But I do need some money now and I can't be forever going on like how I am going on now.
The job I really covet
There are just a few, one of which is a full lectureship in a language centre at a local college. There is so much you can do with kids and I am keener on just focussing on the individual and the individual alone. Minus parents, nannies and what have you.
Younger kids need more behavioural direction and management to have them sit still and listen to you (unless of course it is some extra-curricular programs like drama, leadership, communication, etc and thus not so academically inclined) . With near tertiary level kids (the polys, the jcs and the unis), I only have to keep my mouth talking to get things moving.
School-going age charges, be it primary or tertiary-level, aren't so hung up on deliverables. It is mainly the adults. The parents, the administrators , the schools, the policy-makers and the future employers who are. The pre-occupation with reward points, with an alpha-numeric grade (why cant we just have comments and corrections for mistakes made) and a collection of certification.
It is like an 82 marks for a subject guarantees you your place at work or that you will be able to use the knowledge or that you are really competent in it or that you fully understand it even.
Training
I have always loved attending seminars, workshops and educational courses (of course only the ones I feel are of use). All of which I pay for out of my own pocket. Not a single grant in sight. Can you imagine the foreign workers getting a better deal in this? Or the ample opportunities thrown down the way of educators in schools but which aren't fully subscribed at most times?
Some of these are state-run courses and I can tell you they are atrocious. Two of which I attended are on "Supervision" and "Selling". Other private institutions fare no better. An early childhood program I attended had its lecture notes mostly photocopied from some books. It even had "Calculus" in its math module.
The same went with the computer studies course. It wasn't the technical jargon that kills. It was the bad English in all its handouts. I can't make any sense out of it. If it had been written in better English, I would. Like I did Andrew Parker's "In the Blink of An Eye" on Optical Physics. Prof Parker used optical physics to explain his interpretation of the Cambrian explosion.
I have many other blogs to write on but I can only manage a few today.
I got a call from Dennis and clinched my 3rd interview for the year. There were some conversational exchange of an offer of partnership and his chain of schools employed mostly ex-NIE trained teachers, some 90% of them on his payroll.
I told him I wasn't any NIE-trained teacher. But that if I do not measure up, I could always be fired or better still, I would fire myself (if anyone has a conscience, he/she would - speaking for myself that is).
I also told him that I wasn't particularly interested in any partnership as my educational vision may not be what his schools envision. If it happens, it happens. If it doesnt, I will just go on concentrating on teaching in the only way I know how - the edutaining way.
The interview
Just as I set off for the venue of the interview the next day, I got a last minute call to go to a different location. This place had a cafe fronting its premise. The interview turned interrogative and I wasn't exactly prepared for it.
He sounded like another egotistical He-Ape. He belonged to that same pioneering group who left in the late 80s and early 90s to embark on private education when they sniffed out the market potential back then.
The market potential was simply because there was this BIG plug to up the ante on exams and grades. Public schools can't handle that kind of pressure, what with schools' ranking , excellence awards in all fields of endeavours, competitions of all sorts, the number of credit passes in the major examinations and the string of distinctions they had to produce for their schools.
This private education group has since done very well. If He-Ape is a benchmark with his landed property and big Mercedes . In fact Dennis' chain boasts an impressive 10 odd schools in all. A decade is a long time for anyone to prosper.
The only way schools knew how to rid themselves of this HUGE LOOMING dire responsibility was to turn this over to the private sector. If a kid didn't do well in school and he also has the benefit of private tuition, nobody is to blame for his predicament. So there, we all wash our hands of him.
Never mind if academic studies may not be their cuppa. Technical and vocational training is. Or that some are late bloomers. Or not all are A-graders. Or some improvement of sorts isn't good enough.
Worse I think like He-Ape (who left because there wasnt much of a career prospect back then and he certainly hankered after wealth more), this same group hasn't kept in touch with much of what is happening in and around the schools. They are just shadowing the same system in schools, duplicating the exact numbers and feeding off the poor naive and undiscerning masses.
I told him that if I had my way, besides putting students together according to abilities, they could also be sub-grouped into the "passives" and the "actives" with lots of hands-on for the latter. The final crunch would be for very academically weak students and the disruptive personality sort to engage in a one-on-one private tuition. This would be so much more appropriate, not in a class of 10, 20, 30, 40 or even 50 people.
This job isn't what I really hanker after. It is a stop-gap . But I do need some money now and I can't be forever going on like how I am going on now.
The job I really covet
There are just a few, one of which is a full lectureship in a language centre at a local college. There is so much you can do with kids and I am keener on just focussing on the individual and the individual alone. Minus parents, nannies and what have you.
Younger kids need more behavioural direction and management to have them sit still and listen to you (unless of course it is some extra-curricular programs like drama, leadership, communication, etc and thus not so academically inclined) . With near tertiary level kids (the polys, the jcs and the unis), I only have to keep my mouth talking to get things moving.
School-going age charges, be it primary or tertiary-level, aren't so hung up on deliverables. It is mainly the adults. The parents, the administrators , the schools, the policy-makers and the future employers who are. The pre-occupation with reward points, with an alpha-numeric grade (why cant we just have comments and corrections for mistakes made) and a collection of certification.
It is like an 82 marks for a subject guarantees you your place at work or that you will be able to use the knowledge or that you are really competent in it or that you fully understand it even.
Training
I have always loved attending seminars, workshops and educational courses (of course only the ones I feel are of use). All of which I pay for out of my own pocket. Not a single grant in sight. Can you imagine the foreign workers getting a better deal in this? Or the ample opportunities thrown down the way of educators in schools but which aren't fully subscribed at most times?
Some of these are state-run courses and I can tell you they are atrocious. Two of which I attended are on "Supervision" and "Selling". Other private institutions fare no better. An early childhood program I attended had its lecture notes mostly photocopied from some books. It even had "Calculus" in its math module.
The same went with the computer studies course. It wasn't the technical jargon that kills. It was the bad English in all its handouts. I can't make any sense out of it. If it had been written in better English, I would. Like I did Andrew Parker's "In the Blink of An Eye" on Optical Physics. Prof Parker used optical physics to explain his interpretation of the Cambrian explosion.
I have many other blogs to write on but I can only manage a few today.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Singapore 2006
Frown Singapore
I was picking up my mail from Yvonne when I spotted them. Two of the IMF/WB delegate who were pleasantly engaged in a conversation. It was one female gendered woman and one male gendered man. They were heading fast toward me, SUNTEC CITY, where the convention is being held, just up an eaving highway a stone's throw away.
That was when our national exhortation of "SMILE SINGAPORE" hit me and I was feeling on top of the world today.
So I flashed them my sweetest of cutey pie smilew but guess what? The two Neanderthals actually looked at moi briefly, almost disbelievingly (kinda like a snub) , looked away and continued on their way, drivelling away in their own small world.
Look Neanderthals! First because of you people, the shopkeepers in and around the convention place had to endure a ghost town and now how dare you give this kinda "attitude" in my face?
Just because you guys own the world's financial institutions and regulate them as well, doesn't mean you can intimidate all those Asian countries you badgered during the 1997 financial crisis.
I demand an apology! Better still, I wanna talk to all the major activists holed up in town right now. If not, I am actually starting mine. A group called "Don't give moi that kinda attitude IMF/WB". How's that for the next convention you people are gonna attend?
Dead Men's Books
John Holt's "Instead Of Education"
I am reading (the late) John Holt's book "Instead Of Education" right after I have finished (the late) Professor Stephen Jay Gould's book "The Wonderful Life". I stumbled upon this really gem of a book yesterday.
You would have noticed that I have been reading a lot of dead men's books lately. Don't gimme that kinda ghostly deadly (oopsy daisy) look! Blame it on the dead men writing such eminently quality stuff!
I am about 45 pages done and John Holt says the things I would have said myself about the sorry state of education we have gotten ourselves into nowadays. I will probably write a review some time soon after I have finished reading it.
Stephen Jay Gould's "The Wonderful Life"
All Stephen Jay Gould wanna say is that the Burgess Shale was wrongly shoehorned into some existing phlya because of an old fart's administrative burden (and thus wasn't able to pay as much attention to the shale as he should have) and his archtraditionalist background (he couldn't go another way because that was the way he is).
The section on the new light shed on this profound discovery showed up several interesting facts.
First, natural history has been relegated to its very low status in the totem pole of science (as compared to the "hard" sciences) only because it couldn't be simulated experimentally as much, thus the testability, predictability and mathematically formulaed or quantified factors.
This brings to mind how psychology has been somewhat elevated in the realm of science with its refocus to mathematically formulate every testing possible. The psychological testing we all know. But which doesn't measure as much , in my opinion.
Secondly he staunchly defended his field of science (or art) as being just as rigorous and demanding in its historical or contingency interpretation of events. Inductive and deductive methods, observation and antecedents leading to the final outcome.
I really admire this guy's book, the way he writes it and propounds his line of reasoning and argument. He has my 100% vote on a truly scientific and artful chef-d-oeuvre.
Singapore : The Encyclopaedia
I realise how it is always the same few people who get featured time and again. Usually people of the establishment. I don't think we will ever head in any new direction if this goes on indefinitely. Singapore will just suffer if there isnt even a semblance of infusion of truly new blood in any field.
I was picking up my mail from Yvonne when I spotted them. Two of the IMF/WB delegate who were pleasantly engaged in a conversation. It was one female gendered woman and one male gendered man. They were heading fast toward me, SUNTEC CITY, where the convention is being held, just up an eaving highway a stone's throw away.
That was when our national exhortation of "SMILE SINGAPORE" hit me and I was feeling on top of the world today.
So I flashed them my sweetest of cutey pie smilew but guess what? The two Neanderthals actually looked at moi briefly, almost disbelievingly (kinda like a snub) , looked away and continued on their way, drivelling away in their own small world.
Look Neanderthals! First because of you people, the shopkeepers in and around the convention place had to endure a ghost town and now how dare you give this kinda "attitude" in my face?
Just because you guys own the world's financial institutions and regulate them as well, doesn't mean you can intimidate all those Asian countries you badgered during the 1997 financial crisis.
I demand an apology! Better still, I wanna talk to all the major activists holed up in town right now. If not, I am actually starting mine. A group called "Don't give moi that kinda attitude IMF/WB". How's that for the next convention you people are gonna attend?
Dead Men's Books
John Holt's "Instead Of Education"
I am reading (the late) John Holt's book "Instead Of Education" right after I have finished (the late) Professor Stephen Jay Gould's book "The Wonderful Life". I stumbled upon this really gem of a book yesterday.
You would have noticed that I have been reading a lot of dead men's books lately. Don't gimme that kinda ghostly deadly (oopsy daisy) look! Blame it on the dead men writing such eminently quality stuff!
I am about 45 pages done and John Holt says the things I would have said myself about the sorry state of education we have gotten ourselves into nowadays. I will probably write a review some time soon after I have finished reading it.
Stephen Jay Gould's "The Wonderful Life"
All Stephen Jay Gould wanna say is that the Burgess Shale was wrongly shoehorned into some existing phlya because of an old fart's administrative burden (and thus wasn't able to pay as much attention to the shale as he should have) and his archtraditionalist background (he couldn't go another way because that was the way he is).
The section on the new light shed on this profound discovery showed up several interesting facts.
First, natural history has been relegated to its very low status in the totem pole of science (as compared to the "hard" sciences) only because it couldn't be simulated experimentally as much, thus the testability, predictability and mathematically formulaed or quantified factors.
This brings to mind how psychology has been somewhat elevated in the realm of science with its refocus to mathematically formulate every testing possible. The psychological testing we all know. But which doesn't measure as much , in my opinion.
Secondly he staunchly defended his field of science (or art) as being just as rigorous and demanding in its historical or contingency interpretation of events. Inductive and deductive methods, observation and antecedents leading to the final outcome.
I really admire this guy's book, the way he writes it and propounds his line of reasoning and argument. He has my 100% vote on a truly scientific and artful chef-d-oeuvre.
Singapore : The Encyclopaedia
I realise how it is always the same few people who get featured time and again. Usually people of the establishment. I don't think we will ever head in any new direction if this goes on indefinitely. Singapore will just suffer if there isnt even a semblance of infusion of truly new blood in any field.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Leave Me Alone, You Morons
All I wanna do now
Among the vignettes on my blog are very, very, very serious pieces on socio-economic and political issues. They are so SERIOUS, Jack LaLame just kicked the bucket at a ripe old age of a 100.
But seriously, all I wanna do now is to be living in my own small world, likely to be full lectureship somewhere, doing my own thing. I can't take on the problems of the nation, let alone the world. I just wanna be in my own oyster shell, ok.
Blood is still thicker than water
Despite all that I write about ma family, I will return to the fold one day. After all, they are my family, kooks, crooks and all. I will, right after I am more settled with a job, a house, a car, some money, a "family", et al.
It is also my wish to help them out wherever I can. For now, I can't even help myself.
Barnyard, the Original Party Animals
The clever word play on "party animals" wasn't just that. The barn IS full of them. Be sure, you watch the movie sufficiently equipped with a good knowledge of animals, their anatomies and dog breeds. Yes, you heard me, dog breeds.
If you weren't as savvy, you would have missed out on the Komondor, that corded fur of a shepherd dog. The kids would probably die laughing over the slapsticks. The adults, on the other hand, should concentrate on the witty and funny dialogue to get their fill of laughter.
The ending made the movie look like a pro-family sloganeering, with Ben Junior being born out of wedlock. It is a very original movie with our anthropozoomorphic characters hamming up their human roles to the hilt.
Folk stuff
At this neighborhood hawker centre and wet market, it is mostly the low-incomers who visit. I have seen several kooks, one of whom took a swig at my soya bean curd laid out on the table while moi was placing an order at another stall.
She returned again while moi was seated at the same table, digging into a replacement dish with kind courtesy of the stall vendor (most of the vendors are kindly, folksy people who just eke out a small living hawking whatever that they hawk) . I invited her to finish up what she had started on and she did.
I almost rued the occasion when I had so foolishly bought a copy of the Straits Times, read it at the community library and promptly left the copy with it for the reading pleasure of other library patrons. All the thanks I got was the WIMP who hounded moi down the other time.
Some pretty good articles
Lately, the papers has been running a series of pretty informative articles on everything from the IMF/WB to a comatose patient who isn't so comatose after all (she could actually communicate using brain activity).
There were some on the 9/11 terror attack and I actually have mine post 9/11 when I visited LA and SF in California. But that will be another day.
For now, I got job resumes to send out
Among the vignettes on my blog are very, very, very serious pieces on socio-economic and political issues. They are so SERIOUS, Jack LaLame just kicked the bucket at a ripe old age of a 100.
But seriously, all I wanna do now is to be living in my own small world, likely to be full lectureship somewhere, doing my own thing. I can't take on the problems of the nation, let alone the world. I just wanna be in my own oyster shell, ok.
Blood is still thicker than water
Despite all that I write about ma family, I will return to the fold one day. After all, they are my family, kooks, crooks and all. I will, right after I am more settled with a job, a house, a car, some money, a "family", et al.
It is also my wish to help them out wherever I can. For now, I can't even help myself.
Barnyard, the Original Party Animals
The clever word play on "party animals" wasn't just that. The barn IS full of them. Be sure, you watch the movie sufficiently equipped with a good knowledge of animals, their anatomies and dog breeds. Yes, you heard me, dog breeds.
If you weren't as savvy, you would have missed out on the Komondor, that corded fur of a shepherd dog. The kids would probably die laughing over the slapsticks. The adults, on the other hand, should concentrate on the witty and funny dialogue to get their fill of laughter.
The ending made the movie look like a pro-family sloganeering, with Ben Junior being born out of wedlock. It is a very original movie with our anthropozoomorphic characters hamming up their human roles to the hilt.
Folk stuff
At this neighborhood hawker centre and wet market, it is mostly the low-incomers who visit. I have seen several kooks, one of whom took a swig at my soya bean curd laid out on the table while moi was placing an order at another stall.
She returned again while moi was seated at the same table, digging into a replacement dish with kind courtesy of the stall vendor (most of the vendors are kindly, folksy people who just eke out a small living hawking whatever that they hawk) . I invited her to finish up what she had started on and she did.
I almost rued the occasion when I had so foolishly bought a copy of the Straits Times, read it at the community library and promptly left the copy with it for the reading pleasure of other library patrons. All the thanks I got was the WIMP who hounded moi down the other time.
Some pretty good articles
Lately, the papers has been running a series of pretty informative articles on everything from the IMF/WB to a comatose patient who isn't so comatose after all (she could actually communicate using brain activity).
There were some on the 9/11 terror attack and I actually have mine post 9/11 when I visited LA and SF in California. But that will be another day.
For now, I got job resumes to send out
Monday, September 11, 2006
Our Population Crunch
Women, the Bane of Thy Life
As I sit here now with the looming prospect of working late into the night, typing up my job application letters and emailing them (the Internet connection died at another LAN shop and I had to drag my arse down to this one) , I am struck by more thoughts.
My seance scene Sister (all she needs now is an Ouija Board to talk to the netherworld) was, like my mother, not very encouraging of my university studies. She would always pass snide remarks about moi being so theoretically-dead in my academic pursuits.
She was probably right on that score alone but that degree would have earned me my place in the working world. The other prodigal sister of mine even went as far as sniggering about my probably deserving not to be educated as high as I could. I thought her GCE 'O' levels got wasted on her, as I think some of the university-educated womenfolk here have too. And Sang Nila Utama just doesn't sound right for a school, I always thought.
Here I am referring to the thinking and reasoning department which not only some women lack but a whole host of others as well. I don't have the statistics but women and wimps seem to be increasingly hogging enrolment numbers at our universities.
That means they will be serving leadership roles in enterprises and in the public service affecting all of us in the public domain. God Save Us All!
My sister couldn't see how she and my other sister had a major part to play in upsetting the family equilibrum, hitting me the hardest.
It seems women and women alone have been dead set against me in my higher learning aspirations. All the way from home, in school and at work.
Marriage will never be on my cards. I can be on very good terms with women but after a fashion, never to be living in the same quarters or sharing a bed with them, for sure.
What say you about the population crunch we face here?
I am not against women getting the education they should, to tertiary level and more. But after a while, they will have to decide if they can pull through a life of marriage with kids, on top of a career. Can they go on infinitely subordinating this role to surogates like grandparents, child-minders, child-care institutions or the maid?
Doesn't this in anyway contribute to a small family nucleus we face now and a population crunch? Compare this with the traditional roles of women in the past.
They shouldn't look at an education as being wasted if they turned tail en route to a high-flying careerist's path, especially if they don't need the money, have saved enough after years on the job and the family can live on a single income.
Banish that thought and instead think of it this way: that their education would be transmitted to their offsprings and that education goes all the way down a human chain of successive generations.
Hiro is really Kazu
Hiro does have a part of his name as Kazu. So maybe Auntie was right but her enunciation came through as "Katsu", rather than Kazu. Hiro isn't so dishy after all. *Wink.
As I sit here now with the looming prospect of working late into the night, typing up my job application letters and emailing them (the Internet connection died at another LAN shop and I had to drag my arse down to this one) , I am struck by more thoughts.
My seance scene Sister (all she needs now is an Ouija Board to talk to the netherworld) was, like my mother, not very encouraging of my university studies. She would always pass snide remarks about moi being so theoretically-dead in my academic pursuits.
She was probably right on that score alone but that degree would have earned me my place in the working world. The other prodigal sister of mine even went as far as sniggering about my probably deserving not to be educated as high as I could. I thought her GCE 'O' levels got wasted on her, as I think some of the university-educated womenfolk here have too. And Sang Nila Utama just doesn't sound right for a school, I always thought.
Here I am referring to the thinking and reasoning department which not only some women lack but a whole host of others as well. I don't have the statistics but women and wimps seem to be increasingly hogging enrolment numbers at our universities.
That means they will be serving leadership roles in enterprises and in the public service affecting all of us in the public domain. God Save Us All!
My sister couldn't see how she and my other sister had a major part to play in upsetting the family equilibrum, hitting me the hardest.
It seems women and women alone have been dead set against me in my higher learning aspirations. All the way from home, in school and at work.
Marriage will never be on my cards. I can be on very good terms with women but after a fashion, never to be living in the same quarters or sharing a bed with them, for sure.
What say you about the population crunch we face here?
I am not against women getting the education they should, to tertiary level and more. But after a while, they will have to decide if they can pull through a life of marriage with kids, on top of a career. Can they go on infinitely subordinating this role to surogates like grandparents, child-minders, child-care institutions or the maid?
Doesn't this in anyway contribute to a small family nucleus we face now and a population crunch? Compare this with the traditional roles of women in the past.
They shouldn't look at an education as being wasted if they turned tail en route to a high-flying careerist's path, especially if they don't need the money, have saved enough after years on the job and the family can live on a single income.
Banish that thought and instead think of it this way: that their education would be transmitted to their offsprings and that education goes all the way down a human chain of successive generations.
Hiro is really Kazu
Hiro does have a part of his name as Kazu. So maybe Auntie was right but her enunciation came through as "Katsu", rather than Kazu. Hiro isn't so dishy after all. *Wink.
More Delectation
Prioritized priorities, all else is a dream
My priorities right now are : landing a job, getting my own place and then live in with a domestic partner.
The Chevrolet Spark is tempting too. It is a 1.0L car that comes in a surprisingly wide array of sparkling colors. But the Nissan March, in comparison, has some really state-of-the-art technology like its intelligent key and computerised navigation system.
I would love to pursue all those sporting and astronomical activities too. But I am on a shoe-string and short on dough. I will have to integrate these into my work regime....hopefully..when I do find work and if I still have spare time to start up these activities when I do work.....SIGH!
School Of The Future
This school which Microsoft is managing has everything. The smartboard which you can write and draw on (and assuming our hand writing can then be turned into true PC font type like the write-on tablets now) can also be zoomed in and out. This excised the dime-a-dozen complaint of squinting especially coming from the back of the class or about the sometimes unavoidable hand scribblings.
But moi doesn't think a digitised library can replace a libraryfull of books, magazines or journals any time soon. Lounging or lying comfortably to read sure beats sitting ramrod straight at a computer desk scrolling text on a screen. Somehow reading books seem to be a more complete experience when we only obtain dribs and drabs on the Internet now. And the calorie-count may be an itty bitty too zealous, perhaps even pushing an aneroxic or bulimic to the brink.
Let all public housing projects be after this fashion
There are two empty parcels of land near where I stay now, one of which is up for sale. If only the other could be what I had envisioned for the future kinda public housing design.
The cascades in a zig-zag pattern or even clover or round-shape types arranged to lend a 360 degree panoramic view and open up wind channels. Full length windows (but grilled lower safety barriers) to let in light and breeze minus the heat and glare. Well-proportioned rooms for bedding, dining, sitting and cooking. Surrounded by amenities and lush greenery. Integrated and seamless. State-of-the-art technology for toggling electrical gadgets or controlling the environment.
Is this a machine reader or reader machine?
A mind reader reads someone's mind. Therefore a machine reader reads a machine. Thus, it must be a reader machine, a machine which reads whatever. Kinda scanner or something.
Holy Cow, three more of this invention in the Gents
One is hung high up and unused. Another has a legging hung on it (a permanent fixture it seems) and holds out a soap holder, also virtually untouched.
The third holds up the shower curtain. I suppose if it is just drawn across the pole like that and it doesn't exert any undue pressure, particularly like a weight from above, and with regularity, the pole technically can still hold its own. I have placed my bath towel on this for the past week too. But yesterday when I did, the pole slipped a few notches but did not crash down like the one did in my bedroom the last time.
The finality of it all - it still can't do what it is supposed to do. I say KILL THIS FATUOUS INVENTION!
More Holy Cows - these guys are here too?
Yeah. A couple of them I spotted here are the ones who hung out at my old place. A few of them are the really off the trolleys, beyond redemption sort. Fancy meeting them here again!
I suppose anyone can go off the trolley too, in our oppressive, nonsensical kinda world sometimes.
My priorities right now are : landing a job, getting my own place and then live in with a domestic partner.
The Chevrolet Spark is tempting too. It is a 1.0L car that comes in a surprisingly wide array of sparkling colors. But the Nissan March, in comparison, has some really state-of-the-art technology like its intelligent key and computerised navigation system.
I would love to pursue all those sporting and astronomical activities too. But I am on a shoe-string and short on dough. I will have to integrate these into my work regime....hopefully..when I do find work and if I still have spare time to start up these activities when I do work.....SIGH!
School Of The Future
This school which Microsoft is managing has everything. The smartboard which you can write and draw on (and assuming our hand writing can then be turned into true PC font type like the write-on tablets now) can also be zoomed in and out. This excised the dime-a-dozen complaint of squinting especially coming from the back of the class or about the sometimes unavoidable hand scribblings.
But moi doesn't think a digitised library can replace a libraryfull of books, magazines or journals any time soon. Lounging or lying comfortably to read sure beats sitting ramrod straight at a computer desk scrolling text on a screen. Somehow reading books seem to be a more complete experience when we only obtain dribs and drabs on the Internet now. And the calorie-count may be an itty bitty too zealous, perhaps even pushing an aneroxic or bulimic to the brink.
Let all public housing projects be after this fashion
There are two empty parcels of land near where I stay now, one of which is up for sale. If only the other could be what I had envisioned for the future kinda public housing design.
The cascades in a zig-zag pattern or even clover or round-shape types arranged to lend a 360 degree panoramic view and open up wind channels. Full length windows (but grilled lower safety barriers) to let in light and breeze minus the heat and glare. Well-proportioned rooms for bedding, dining, sitting and cooking. Surrounded by amenities and lush greenery. Integrated and seamless. State-of-the-art technology for toggling electrical gadgets or controlling the environment.
Is this a machine reader or reader machine?
A mind reader reads someone's mind. Therefore a machine reader reads a machine. Thus, it must be a reader machine, a machine which reads whatever. Kinda scanner or something.
Holy Cow, three more of this invention in the Gents
One is hung high up and unused. Another has a legging hung on it (a permanent fixture it seems) and holds out a soap holder, also virtually untouched.
The third holds up the shower curtain. I suppose if it is just drawn across the pole like that and it doesn't exert any undue pressure, particularly like a weight from above, and with regularity, the pole technically can still hold its own. I have placed my bath towel on this for the past week too. But yesterday when I did, the pole slipped a few notches but did not crash down like the one did in my bedroom the last time.
The finality of it all - it still can't do what it is supposed to do. I say KILL THIS FATUOUS INVENTION!
More Holy Cows - these guys are here too?
Yeah. A couple of them I spotted here are the ones who hung out at my old place. A few of them are the really off the trolleys, beyond redemption sort. Fancy meeting them here again!
I suppose anyone can go off the trolley too, in our oppressive, nonsensical kinda world sometimes.
For Your Delectation
All My Vignettes On Me Blog
As I sit at a corner blogging away (it was the best location I could choose, given that all other PCs face the glare of the windows' light and thus turn up a dark plasmic screen), I can't help notice how blogging has afforded me the scope to write on everything under the sun. I have counted film reviews, soccer matches and humorous imaginative pieces among my blog list. Hurrah for blogs!
The Other AFC U-17 Championships
This time it was Yemen versus Tajikistan. Takikistan, if you must know, is a landlocked country in Central Asia, formerly part of the USSR until the latter's collapse and disintegration into the Commonwealth of Independent States.
I understand that Yemen was leading at 2-0 but it is now a draw at 2-2. The Tajikistanis pulled out all the stops in their forward tackles. All their near misses, long and wide shots, headers and the soccer ball ricocheting, did not deter them. It only spurred them on.
In good time, they were rewarded and trounced Yemen, the latter trailing behind at 4-2. But when the match went into a 2-minute extra time, Yemen, not to be outshone, superbly tackled, accurately passed and skilfully hotfooted their 3rd winning goal of the match.
The teams lined themselves up on the field, shook each other's hands and bowed to the spectators, sorta.
Cheers, Singapore
On the same day of the AFC U-17 Championships, the battle for the Asian Cup between Singapore and China was also hotting up. It was a goal-less draw.
The next day, a sports writer for the Straits Times wrote about how Singapore has slowly but surely gained a foothold in regional and international competitions. He stoutly defended the need to play in such events for experience and exposure. Something I whole-heartedly agree with.
When there was talk of Walt Disney possibly setting up shop here and when we clinched the right to host the 2013 SEA games, I cheered. We have also done ourselves proud in hosting the 2006 IMF/WB meetings.
Above all, we have trumpeted to the world our distinct city in the garden image and a truly cosmopolitan society, with more than astounding tolerance and respect for each other. We have infact miscegenated and lived on one another's cuisines as part of our three square meals' sustenance.
These are the little things we should root for and keep at!
The National Schools Sports Championships
The undisputed King of the boys' B and C division is ACS (I), with a whopping 13 titles while RGS has only 10. RJC is tops in the A division but moi isn't sure if this is so for the girls' category. I know for a fact the boys are. For the boys' championships, RI and Catholic High are in a joint second and the Singapore Sports School third.
I followed the national schools competition with relish. Single-sex schools seem to dominate and their sportsmanship will be the harbinger of things to come for national and international events.
The Foreign Talent Debate
At the Asian Cup, one third of the 39000 spectators were the Chinese supporters. That is about 13000 strong. It makes me wonder if any of our PRs would count among them and how they would sort out their nationalistic feelings in rooting for who.
When I travelled to SF and checked into one of its bayside motels, I was greeted by a sea of Filipino receptionists. What struck me was how I didn't get to see a single true-blue American on my first arrival. So is this what we want to portray to the world? A disproportionately mis-represented citizenry. Is this the Phillipines or America that I am visiting?
I am glad we are beginning to rethink and trying to building up our very own skilled pool of workers for the real estate construction trade. We must do likewise for our other frontline service industries. Be it retail or healthcare. And our foreign talent in some of these sectors aint exactly paid peanuts which could be better served going the way of our local wage force.
Apart from national identity issues, there is also the issue of accented confusion in communication. Kinda hard straining one's ears to listen for advice or information, especially if this is of a life-or-death nature in prescriptive instructions for example.
Mothers, teach your sons this
Given how some women's issues have turned out (careerists and feminists battling for equal rights at employment, abidicating motherhood responsibilities altogether, or relegating such duties to surogates, etc, etc), mothers may be wise to teach their sons some tactics in relating with women, girls, whatever.
That well-brought up, accomodating and profusely apologetic son may just prove to be easy picking for being trampled upon or manipulated by wily feminine charming types or corporate battleaxes.
For the sake of the continuity and survival of the male species, you can do just this little bit for your son and for the well-being of the increasingly endangered Xy gender.
Steve Irwin Is Dead?
Incredulous! A bolt from the blue! These were just some of my initial reactions to news of his death. Steve Irwin, that gutsy, gung-ho, go-getter of a naturalist, cannot possibly be floored and killed by a barbed stingray now, can he? One minute you see him on TV dicing with death, manhandling all manner of venomous and wildly dangerous creatures. The next minute, headlines herald news of his demise.
What it boils down to is this : Nature must be accorded its full respect, in all its glory and fury. No man can subordinate nature. Not that whirl of a sea and wind storm, that bolt of lightning or even that gentle, kindly Asiatic elephant. Man, can only watch and marvel, albeit from a safe distance.
As I sit at a corner blogging away (it was the best location I could choose, given that all other PCs face the glare of the windows' light and thus turn up a dark plasmic screen), I can't help notice how blogging has afforded me the scope to write on everything under the sun. I have counted film reviews, soccer matches and humorous imaginative pieces among my blog list. Hurrah for blogs!
The Other AFC U-17 Championships
This time it was Yemen versus Tajikistan. Takikistan, if you must know, is a landlocked country in Central Asia, formerly part of the USSR until the latter's collapse and disintegration into the Commonwealth of Independent States.
I understand that Yemen was leading at 2-0 but it is now a draw at 2-2. The Tajikistanis pulled out all the stops in their forward tackles. All their near misses, long and wide shots, headers and the soccer ball ricocheting, did not deter them. It only spurred them on.
In good time, they were rewarded and trounced Yemen, the latter trailing behind at 4-2. But when the match went into a 2-minute extra time, Yemen, not to be outshone, superbly tackled, accurately passed and skilfully hotfooted their 3rd winning goal of the match.
The teams lined themselves up on the field, shook each other's hands and bowed to the spectators, sorta.
Cheers, Singapore
On the same day of the AFC U-17 Championships, the battle for the Asian Cup between Singapore and China was also hotting up. It was a goal-less draw.
The next day, a sports writer for the Straits Times wrote about how Singapore has slowly but surely gained a foothold in regional and international competitions. He stoutly defended the need to play in such events for experience and exposure. Something I whole-heartedly agree with.
When there was talk of Walt Disney possibly setting up shop here and when we clinched the right to host the 2013 SEA games, I cheered. We have also done ourselves proud in hosting the 2006 IMF/WB meetings.
Above all, we have trumpeted to the world our distinct city in the garden image and a truly cosmopolitan society, with more than astounding tolerance and respect for each other. We have infact miscegenated and lived on one another's cuisines as part of our three square meals' sustenance.
These are the little things we should root for and keep at!
The National Schools Sports Championships
The undisputed King of the boys' B and C division is ACS (I), with a whopping 13 titles while RGS has only 10. RJC is tops in the A division but moi isn't sure if this is so for the girls' category. I know for a fact the boys are. For the boys' championships, RI and Catholic High are in a joint second and the Singapore Sports School third.
I followed the national schools competition with relish. Single-sex schools seem to dominate and their sportsmanship will be the harbinger of things to come for national and international events.
The Foreign Talent Debate
At the Asian Cup, one third of the 39000 spectators were the Chinese supporters. That is about 13000 strong. It makes me wonder if any of our PRs would count among them and how they would sort out their nationalistic feelings in rooting for who.
When I travelled to SF and checked into one of its bayside motels, I was greeted by a sea of Filipino receptionists. What struck me was how I didn't get to see a single true-blue American on my first arrival. So is this what we want to portray to the world? A disproportionately mis-represented citizenry. Is this the Phillipines or America that I am visiting?
I am glad we are beginning to rethink and trying to building up our very own skilled pool of workers for the real estate construction trade. We must do likewise for our other frontline service industries. Be it retail or healthcare. And our foreign talent in some of these sectors aint exactly paid peanuts which could be better served going the way of our local wage force.
Apart from national identity issues, there is also the issue of accented confusion in communication. Kinda hard straining one's ears to listen for advice or information, especially if this is of a life-or-death nature in prescriptive instructions for example.
Mothers, teach your sons this
Given how some women's issues have turned out (careerists and feminists battling for equal rights at employment, abidicating motherhood responsibilities altogether, or relegating such duties to surogates, etc, etc), mothers may be wise to teach their sons some tactics in relating with women, girls, whatever.
That well-brought up, accomodating and profusely apologetic son may just prove to be easy picking for being trampled upon or manipulated by wily feminine charming types or corporate battleaxes.
For the sake of the continuity and survival of the male species, you can do just this little bit for your son and for the well-being of the increasingly endangered Xy gender.
Steve Irwin Is Dead?
Incredulous! A bolt from the blue! These were just some of my initial reactions to news of his death. Steve Irwin, that gutsy, gung-ho, go-getter of a naturalist, cannot possibly be floored and killed by a barbed stingray now, can he? One minute you see him on TV dicing with death, manhandling all manner of venomous and wildly dangerous creatures. The next minute, headlines herald news of his demise.
What it boils down to is this : Nature must be accorded its full respect, in all its glory and fury. No man can subordinate nature. Not that whirl of a sea and wind storm, that bolt of lightning or even that gentle, kindly Asiatic elephant. Man, can only watch and marvel, albeit from a safe distance.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
The AFC U-17 Championships
Yesterday after I had blogged about a myriad of stuff, I headed for the park. En route, I was blinded by the floodlights of the Bishan stadium which signalled that a soccer match was going on. As I walked past the gates, I noticed that tickets were on sale. I learned that it was going at 5 bucks a piece.
I remember how there was this stairways which would offer a vantage point of the stadium to watch the match. When I reached the stairwell, lo and behold, several other people had already beaten me to it.
There were soccerites in all white and in all red. The whites were the Chinese while the reds were the Vietnamese.The electronic digital flashing red scoreboard trumped up 2-0 in favour of the reds.
All I know was that I was watching the dying minutes of the game and the Chinese were on the offensive. In fact the whole action of the game was taking place at the other end of the goal post from where I was, near the Viets' goal mouth.
The Vietnamese had kicked in their two goals in the first few minutes of the game. The Chinese were fast and furious, dribbling and attacking while the Viets were defensively shoving and fending off. This earned them a send-off at one point in the match.
The Viets must be tired out and there were a quite a few injuries among their compatriots. There was no let-up on the part of the Chinese which showed their consistent stamina and prowess.
Before long, the game ended on a 3-3 draw.
All the while during the match, I had cheered when there were many fantastic moves to score a goal and cheered even louder when the attempts materialised. It was no mean feat that the Vietnamese goalkeeper had warded off many an attempt at its goal post. He should truly have been nominated as the saviour of the match which would otherwise have seen a very big gap between loser and winner.
I found myself opening up to the few spectators on the stairwell as we exchanged critique on the game, the moves and the players.
When the final whistle blew and the floodlights snuffed out, I realised that sports do gel people together in a certain sort of way.
I remember how there was this stairways which would offer a vantage point of the stadium to watch the match. When I reached the stairwell, lo and behold, several other people had already beaten me to it.
There were soccerites in all white and in all red. The whites were the Chinese while the reds were the Vietnamese.The electronic digital flashing red scoreboard trumped up 2-0 in favour of the reds.
All I know was that I was watching the dying minutes of the game and the Chinese were on the offensive. In fact the whole action of the game was taking place at the other end of the goal post from where I was, near the Viets' goal mouth.
The Vietnamese had kicked in their two goals in the first few minutes of the game. The Chinese were fast and furious, dribbling and attacking while the Viets were defensively shoving and fending off. This earned them a send-off at one point in the match.
The Viets must be tired out and there were a quite a few injuries among their compatriots. There was no let-up on the part of the Chinese which showed their consistent stamina and prowess.
Before long, the game ended on a 3-3 draw.
All the while during the match, I had cheered when there were many fantastic moves to score a goal and cheered even louder when the attempts materialised. It was no mean feat that the Vietnamese goalkeeper had warded off many an attempt at its goal post. He should truly have been nominated as the saviour of the match which would otherwise have seen a very big gap between loser and winner.
I found myself opening up to the few spectators on the stairwell as we exchanged critique on the game, the moves and the players.
When the final whistle blew and the floodlights snuffed out, I realised that sports do gel people together in a certain sort of way.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
It Is So Quiet Here At The Newly Opened Library
The library is so quiet this evening
I swung by at around 8pm after a light dinner of "Ban Mian" and a dessert dish of sweet potatoes at Bishan North Shopping Mall. It was dead quiet as compared to the last couple of days since its opening launch.
What's with our culture here
A little more on the profiling test. According to its final results, moi may be the type to want instant success. WHOA! Blame it on our culture here. Didn't we like succeed in one generation and reached "developed First World" status (this remains highly debatable). So moi doesnt wanna be left behind?
An observation by a British university when moi tried partnering it was its disdain for the "business culture" here. It seems academia has gone to the business dogs as well.
My new place
My room faces the refuse grounds right below my window. When the garbage truck comes by, it gets really noisy. Right across are other apartment blocks, so I have the venetian blinds pulled down but with its louvres opened so I have some privacy yet some view and light (no breeze here though but the fan is ok blowing me cool and there aint no sun here too).
I have my toiletries laid out on a rack on a side wall. When I squeeze the paste on my toothbrush and turn to the sink to brush, the paste does drip. Ergonomics does play a part so if the layout aint right, things do happen!
That asinide PVC telescopic pole invention
Just so you know what I am talking about, the pole has no suctions or whatever at either end. So how is it expected to hold on to two walls from which it is supposed to hang from except from its extendable tesnile force which aint strong enough?
Never Never Land and my travelogues
I guess I am so mentally exhausted not because of hard mental or physical work. It is more dealing with all the downright stupidity, be it a work process, a product/service, a reasoning behind a policy or a person's thinking.
Which reminds me of how I have been putting off writing on La La land and some of my travel experiences. I will if nothing else happens in the intervening period.
The potability of our water reminded me of this. When I was in Guangzhou, I filled my water bottle with its tap water. It was terribly chlorinated and I thought highly undrinkable.
I swung by at around 8pm after a light dinner of "Ban Mian" and a dessert dish of sweet potatoes at Bishan North Shopping Mall. It was dead quiet as compared to the last couple of days since its opening launch.
What's with our culture here
A little more on the profiling test. According to its final results, moi may be the type to want instant success. WHOA! Blame it on our culture here. Didn't we like succeed in one generation and reached "developed First World" status (this remains highly debatable). So moi doesnt wanna be left behind?
An observation by a British university when moi tried partnering it was its disdain for the "business culture" here. It seems academia has gone to the business dogs as well.
My new place
My room faces the refuse grounds right below my window. When the garbage truck comes by, it gets really noisy. Right across are other apartment blocks, so I have the venetian blinds pulled down but with its louvres opened so I have some privacy yet some view and light (no breeze here though but the fan is ok blowing me cool and there aint no sun here too).
I have my toiletries laid out on a rack on a side wall. When I squeeze the paste on my toothbrush and turn to the sink to brush, the paste does drip. Ergonomics does play a part so if the layout aint right, things do happen!
That asinide PVC telescopic pole invention
Just so you know what I am talking about, the pole has no suctions or whatever at either end. So how is it expected to hold on to two walls from which it is supposed to hang from except from its extendable tesnile force which aint strong enough?
Never Never Land and my travelogues
I guess I am so mentally exhausted not because of hard mental or physical work. It is more dealing with all the downright stupidity, be it a work process, a product/service, a reasoning behind a policy or a person's thinking.
Which reminds me of how I have been putting off writing on La La land and some of my travel experiences. I will if nothing else happens in the intervening period.
The potability of our water reminded me of this. When I was in Guangzhou, I filled my water bottle with its tap water. It was terribly chlorinated and I thought highly undrinkable.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
I Am So Mentally Shagged I Wanna Sleep Some More
My chip cashcard cannot work on this photocopier
Just as I was beginning to think that my chip cash card must be high jinx, a couple of other people's cards couldn't work on the photocopier as well. At the next photocopier it could.
So it must be the machine's fault. Then the MRT card-reading machines at Sengkang and Bishan must similarly be at fault. It must be the scanning technology or something.
After all the display panel at the trains did read "Card failed. Multiple cards detected."
Oops! I bumped into Brother and look at what he has to say
Coincidentally we were both at the same restroom. I acknowledged his presence and he started on a whole tirade about being cheated out of money by my second sister. This second sister is kinda possessed and would go into a trance, etc etc. My religion has "exorcism" too and we have turned to this group in particular. I can't believe this happening in our day and age.
I have had about enough of this family. I think I will just shut them out of my life. And I had truly wished for mom to not spend so much time in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning and so on. It would have been much more personally bonding and meaningful for her to spend time with us instead.
Which would bring to mind what we are doing with our kids these days. It would negate the purpose of parenthood if we just relegate our responsibilities to the grandparents, the childcare/studentcare centres and the maids of the world. Of what use is family like this?
M/s Black Widow
This brings me to another thought. She would have satchets of coffee powder in the pantry and invite one and all to help themselves to it. But when we do and they finish up really fast, she stopped buying them altogether.
Talk about talking shop and translating words into deeds !
More bimbs and wimps
Well as I go round on my usual routine, I can spot more bimbs and wimps. The Unholy Trinity if you will recall. And I am hoping Muiz will have better sense when picking his friends among the gay circle. I really worry for him that he may be led astray as I have met enough wimps in the circle to know.
People, we are killing ourselves like this
If all our inventions are not for our betterment but for a quick buck, at the expense of our well-being and health, then we must slowly but surely be killing each other.
I will implore nations of the world, First world or Third, to think first of all possible consequences for ourselves and mankind before embarking on any quest for economic gains.
It must stop somewhere. The sooner the better. For the sake of all of us.
Be it a product, food or a job. The economy, simply put.
Just as I was beginning to think that my chip cash card must be high jinx, a couple of other people's cards couldn't work on the photocopier as well. At the next photocopier it could.
So it must be the machine's fault. Then the MRT card-reading machines at Sengkang and Bishan must similarly be at fault. It must be the scanning technology or something.
After all the display panel at the trains did read "Card failed. Multiple cards detected."
Oops! I bumped into Brother and look at what he has to say
Coincidentally we were both at the same restroom. I acknowledged his presence and he started on a whole tirade about being cheated out of money by my second sister. This second sister is kinda possessed and would go into a trance, etc etc. My religion has "exorcism" too and we have turned to this group in particular. I can't believe this happening in our day and age.
I have had about enough of this family. I think I will just shut them out of my life. And I had truly wished for mom to not spend so much time in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning and so on. It would have been much more personally bonding and meaningful for her to spend time with us instead.
Which would bring to mind what we are doing with our kids these days. It would negate the purpose of parenthood if we just relegate our responsibilities to the grandparents, the childcare/studentcare centres and the maids of the world. Of what use is family like this?
M/s Black Widow
This brings me to another thought. She would have satchets of coffee powder in the pantry and invite one and all to help themselves to it. But when we do and they finish up really fast, she stopped buying them altogether.
Talk about talking shop and translating words into deeds !
More bimbs and wimps
Well as I go round on my usual routine, I can spot more bimbs and wimps. The Unholy Trinity if you will recall. And I am hoping Muiz will have better sense when picking his friends among the gay circle. I really worry for him that he may be led astray as I have met enough wimps in the circle to know.
People, we are killing ourselves like this
If all our inventions are not for our betterment but for a quick buck, at the expense of our well-being and health, then we must slowly but surely be killing each other.
I will implore nations of the world, First world or Third, to think first of all possible consequences for ourselves and mankind before embarking on any quest for economic gains.
It must stop somewhere. The sooner the better. For the sake of all of us.
Be it a product, food or a job. The economy, simply put.
Just Another Morning After A Heavy Downpour
Hiro is Katsu to Auntie
It was kinda hilarious to hear Auntie addressing Hiro as Katsu. He sounds like the yummy dish "Katsu Don" we all know and have come to love.
Yet another stalker and blinder
Yet another woman stalked moi for the newspaper today. Yet again she didn't see the other copy right down the table. I had to point this out to her before she gave up her "stalk" and took over the other copy when its reader finished her read.
While waiting for the library to open, a patron said that there is "STARBUCKS" here. I thought it was Galilee Cafe. Well, I guess we can be as blind as a bat at times or we aren't just mouthing all the things exactly as we see it. Or it is our fixed mindsets that all cafes are "STARBUCKS" outlets.
Another blinder.
A nation of suspects, unhappys, blinds and uncommunicators
Maybe besides being a nation of suspects (where all citizens are guilty before proven innocent), we are also a nation of unhappys, blinds, uncommunicators and so on.
The recent survey could perhaps be true. Singaporeans are not a happy lot. Most adults are not happy as far as I can tell from their facial expressions. The younger set are much better. At being happy and being better communicators.
Was that Gayle, the Singapore Idol ex-contestant? An illusion or delusion?
I was sipping ice-blended at Coffee Bean (and I haven't got round to tasting its new flavors like the Banana Chocolate for kids - who really cares - and the honey-dew concoction), waiting for Muiz, when I thought I spotted what looked like the Singapore Idol ex-contestant Gayle sitting at the corner of the cafe with her gall-friend.
She does look a lot different from her TV persona. Guess it is the lights and the mirrors? We have noticed how different lights can portray us in very different ways and mirrors do the same thing with us too.
Muiz my darling boy
Muiz didn't turn up because his mother went berserk, what with him going out three times last week with his friends and what with exams just round the corner, while denying me the once-a-week rendezvous with him .
I had asked to see him twice a week but he can't commit. However he could meet his friends thrice last week. Naturally I was pissed and I told him so. He has to work something out with his mother and me.
I had to ask for a refund of the cinema tickets and since they were free, I did get some cash in return, not much but enough to cover my food expenses for a day or too.
More on the New Bishan Community Library
It was jam-packed on opening day, even in the evening when I visited it. What with the one-week hols currently going on now, the crowd can only get worse, not better.
It is architecturally and artistically designed, the outwardly protruding glass panels on the walls providing an enclosed space for people to look out to the world outside while sitting comfortable.
Separate lifts for staff and patrons?
But staff pushing trolley carts of books share the two elevators with patrons and things can get a wee-bit uncomfortable.
More cubicles and windows are meant to be just that - windows
There is only ONE toilet cubicle in the restroom. What's with glazing over the restroom's windows translucent anyway? The face height window could be transparent to allow toilet users a view to the outside. And the full length one could have its lower portion glazed over if exhibitionism is the legitimate fear.
More multi-media stations
There are a handful of multi-media stations on two floors of the library and two PCs in the basement children's section (which I thought was pretty much a waste with kids hogging and playing with them and not really doing stuff on them).
More copies of the newspapers
What about providing more copies of the newspapers (since this is usually hot) and not bound up like that, in chains on a table. Just free-binding copies on a rack so anyone can pick it up and read on the sofa, like in the quiet reading room at the Ang Mo Kio library.
If it gets taken away, so be it. It is only 80 cents. I have witnessed copies unsold by vendors which get taken away somewhere by whoever and for whatever use at the end of the day. Isn't that more of a waste?
What's with the input method and keyboard layout?
Several times, the keyboard could not input any Roman letters onto the screen. This was at the start-up log-in page. Could the Tamil99 or Murasu Anjal keyboard input layout has anyting to do with it? I asked but the reply wasn't forthcoming.
Upon checking again today, no it doesn't. It was because the system need rebooting.
Some educational exhibits don't seem to be working
There were a few educational exhibits going on at the same time as the launch of the new library. The rotating wheel one on magnetic property probably only has steel as the only magnetic material. But the one on the floating object in mid-air doesnt work because the magnet probably doesnt work or the string was too short or something.
All-In-One library kiosk
It is really good we have library kiosks where we can both top up our cashcards and our multi-media accounts at the same time. Not like some libraries where it is at two separate machines.
All in all , the library is spanking new, nicely decorated, tastefully done but does not afford the kinda space and comfort like the National Library or the Ang Mo Kio library does.
It is , however, sensible to have the children's department all to itself on a single floor unlike the National Library (so many floors but just one floor of young people's, adults and children's shoehorned together - but since I haven't visited it for a long time now, things may have changed)
It is good we have something in between and not just extremes
Instead of just cold soya milk (which makes me cough, by the way if I drink too much cold drinks and the sick-building, unserviced and unmaintained air-conditioner anywhere just aggravates it - I prefer fresh natural air anytime) and hot (may scorch the tongue and if you are in a hurry to rush off somewhere, this is usually true), we have lukewarm. That golden mean. Just perfect.
I am slowly but surely recovering
Sleep, sleep, sleep. That is how I recuperate from everything and anything. I have had about enough of the "weirdos" I have been putting up with ever since I moved from place to place starting February 2006. I had intended to detoxify but may have ended up with more toxins than I can cope.
It isn't being hypnopompoic again as that was a really protracted period in my life. But just short hypnopompoism to recharge and revitalise.
What's with all these restrictions
At the newly revamped LAN shop (super investment in gleaming new state-of-the-art looking PCs and awesome albeit tightly controlled opening screen with a menu artfully laid out), I couldn't chat on IRC, nor can I play music from Windows Media Player (coz there aint any and I can't download if the administrator has the control somewhere, not visible to moi).
It is MADDENING, to say the very least. What use is anything if it is so new but you can't do a single thing on it.
Is our tap water potable?
I hesitatingly said it is when questioned by someone today. I have drunk from it several times but it is just that some old habits die hard and unless I have the official sanction that it is, I may hesitate a little more rather than a little less.
Now that Pluto is out, I may just be in
Yeah, after the papers ran an article on Pluto being voted out at an astronomical congress, I may just opt to be in. In to be with the Singapore's chapter of the astronomers' club.
It was kinda hilarious to hear Auntie addressing Hiro as Katsu. He sounds like the yummy dish "Katsu Don" we all know and have come to love.
Yet another stalker and blinder
Yet another woman stalked moi for the newspaper today. Yet again she didn't see the other copy right down the table. I had to point this out to her before she gave up her "stalk" and took over the other copy when its reader finished her read.
While waiting for the library to open, a patron said that there is "STARBUCKS" here. I thought it was Galilee Cafe. Well, I guess we can be as blind as a bat at times or we aren't just mouthing all the things exactly as we see it. Or it is our fixed mindsets that all cafes are "STARBUCKS" outlets.
Another blinder.
A nation of suspects, unhappys, blinds and uncommunicators
Maybe besides being a nation of suspects (where all citizens are guilty before proven innocent), we are also a nation of unhappys, blinds, uncommunicators and so on.
The recent survey could perhaps be true. Singaporeans are not a happy lot. Most adults are not happy as far as I can tell from their facial expressions. The younger set are much better. At being happy and being better communicators.
Was that Gayle, the Singapore Idol ex-contestant? An illusion or delusion?
I was sipping ice-blended at Coffee Bean (and I haven't got round to tasting its new flavors like the Banana Chocolate for kids - who really cares - and the honey-dew concoction), waiting for Muiz, when I thought I spotted what looked like the Singapore Idol ex-contestant Gayle sitting at the corner of the cafe with her gall-friend.
She does look a lot different from her TV persona. Guess it is the lights and the mirrors? We have noticed how different lights can portray us in very different ways and mirrors do the same thing with us too.
Muiz my darling boy
Muiz didn't turn up because his mother went berserk, what with him going out three times last week with his friends and what with exams just round the corner, while denying me the once-a-week rendezvous with him .
I had asked to see him twice a week but he can't commit. However he could meet his friends thrice last week. Naturally I was pissed and I told him so. He has to work something out with his mother and me.
I had to ask for a refund of the cinema tickets and since they were free, I did get some cash in return, not much but enough to cover my food expenses for a day or too.
More on the New Bishan Community Library
It was jam-packed on opening day, even in the evening when I visited it. What with the one-week hols currently going on now, the crowd can only get worse, not better.
It is architecturally and artistically designed, the outwardly protruding glass panels on the walls providing an enclosed space for people to look out to the world outside while sitting comfortable.
Separate lifts for staff and patrons?
But staff pushing trolley carts of books share the two elevators with patrons and things can get a wee-bit uncomfortable.
More cubicles and windows are meant to be just that - windows
There is only ONE toilet cubicle in the restroom. What's with glazing over the restroom's windows translucent anyway? The face height window could be transparent to allow toilet users a view to the outside. And the full length one could have its lower portion glazed over if exhibitionism is the legitimate fear.
More multi-media stations
There are a handful of multi-media stations on two floors of the library and two PCs in the basement children's section (which I thought was pretty much a waste with kids hogging and playing with them and not really doing stuff on them).
More copies of the newspapers
What about providing more copies of the newspapers (since this is usually hot) and not bound up like that, in chains on a table. Just free-binding copies on a rack so anyone can pick it up and read on the sofa, like in the quiet reading room at the Ang Mo Kio library.
If it gets taken away, so be it. It is only 80 cents. I have witnessed copies unsold by vendors which get taken away somewhere by whoever and for whatever use at the end of the day. Isn't that more of a waste?
What's with the input method and keyboard layout?
Several times, the keyboard could not input any Roman letters onto the screen. This was at the start-up log-in page. Could the Tamil99 or Murasu Anjal keyboard input layout has anyting to do with it? I asked but the reply wasn't forthcoming.
Upon checking again today, no it doesn't. It was because the system need rebooting.
Some educational exhibits don't seem to be working
There were a few educational exhibits going on at the same time as the launch of the new library. The rotating wheel one on magnetic property probably only has steel as the only magnetic material. But the one on the floating object in mid-air doesnt work because the magnet probably doesnt work or the string was too short or something.
All-In-One library kiosk
It is really good we have library kiosks where we can both top up our cashcards and our multi-media accounts at the same time. Not like some libraries where it is at two separate machines.
All in all , the library is spanking new, nicely decorated, tastefully done but does not afford the kinda space and comfort like the National Library or the Ang Mo Kio library does.
It is , however, sensible to have the children's department all to itself on a single floor unlike the National Library (so many floors but just one floor of young people's, adults and children's shoehorned together - but since I haven't visited it for a long time now, things may have changed)
It is good we have something in between and not just extremes
Instead of just cold soya milk (which makes me cough, by the way if I drink too much cold drinks and the sick-building, unserviced and unmaintained air-conditioner anywhere just aggravates it - I prefer fresh natural air anytime) and hot (may scorch the tongue and if you are in a hurry to rush off somewhere, this is usually true), we have lukewarm. That golden mean. Just perfect.
I am slowly but surely recovering
Sleep, sleep, sleep. That is how I recuperate from everything and anything. I have had about enough of the "weirdos" I have been putting up with ever since I moved from place to place starting February 2006. I had intended to detoxify but may have ended up with more toxins than I can cope.
It isn't being hypnopompoic again as that was a really protracted period in my life. But just short hypnopompoism to recharge and revitalise.
What's with all these restrictions
At the newly revamped LAN shop (super investment in gleaming new state-of-the-art looking PCs and awesome albeit tightly controlled opening screen with a menu artfully laid out), I couldn't chat on IRC, nor can I play music from Windows Media Player (coz there aint any and I can't download if the administrator has the control somewhere, not visible to moi).
It is MADDENING, to say the very least. What use is anything if it is so new but you can't do a single thing on it.
Is our tap water potable?
I hesitatingly said it is when questioned by someone today. I have drunk from it several times but it is just that some old habits die hard and unless I have the official sanction that it is, I may hesitate a little more rather than a little less.
Now that Pluto is out, I may just be in
Yeah, after the papers ran an article on Pluto being voted out at an astronomical congress, I may just opt to be in. In to be with the Singapore's chapter of the astronomers' club.
Monday, September 04, 2006
I Had A Good Night's Sleep
Three blind mice - I don't wanna be the blind leading the blind
This is something which we all experience at one time or another. People bugging you when they are next in line, waiting for something. Except that there is actually another carbon copy of what is being waited for.
This woman stalked my newpapers when there was one right at the other end of the table. The new community library has two copies of our national newspapers after all, at least at this branch.
A muscled dude at the gym (and that is why I am saying the hulks have either no brains or their brains just got really contracted small) insists on waiting for my lat-pull down machine when there was another nearby. This was when I was on a test out at a renowned gym.
An elderly man stood near me waiting his turn for the hand dryer at a mall's washroom when there was one just opposite. I had to point this out to him as he was obviously oblivious to his surroundings.
Why don't we treat the root cause and not just the symptoms
It is pointless to try to rally for more babies and talent and then to suggest immigration or a slew of financial incentives as a panacea when this has not worked priorly. We are only treating the symptoms. What about getting our hands down dirty to understanding what lies behind our dearth of local talent and babies.
If we have a fever, we take panadol. But that is only treating it symptomatically. Can we prevent a bout of fever from occurring in the future? Was it because we were dehydrated or out in the sun for too long?
This problem is just gonna crop up time after time if we don't, won't it?
Can't save on this one
The photocopying service at the community library is only 5 cents a copy. But since I have to edit my application letter constantly in step with the job requirements, I can only print directly from my floppy and not otherwise.
This is something which we all experience at one time or another. People bugging you when they are next in line, waiting for something. Except that there is actually another carbon copy of what is being waited for.
This woman stalked my newpapers when there was one right at the other end of the table. The new community library has two copies of our national newspapers after all, at least at this branch.
A muscled dude at the gym (and that is why I am saying the hulks have either no brains or their brains just got really contracted small) insists on waiting for my lat-pull down machine when there was another nearby. This was when I was on a test out at a renowned gym.
An elderly man stood near me waiting his turn for the hand dryer at a mall's washroom when there was one just opposite. I had to point this out to him as he was obviously oblivious to his surroundings.
Why don't we treat the root cause and not just the symptoms
It is pointless to try to rally for more babies and talent and then to suggest immigration or a slew of financial incentives as a panacea when this has not worked priorly. We are only treating the symptoms. What about getting our hands down dirty to understanding what lies behind our dearth of local talent and babies.
If we have a fever, we take panadol. But that is only treating it symptomatically. Can we prevent a bout of fever from occurring in the future? Was it because we were dehydrated or out in the sun for too long?
This problem is just gonna crop up time after time if we don't, won't it?
Can't save on this one
The photocopying service at the community library is only 5 cents a copy. But since I have to edit my application letter constantly in step with the job requirements, I can only print directly from my floppy and not otherwise.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
This Is Home For Now
What came out of the profiling test
I was curious as I always am. The test results showed that I was task-oriented, a trait I do concede to possess at times. Other things like being a perfectionist did not resonate as well as I have learned to moderate my expectations to a very large extent. Wanting to be my own boss is possibly true as then I can set the directions and vision what I want my kinda education to be. This must surely be true and good education, not some commercialised and examinised kinda education.
My lower back is acting up again
It must have been the few loads I carried on the day of the shift. The next morning and the morning after that, my lower back was achingly painful. To make up for the last one month of stress and hangovers, I slept in for the next few days, venturing out only to take dinner or just to take a walk round the neighborhood. I discovered a whole oasis of more eateries and shops around the town centre and a sprawling bricked community club.
Some house rules this is
At first I couldn't believe my ears when Tim told me that I couldn't hang my underwear, boxer shorts and socks in the service balcony of the kitchen . I have to either hang them in my bedroom or out the kitchen windows. This is utterly preposterous!
More cause and effect
To this end, he handed me a PVC telescopic pole (and whoever invented this must DIE because it is effectively a piece of useless junk) so I could hang all those "unmentionables" in my bedroom. This pole purportedly could take on a 1 kg load.
I added one piece of my clothes and before I knew what happened, the pole came crashing down, knocking off the wall clock which smashed to smithereens on the tiled floor. I had to scout for a replacement clock and Tim reimbursed me for both the clock and the pillow.
I am beginning to warm up to Auntie and Tim
First impressions often do not convey a correct perception of someone. I always believe in giving more time to know a person before I pass judgement (or the death sentence).
I am beginning to warm up to Tim and Auntie (Tim's mother). They do seem like nice folks. It is always comical the way I address her as "Auntie" the way I do, whenever I bump into her in the house. She is a barrel of laughs actually. Even her weekly domestic help was "Auntie" to me.
Hiro - that is what his name is
Then there is that Japanese flatmate who, in Tim's words, looks "spaced out" (which is true - he looks like he is shell-shocked most of the time, perhaps because of stress or something, what with being a foreigner here I guess) . I exchanged contacts with him the evening we were both going out for our respective dinner eatouts.
The New Bishan Community Library
It doesn't exude the kinda space the Ang Mo Kio library does. That is because it is five floors but each floor is a small space. The Ang Mo Kio library is only two storey high but it is spread out over a big space. The round leather cushion seats are enclosed within glass panels but if you can't lean against them, you ain't relaxed. I thought they should have made the lower part of the panel a different kinda leanable material and not glass.
What is gonna happen tomorrow
I am well-rested and I have my own room which means my own privacy and space. I look forward to meeting Muiz tomorrow for the movie "Barnyard" (of which I have a pair of free GV tickets compliments of one of my bank's reward points - it seems every organisation has some kind of rewards system or other nowadays) and for me, a re-re-visit to the new Bishan community library after the movie.
After that, it is job hunting again like always. That means a round of online surfing, oneline application,Microsofting, printing, faxing , emailing, licking envelopes and mailing, usually at several different locations even.
I was curious as I always am. The test results showed that I was task-oriented, a trait I do concede to possess at times. Other things like being a perfectionist did not resonate as well as I have learned to moderate my expectations to a very large extent. Wanting to be my own boss is possibly true as then I can set the directions and vision what I want my kinda education to be. This must surely be true and good education, not some commercialised and examinised kinda education.
My lower back is acting up again
It must have been the few loads I carried on the day of the shift. The next morning and the morning after that, my lower back was achingly painful. To make up for the last one month of stress and hangovers, I slept in for the next few days, venturing out only to take dinner or just to take a walk round the neighborhood. I discovered a whole oasis of more eateries and shops around the town centre and a sprawling bricked community club.
Some house rules this is
At first I couldn't believe my ears when Tim told me that I couldn't hang my underwear, boxer shorts and socks in the service balcony of the kitchen . I have to either hang them in my bedroom or out the kitchen windows. This is utterly preposterous!
More cause and effect
To this end, he handed me a PVC telescopic pole (and whoever invented this must DIE because it is effectively a piece of useless junk) so I could hang all those "unmentionables" in my bedroom. This pole purportedly could take on a 1 kg load.
I added one piece of my clothes and before I knew what happened, the pole came crashing down, knocking off the wall clock which smashed to smithereens on the tiled floor. I had to scout for a replacement clock and Tim reimbursed me for both the clock and the pillow.
I am beginning to warm up to Auntie and Tim
First impressions often do not convey a correct perception of someone. I always believe in giving more time to know a person before I pass judgement (or the death sentence).
I am beginning to warm up to Tim and Auntie (Tim's mother). They do seem like nice folks. It is always comical the way I address her as "Auntie" the way I do, whenever I bump into her in the house. She is a barrel of laughs actually. Even her weekly domestic help was "Auntie" to me.
Hiro - that is what his name is
Then there is that Japanese flatmate who, in Tim's words, looks "spaced out" (which is true - he looks like he is shell-shocked most of the time, perhaps because of stress or something, what with being a foreigner here I guess) . I exchanged contacts with him the evening we were both going out for our respective dinner eatouts.
The New Bishan Community Library
It doesn't exude the kinda space the Ang Mo Kio library does. That is because it is five floors but each floor is a small space. The Ang Mo Kio library is only two storey high but it is spread out over a big space. The round leather cushion seats are enclosed within glass panels but if you can't lean against them, you ain't relaxed. I thought they should have made the lower part of the panel a different kinda leanable material and not glass.
What is gonna happen tomorrow
I am well-rested and I have my own room which means my own privacy and space. I look forward to meeting Muiz tomorrow for the movie "Barnyard" (of which I have a pair of free GV tickets compliments of one of my bank's reward points - it seems every organisation has some kind of rewards system or other nowadays) and for me, a re-re-visit to the new Bishan community library after the movie.
After that, it is job hunting again like always. That means a round of online surfing, oneline application,Microsofting, printing, faxing , emailing, licking envelopes and mailing, usually at several different locations even.
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