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.
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