How Can You Compare With Me, Muiz?
Well I actually planned for a bicycling trip with Muiz but changed my mind to a walk in the parks instead. But as it had been raining the last couple of days, I asked for a wet-weather plan and Muiz suggested visiting Vivo. So please, Muiz, you suggested Vivo and don't expect me not to window shop here, taking up precious time that keeps you from the appointment you planned the same day with "Khal & Co" ( I told you this way beforehand and if Khal & Co text you that same day, you would have respectfully declined as I have told you I do not wish to meet you on a rush-rush basis)
I think my underwear have been with me since the early 90s and I had not had a change since . So too my socks and neckties. I did buy some stuff in 1998 and in between a few items here and there and only this year 2006 did I throw out my old wardrobe which has accumulated since my NSF days.
I also started travelling further afield, other than the hinterland, in the year 2000 when I was 35 years old. I know of younger people who have had travelled almost the whole world and on a few trips to the same countries at that!
Public Service Thievery That Shows A Lack Of Creovation!
I am beginning to think that educators are no better than thieves. They ask for program outlines and we never get to conduct the programs. Very likely they do it themselves. That speaks volumes of their creovation!
I had teachers who wanted me to leave behind my demo CDs or they ask me to show them my game cards, things I refuse to comply. Educators or thieves?
Photogenic Fiefdom Right Here In Singapore
Yeah, He-Ape and his wife love holding the annual ceremony cum meetings. It is like a yearly show-off of their little serfdom and fiefdom they command. Everybody watches on as they usually give away long-service awards (to their kins and henchmen/women more likely) as photographic bulbs flash and He-Ape's wife is all smiles for the camera!
It is also that time of the year when He-Ape brags about his "school's" achievements like the attendees he has from renowned schools (most likely the bottom heap of the academic pile or some people he bought over with bribes like money or sweets)
A Nation of Compassion And Love - Pui - I Wanna Spit In Your Face And Gonads
I remember placing an advert in a major newspaper here and I was late in paying up. I was hounded, first by the newspaper, then its lawyers. The amount was just tens of dollars. In its legalistically-fraught letter of demand, it stated that it would not give up till all had been settled.
The same went with the housing authority. I had promptly paid up my mortgage in all the years since 1995 up untill 2004 and thereabouts. Can you imagine it doesn't pay heed to those years I had been dutifully paying my dues but chose to focus instead on the last one or two years when I was in financial straits!
Speaking with the officers was no consolation (pompous bureaucrats - a bitch and wimp no less) and over the counter, the clerk made it a point to deduct whatever little I had in my CPF to settle my dues.
Pui To One And All I Met In The Course Of My Work And More
This include ex-employers, ex-classmates, school-mates, educators and the whole lot. I wanna see you burn in HELL! And you will if Jesus Christ does exist and religion is what you make it to be!
Isn't Anthropology A More Satisfying And Unifying Study Subject For Mankind?
I told Johannes that teaching anthropology seems a better study subject than any religious study. First, its "Out Of Africa" theory seems to have prevailed over the multi-regionalists' theory and that spells a common ancestry for mankind. This is validated by the bio-geneticists.
It is no longer phenotyping that differentiate but genotyping that unify. How can bio-anthropology be a bad study subject in the name of humanity and the milk of human goodness?
Darling Blogger Wee, You May Be Right In Some Respects
Well, I haven't really read her entire blog but from the dribs and drabs, I must say she does have a few valid points. One, if she is correctly referring to all the "old and unmotivated leeches" (does she mean civil servants here?) who seem to be sitting on their behinds and collecting a regular pay cheque every month, she isn't far wrong.
Think of all the ridiculous and senseless policies that have stayed and stood for ages without anyone putting forth rectifications. What are the mandarins doing? Masticating and flatulating?
I have sat in with officials at the Education Ministry and one with a fat paunch doesn't know what the left hand isn't doing that the right hand is. One is a blinktard who is only good at asking for track record. Mind you, she is at the top of the educational pyramid. Well to answer her question, does a timber merchant know a thing at all about a design school or even education? How come he gets to set up a "school"?
I will repeat this once more. Providing education isn't like selling "yong-tau-foo". Anyone can sell the latter, usually the tasteless variety we get to eat nowadays. Keep education out of the "commercial" sphere. There must be that larger social good and noble objective to education other than profits.
What The Bloggers Wees Of Blogosphere Need
First, the educational elites at elite schools need a large dose of realism injected into their Aryan blood. That begins with people like me, someone very down-to-earth and who lives truly among the community, to open up their minds, hearts and eyes to the other side of living life in Singapore.
They can't afford to have other educational elites (scholars and what-not) telling them all the happy side to life. They need people like me, the face of reality, of failure and of realism to face them squarely in the face and level with them.
In fact if I had my way, the top scholars do not begin life at the top. They begin right at the bottom. Like He-Ape's son and all his family members, without any special access or privileges.
Educationists - Ha Ha Ha!
The bitches I met at schools are the combative dominatrixes who play favouritism and are dead set against any who dares to oppose them - that means their charges. When speaking with them, they are so filled with venom and hate, it makes me wonder if these are grown-ups or kids who has lost at a chatek game. Holy Cow Shit!
The disparaging and unkind remarks they pass are enough to poison any wilting rose growing by the roadside.
Muiz - You Wimp!
As for Muiz, yes, it is a different story altogether. I am relating to him on a personal level. I have my very good reasons to hate him. He hasn't proven to be a trustworthy person. I couldn't believe the way he lies to his mother and how he sneaks me into his house in the middle of the night when his parents are at work and his brothers are asleep.
He has snuck out of his house and had sex with men in their cars late in the night! And in various places! And he likes rough sex! The wrestling matches and the sado-macho kind! Most of all, he can't commit to a relationship, he can't settle down with someone and have a relationship!
This is a 17 year old and it scares the hell outta me! I would never have the guts to do this at that age! Looking at him rigged out in his religious garb, you couldn't have told! It doesn't matter if someone is a plain Joe, an ugly toad or a gorgeous hunk! Anyone can be like Muiz and all his ilk!
He was actually hanging out with "Khal & Co" at various McDonald outlets to "study" while he was lying to me that he was conducting study sessions at the libraries with his madrasah mates. And he practises his faith piously! If I were him, I would have renounced my religion straight away as I do now and be an agnostic or atheist! No need to pretend to keep up appearances when I know I can't!
There are more Muiz out there than we think!
Political Drama, Staging And Acting
Politicians aren't so different from actors or actresses. They look really good on print and in broadcast. Charismatic demagogues making great speeches of fantasy. Staging political dramas and theatrics to pull in votes and win elections. The scums of the earth.
Do Politicians Have Our Interests At Heart?
Your guess is as good a hazard as mine. I hope they do. Because despite all the glittery gloss of our city-state splendour, I have witnessed many elderly poor begging and scavenging for food or clothes or household items at waste-disposal bins.
All the money and labour spent on maintaining buildings of grandeur! Palatial public buildings!Deciduous trees that do not provide sustenance! A bloated, fat, pompous and useless public machinery earning nothing but sucking up blood money from the masses! Not even doing its proper job in some instances! Unmotivated leeches earning fat pay packets for nothing at the top echleons! Lame excuses of attending endless ghost meetings to shirk responsibilities! Cheap foreign labor that takes away jobs from the local unskilled! "Talents" who aren't really talents but stooges more likely! Or a political trump card against some paranoid imagined adversarial foreign invasion!
Intrusion into personal privacy and space! Not regulating when it should! Regulating when it shouldn't especially if it has no good reasons or rationale. Guilty untill proven innocent. Complete idiocy and bungling! Third World mentality! A nation built on money!
You have my utter contempt!
Hey Tim! I Can Nag Too
Well, the furniture I am provided ain't exactly first-class. Wardrobes and doors with hinges undone. Yellowed dirty insides. A metal rack good for store-room usage instead of in the bedroom. Stained bed sheets that make my skin itch. A broken rattan chair that makes me all achy and stiff sitting on it. And all that unexplained hair that I dredge into my room everyday. It must come from somewhere.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
You Die, Muiz!
Sunday chores
Hoovering up all the hair and gunk on the floor and mopping it up. Not least, because my room is just right next to the main entrance, all kinds of dirt, dust and grime get swept up to my doorstep. The fan needs to be wiped off its dirt too. Quite a choreful on a Sunday morning.
Vivo City
Its frontage is a slab of chocolate brown but its side has a steely nice wave-design which overlooks the Keppel Harbour and part of the South China sea enclosed in a bay, with the cruise-ship STAR VIRGO and the Chinese restaurant junkship anchored off its harbour. Quite a view.
Shops, shops and more shops. What about a community library here? Or a Borders or Kino bookstore?
Muiz - You Will Regret This
Well he seems pretty cheeky and playful these days. Hanging out with the "gays" from SGBOY who in my opinion do not provide good influence or company especially for "study group sessions". He is gonna regret this BIG TIME, later but not sooner.
And I know for some time, he hasn't been telling me the whole truth. If he thinks that "Ang Mohs" make good companions, he is gonna be in for a rude shock. I think most are in for the fun and going by marriage statistics in the hetero community, many end in divorces with naive locals having to return home and in tatters, some physically and emotionally abused.
Bananas, Oreos And Apples
The men's clubs have significant foreign holdings and I am not sure if this tells us the kinda filth the white men are dumping on our shores which we, Asians, have all but lapped up with great earnest.
That includes their governance, education and culture. Can Asians think? I am afraid the answer is an emphatic "No".
Antiquated Job Application System
It makes one wonder if the administrator really knows what he/she is doing. Sending a CV exceeding a certain byte size cannot be passed through. This is preposterous!
You Ain't No Educationist To Me - Blimps, Bimbs and Wimps
I have scant respect for educators these days. Making my rounds and speaking with them just last year did not leave me a very good impression.
Yvonne fed me this. She had noticed "bonzai" growing in her son's secondary school. Imagine the labor and cost to prune these. Not to mention the "lake" a school has. These funds would have been better utilised for stocking the school's library or something.
Are We Really Better Off These Days
Sure, the agrarian days of old require back-breaking work, toiling in untold climes. But now, it is mental stress that is taking its toll on our health.
So what do we need? Physical exertion or therapy to work this off. Isn't this the same?
Hoovering up all the hair and gunk on the floor and mopping it up. Not least, because my room is just right next to the main entrance, all kinds of dirt, dust and grime get swept up to my doorstep. The fan needs to be wiped off its dirt too. Quite a choreful on a Sunday morning.
Vivo City
Its frontage is a slab of chocolate brown but its side has a steely nice wave-design which overlooks the Keppel Harbour and part of the South China sea enclosed in a bay, with the cruise-ship STAR VIRGO and the Chinese restaurant junkship anchored off its harbour. Quite a view.
Shops, shops and more shops. What about a community library here? Or a Borders or Kino bookstore?
Muiz - You Will Regret This
Well he seems pretty cheeky and playful these days. Hanging out with the "gays" from SGBOY who in my opinion do not provide good influence or company especially for "study group sessions". He is gonna regret this BIG TIME, later but not sooner.
And I know for some time, he hasn't been telling me the whole truth. If he thinks that "Ang Mohs" make good companions, he is gonna be in for a rude shock. I think most are in for the fun and going by marriage statistics in the hetero community, many end in divorces with naive locals having to return home and in tatters, some physically and emotionally abused.
Bananas, Oreos And Apples
The men's clubs have significant foreign holdings and I am not sure if this tells us the kinda filth the white men are dumping on our shores which we, Asians, have all but lapped up with great earnest.
That includes their governance, education and culture. Can Asians think? I am afraid the answer is an emphatic "No".
Antiquated Job Application System
It makes one wonder if the administrator really knows what he/she is doing. Sending a CV exceeding a certain byte size cannot be passed through. This is preposterous!
You Ain't No Educationist To Me - Blimps, Bimbs and Wimps
I have scant respect for educators these days. Making my rounds and speaking with them just last year did not leave me a very good impression.
Yvonne fed me this. She had noticed "bonzai" growing in her son's secondary school. Imagine the labor and cost to prune these. Not to mention the "lake" a school has. These funds would have been better utilised for stocking the school's library or something.
Are We Really Better Off These Days
Sure, the agrarian days of old require back-breaking work, toiling in untold climes. But now, it is mental stress that is taking its toll on our health.
So what do we need? Physical exertion or therapy to work this off. Isn't this the same?
Saturday, October 28, 2006
I Slept So Soundly Last Night I Thought I Was In Heaven
The End Of Muiz
A fiery end, that was what it was to me. We arranged to meet at Vivo City and it was just that one special day after a couple of weeks of not meeting. Half the time he was texting on his mobile to his other "friends" and had an appointment with "Khal & Co" at 5pm, knowing full well we were having this day together.
So I gave him a choice of leaving for his appointment and he did, on my second urging, without even glancing back a second. I text him and told him it was best we broke up.
This is my second and last time I will patch up with him. I think he is a two-timing liar.
Look, I have survived so many break-ups before. This is no exception. I will never look back on a failed and ended relationship (if it was ever one in the first place).
Mindless And Self-Absorbed Singaporeans - A Nation Of Cataleptics
A poor old man fell the other day as he tripped over the kerb. Most didn't notice it , two onlookers smiled at him and none went to his aid. I was too far away from him to be able to render any immediate help. In any case, he promptly got up, brushed himself off and shuffled on. This must be the typical Singaporean's mantra of "Move On" (a heartless and brutal one which does not include emotional healing or comfort)
This reminded me of a similar incident when a man slipped and fell at a food court in Punggol. He fell right next to where a yound lady sat. She continued eating without nary a twitch.
This also brought to mind countless others I have encountered, usually the elderly, who beg on the streets, one even near the Sultan Mosque or who just do not seem to be in very good financial shape judging by the way they dress and the way they look and their overall physical condition.
The State Of A Typical Singaporean Family
I can speak on better terms with Auntie, certainly much better than with Tim. Tim is a hairdresser (which means he is a wimp of sorts) and likes nagging. He nags about the toilet bowl being soiled (by Hiro), mistaking me for doing it.
Well, I notice my bedroom always has hair on the floor. His ink-blue hair dye also drips all over the cistern and its bottle. And his toothpaste drips (or is it Hiro's), God, has crusted on the sink.
Auntie speaks softly to me and reasons quite well save for her occasional "quirks". However in the early morning after coming home , she would quarrel with some people over the telephone in her bedroom.
I have never seen Tim speaking with his Mom. I guess this is the state of family nowadays.
What Role Can Religion Play
Speaking with Johannes, we agree that religion has a role to play in modern society. That of uniting not dividing people of faiths. For one, it cannot ostracise and discriminate against groups of people like gays. Monogamous gay marriages, with adopted children even, cannot be wrong.
It should focus on its role of teaching morals , like how abortion is wrong , ridding society of fleshpots and emphasizing the sanctity of a monogamous relationship. And what about gambling?
Nihilism
There is nothing much to believe in anymore. Be it religion or science or education or family. We have been so "economised" that "the economy" controls every part of us, the human soul, heart, mind and body.
I suggest that it is time we abolish Man, intoto, from the surface of the earth. If we don't, GOD will (if there is one). It is that BAD.
Blogger Wee Versus Wee
I fear for Singapore if we have leaders who espouse the kinda views his daughter does (he stood by her, didn't he?). Precisely because he is in that leadership role, he should be undertaking the task of creating a more egalatarian society, for the public and community good.
Of course he can't control what his daughter says but WHOA! Isn't this kinda scary we have such "representatives" "representing our interests" in a "liberal" democracy? Or is it plutocracy?
My Last Stand
I am not marrying, even if I have to die on the streets. I am not going political begging either. I am gonna land a job the usual way. A teaching job. I wanna live my life on my own terms. My own place, my beau (not blimps, bimbs nor wimps) and my son (optional).
Political Staging And Lip-Service
Don't forget how this could be more pervasive than we think it is. The media is inundated with it. Sometimes it makes one wonder if politicians are even governing? Or are the technocrats the ones?
A fiery end, that was what it was to me. We arranged to meet at Vivo City and it was just that one special day after a couple of weeks of not meeting. Half the time he was texting on his mobile to his other "friends" and had an appointment with "Khal & Co" at 5pm, knowing full well we were having this day together.
So I gave him a choice of leaving for his appointment and he did, on my second urging, without even glancing back a second. I text him and told him it was best we broke up.
This is my second and last time I will patch up with him. I think he is a two-timing liar.
Look, I have survived so many break-ups before. This is no exception. I will never look back on a failed and ended relationship (if it was ever one in the first place).
Mindless And Self-Absorbed Singaporeans - A Nation Of Cataleptics
A poor old man fell the other day as he tripped over the kerb. Most didn't notice it , two onlookers smiled at him and none went to his aid. I was too far away from him to be able to render any immediate help. In any case, he promptly got up, brushed himself off and shuffled on. This must be the typical Singaporean's mantra of "Move On" (a heartless and brutal one which does not include emotional healing or comfort)
This reminded me of a similar incident when a man slipped and fell at a food court in Punggol. He fell right next to where a yound lady sat. She continued eating without nary a twitch.
This also brought to mind countless others I have encountered, usually the elderly, who beg on the streets, one even near the Sultan Mosque or who just do not seem to be in very good financial shape judging by the way they dress and the way they look and their overall physical condition.
The State Of A Typical Singaporean Family
I can speak on better terms with Auntie, certainly much better than with Tim. Tim is a hairdresser (which means he is a wimp of sorts) and likes nagging. He nags about the toilet bowl being soiled (by Hiro), mistaking me for doing it.
Well, I notice my bedroom always has hair on the floor. His ink-blue hair dye also drips all over the cistern and its bottle. And his toothpaste drips (or is it Hiro's), God, has crusted on the sink.
Auntie speaks softly to me and reasons quite well save for her occasional "quirks". However in the early morning after coming home , she would quarrel with some people over the telephone in her bedroom.
I have never seen Tim speaking with his Mom. I guess this is the state of family nowadays.
What Role Can Religion Play
Speaking with Johannes, we agree that religion has a role to play in modern society. That of uniting not dividing people of faiths. For one, it cannot ostracise and discriminate against groups of people like gays. Monogamous gay marriages, with adopted children even, cannot be wrong.
It should focus on its role of teaching morals , like how abortion is wrong , ridding society of fleshpots and emphasizing the sanctity of a monogamous relationship. And what about gambling?
Nihilism
There is nothing much to believe in anymore. Be it religion or science or education or family. We have been so "economised" that "the economy" controls every part of us, the human soul, heart, mind and body.
I suggest that it is time we abolish Man, intoto, from the surface of the earth. If we don't, GOD will (if there is one). It is that BAD.
Blogger Wee Versus Wee
I fear for Singapore if we have leaders who espouse the kinda views his daughter does (he stood by her, didn't he?). Precisely because he is in that leadership role, he should be undertaking the task of creating a more egalatarian society, for the public and community good.
Of course he can't control what his daughter says but WHOA! Isn't this kinda scary we have such "representatives" "representing our interests" in a "liberal" democracy? Or is it plutocracy?
My Last Stand
I am not marrying, even if I have to die on the streets. I am not going political begging either. I am gonna land a job the usual way. A teaching job. I wanna live my life on my own terms. My own place, my beau (not blimps, bimbs nor wimps) and my son (optional).
Political Staging And Lip-Service
Don't forget how this could be more pervasive than we think it is. The media is inundated with it. Sometimes it makes one wonder if politicians are even governing? Or are the technocrats the ones?
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Eidul-Fitr
Dream, dream, dream
These form part of the lyrics of a popular song in days gone by. I was hanging around Kampong Glam the other day which was ablaze with a bazaar and the conserved shophouses were retailing Eidul-Fitr bajus, what with Ramadan going on and Syawal just round the corner.
In my opinion, this part of town should be the true seat of Malay culture and heritage. There are the Istana grounds and a cemetery. Strangely after I went home that night and the following night, I dreamt three dreams, someting which I have not done for a long time.
I couldn't help thinking it had something to do with the kubor. People who died and whose spirits gave me a glimpse of their past lives.
Double Standards
Government schools should be the instituitions to impart educational knowledge. Not commercial schools like tuition centres. We cannot place the blame on "kiasu" parents. It was precisely because PSS, MOE was set up that these centres sprouted.
MOE is practising double standards when it does special education for the intellectually gifted, like the IP and Gifted programs, but not special education for the intellectually slower developers and disabled.
What Do We Have Here? More Man-made Stupidity!
Singaporeans are a very evasive lot when they communicate. They never tell you something straight from the heart. They tell you one thing when they actually harbour another thought. They also seem to be very untrustworthy who have hidden agendas.
They are all very nice to you when they need or want something. So they court the higher-ups in power. They repeat the exact same thing the media or government officials say. No originality of thought and wrong thoughts even.
A simple task is always politicised. People are so full of intrigue here. Fear, reticence and whatnot. How stupid can it get?
Have you noticed how job application forms even ask you details of criminal connvictions, your health and financial status and so on. Well, I am not sure if they are entitled to ask this but I thought these are very personal details. So what's with the "Yellow Ribbon" project? Wasn't that supposed to give our wrong-doers a second chance?
I spoke with Yvonne today and we agreed how stupid every single job nowadays needs a degree. Even simple administrative work. What ever happened to learning on the job for practical experience and doing your own self-learning for the theoretical aspects?
Daniel - The English Bull Mastiff
Look who is here! Daniel either owns, co-owns or works at a man's club. I can't imagine his bulldoggish, loud, arrogant, fat, bearish ass can serve up good service attitude. But it seems he does. He even calls a customer "handsome", so I was told which means he is a double-faced hypocrite.
I can still remember the day we had our argument and a tiny puny arse like him, living in a 5-room HDB flat in Punggol, could tell the police officers he may wanna consult his lawyers over the matter.
He had told me before how when he lived in Bedok, he had just as many tenants. He had also broken with his bf. I can imagine. A parsimonious, calculative and low-down lifeform like him can never hope to steal his beau's heart! Anyone would be turned off.
Singapore - The Encyclopaedia
Now that I have gone through most of its 2500 entries, I finaly realised what is missing! There should be entries on food like chwee kueh or ang ku kueh, these being kinda traditional snacks we eat. More entries on eponymous roads and other than National Day award recipients, laypeople living ordinary lives could be featured for precisely the kinda work they do - mundane but all the same, important work that makes a whole place tick.
These form part of the lyrics of a popular song in days gone by. I was hanging around Kampong Glam the other day which was ablaze with a bazaar and the conserved shophouses were retailing Eidul-Fitr bajus, what with Ramadan going on and Syawal just round the corner.
In my opinion, this part of town should be the true seat of Malay culture and heritage. There are the Istana grounds and a cemetery. Strangely after I went home that night and the following night, I dreamt three dreams, someting which I have not done for a long time.
I couldn't help thinking it had something to do with the kubor. People who died and whose spirits gave me a glimpse of their past lives.
Double Standards
Government schools should be the instituitions to impart educational knowledge. Not commercial schools like tuition centres. We cannot place the blame on "kiasu" parents. It was precisely because PSS, MOE was set up that these centres sprouted.
MOE is practising double standards when it does special education for the intellectually gifted, like the IP and Gifted programs, but not special education for the intellectually slower developers and disabled.
What Do We Have Here? More Man-made Stupidity!
Singaporeans are a very evasive lot when they communicate. They never tell you something straight from the heart. They tell you one thing when they actually harbour another thought. They also seem to be very untrustworthy who have hidden agendas.
They are all very nice to you when they need or want something. So they court the higher-ups in power. They repeat the exact same thing the media or government officials say. No originality of thought and wrong thoughts even.
A simple task is always politicised. People are so full of intrigue here. Fear, reticence and whatnot. How stupid can it get?
Have you noticed how job application forms even ask you details of criminal connvictions, your health and financial status and so on. Well, I am not sure if they are entitled to ask this but I thought these are very personal details. So what's with the "Yellow Ribbon" project? Wasn't that supposed to give our wrong-doers a second chance?
I spoke with Yvonne today and we agreed how stupid every single job nowadays needs a degree. Even simple administrative work. What ever happened to learning on the job for practical experience and doing your own self-learning for the theoretical aspects?
Daniel - The English Bull Mastiff
Look who is here! Daniel either owns, co-owns or works at a man's club. I can't imagine his bulldoggish, loud, arrogant, fat, bearish ass can serve up good service attitude. But it seems he does. He even calls a customer "handsome", so I was told which means he is a double-faced hypocrite.
I can still remember the day we had our argument and a tiny puny arse like him, living in a 5-room HDB flat in Punggol, could tell the police officers he may wanna consult his lawyers over the matter.
He had told me before how when he lived in Bedok, he had just as many tenants. He had also broken with his bf. I can imagine. A parsimonious, calculative and low-down lifeform like him can never hope to steal his beau's heart! Anyone would be turned off.
Singapore - The Encyclopaedia
Now that I have gone through most of its 2500 entries, I finaly realised what is missing! There should be entries on food like chwee kueh or ang ku kueh, these being kinda traditional snacks we eat. More entries on eponymous roads and other than National Day award recipients, laypeople living ordinary lives could be featured for precisely the kinda work they do - mundane but all the same, important work that makes a whole place tick.
Friday, October 20, 2006
At Complete Ease
Peace, peace
I have never found myself more at peace and at ease the whole of last week once I stopped reading the papers, reading books and blogging . Because all these pursuits are really intense, synaptic and personal.
It was like back to my good old school days when I could be holed up for hours poring over "The Hardy Boys", "The Famous Five" and the "Secret Seven".
I am getting out more and I am enjoying it very much.
You poor sexless being you! You must as well be neutered!
When I spoke with Johannes, I couldn't help think that at last I have someone on my side, someone who isn't with the establishment, speak the things they speak and think the way they think. But he did clear up one thing. Working with an American oil company, his firm is into oil exploration sites in Iraq.
We chatted about the state of affairs here in Singapore. How inconsistent, a double standard even, and how confusing policies are. Reading "Singapore: The Encyclopaedia", a section on homosexuality states how being homosexual isn't a crime but practising it is. What do you expect gays to do? Sit back and watch his sex life go by? Is he a sexless being?
This encyclopaedia is comprehensive and informative, a Who's Who in Singapore and which lists just as many events and terms that are generic to Singapore. Like tuition for one. But far too many are members of the establishment and one can't help get the feeling that something is missing (or amiss).
Educational Review (Part 2)
The whole system should be overhauled from kindergaten to university. The curriculum should be drawn up to provide for a systematic step-by-step progression from one level to the next without repetition or replication.
Subjects should be made modular. This means topical. For example, Physics should be divided into modules like Heat or Optics with further sub-division into its various components. Students who fail should not be made to repeat a whole year but only the modules he did not pass.
It should be a 3 year secondary school followed by a 3 year pre-university. This will be more spread out and less crammed.
It should be fun learning at the lower levels while progressively more research-based and independent learning.
Students should not only be taught topics in isolation or fragmentation but be shown how integrative and connected each is to a big overall concept and unifier. A theory of a cohesive everything if you will.
Life stories of how a concept began which usually relates to the person who founded it helps students trace the origins and develpment of an idea. They begin to understand the topic better.
Books wich can narrate a concept like a story explains it better. Like many of the popular culture books on the market now.
Singapore Politics
I met this cabby who brought me to Simei one late morning. He used to run a business but he has ceased as his supplier in China and Thailand have often duped him by supplying degraded steel products he imports for a steel factory here.
We got round to talking how we have lost heavily in Suzhou and he told me of a standing joke which the name Suzou implies. "Su" means lose while "zhou" means city. We los big time in this Chinese city.
Some politicians are just that - politicians. They are not economists nor entrepreneurs nor anything. Sometimes when we read a speech, it seems that the speech the politican makes refers to himself. Didn't we rid ourselves of colonialism only to duplicate their exact same failings?
What's more having ex-civil servants dabbling in businesses. Do they make good entrepreneurs? Well if everything goes well, good and fine. If not, fingers start pointing.
I have never found myself more at peace and at ease the whole of last week once I stopped reading the papers, reading books and blogging . Because all these pursuits are really intense, synaptic and personal.
It was like back to my good old school days when I could be holed up for hours poring over "The Hardy Boys", "The Famous Five" and the "Secret Seven".
I am getting out more and I am enjoying it very much.
You poor sexless being you! You must as well be neutered!
When I spoke with Johannes, I couldn't help think that at last I have someone on my side, someone who isn't with the establishment, speak the things they speak and think the way they think. But he did clear up one thing. Working with an American oil company, his firm is into oil exploration sites in Iraq.
We chatted about the state of affairs here in Singapore. How inconsistent, a double standard even, and how confusing policies are. Reading "Singapore: The Encyclopaedia", a section on homosexuality states how being homosexual isn't a crime but practising it is. What do you expect gays to do? Sit back and watch his sex life go by? Is he a sexless being?
This encyclopaedia is comprehensive and informative, a Who's Who in Singapore and which lists just as many events and terms that are generic to Singapore. Like tuition for one. But far too many are members of the establishment and one can't help get the feeling that something is missing (or amiss).
Educational Review (Part 2)
The whole system should be overhauled from kindergaten to university. The curriculum should be drawn up to provide for a systematic step-by-step progression from one level to the next without repetition or replication.
Subjects should be made modular. This means topical. For example, Physics should be divided into modules like Heat or Optics with further sub-division into its various components. Students who fail should not be made to repeat a whole year but only the modules he did not pass.
It should be a 3 year secondary school followed by a 3 year pre-university. This will be more spread out and less crammed.
It should be fun learning at the lower levels while progressively more research-based and independent learning.
Students should not only be taught topics in isolation or fragmentation but be shown how integrative and connected each is to a big overall concept and unifier. A theory of a cohesive everything if you will.
Life stories of how a concept began which usually relates to the person who founded it helps students trace the origins and develpment of an idea. They begin to understand the topic better.
Books wich can narrate a concept like a story explains it better. Like many of the popular culture books on the market now.
Singapore Politics
I met this cabby who brought me to Simei one late morning. He used to run a business but he has ceased as his supplier in China and Thailand have often duped him by supplying degraded steel products he imports for a steel factory here.
We got round to talking how we have lost heavily in Suzhou and he told me of a standing joke which the name Suzou implies. "Su" means lose while "zhou" means city. We los big time in this Chinese city.
Some politicians are just that - politicians. They are not economists nor entrepreneurs nor anything. Sometimes when we read a speech, it seems that the speech the politican makes refers to himself. Didn't we rid ourselves of colonialism only to duplicate their exact same failings?
What's more having ex-civil servants dabbling in businesses. Do they make good entrepreneurs? Well if everything goes well, good and fine. If not, fingers start pointing.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Hypocritical Oath - An Allegiance Of Vows
Wilde's Indiscretion
After reading Wilde's anthology of plays and prose, one gets an inside glimpse of the Victorian Age which at once is prim and proper superficially but thoroughly decadent at its core. Wilde exposes this hypocrisy through his subversive satirical plays.
It is indeed to Wilde's injustice that he should be prosecuted and jailed for his homosexual crime (despite a willing consent on the part of both parties who were married anyway at some point in their lives) as much as raise an eyebrow in today's state-sanctioned gay-marriage friendly England.
This shows how times have evolved and I can't help but relate this to what we are seeing here. The same state of denial and hypocrisy which the current literature and social norms do not support.
I can't agree more with Wilde on many of his observations.
After reading Wilde's anthology of plays and prose, one gets an inside glimpse of the Victorian Age which at once is prim and proper superficially but thoroughly decadent at its core. Wilde exposes this hypocrisy through his subversive satirical plays.
It is indeed to Wilde's injustice that he should be prosecuted and jailed for his homosexual crime (despite a willing consent on the part of both parties who were married anyway at some point in their lives) as much as raise an eyebrow in today's state-sanctioned gay-marriage friendly England.
This shows how times have evolved and I can't help but relate this to what we are seeing here. The same state of denial and hypocrisy which the current literature and social norms do not support.
I can't agree more with Wilde on many of his observations.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Move Over - Make Way For "Progress"
Wilde's Wry Wit
I shall leave you with this: "To be good is to be in harmony with oneself. Discord is when one is forced to be in harmony with others."
I cannot agree better after living with so many weirdoes the past couple of months and I am continuing to live with weirdoes right up till today.
Possibly My Last Blog
I think I have had about enough of blogging my thoughts here. I can't be forever here, watching the world and Singapore pass me by. I, like the rest of the emigrants, who have found this place wanting in many respects, will have to move on....hopefully to greener pastures.
All I can say to the people here is this: You make this place so shall you live and die by it too - for better or worse, for the moment or forever.
My Last Word On The Foreign Talent Debate
I have to state again, very categorically, that I do not begrudge any foreign talent on our shores his/her rightful place. But let us be very sure it is indeed a "talent".
Speaking for myself, if I emigrate (and this thought has besotted me many times recently) and if the lifestyle, culture and everything afford me the things I wanna pursue and I am madly enough in love with it, I see no reason why I shouldn't be embracing citizenship with my heart and soul. Why would I look over my shoulder unless of course the biblical "do not look back warning ala the destruction of Sodom and Gnorrhea" didn't sink into my head. Which can't say very much about me, can it? Didn't I turn into a pillar of salt after that?
This is my commitment to the country. Period. I can't speak the same for "dual/triple citizenries" or "permanent residents" though.
Just Own Up And Do The Right Thing, MOE
First you read about it in my earlier blogs. PSS, MOE registers commercial schools which confers some kinda authenticity and legitimacy to these schools while CASETRUST (Consumers Association of Singapore) takes over the accreditation, which in effect means that "private" education has been subordinated to a "consumerism" role. Imagine, the larger social good and objective of a holistic, meaningful education must surely be abrogated when Adam Smith's capitalism must surely be on entrepreneurs' minds. And who are we entrusting education to in the "commercial" realm? Ex-CEOs or ex-production floor workers?
If we were to have a commercial school system that shadows the mainstream one, wouldn't it make sense to abolish the former and incorporate its merits into the latter. Parents can be told that the money they spent on commercial schools can now be better spent on public schools viz enrichment programs or some complementary programs of sort. Better still, raise the fees a little and make the commercial schools into one with the public schools.
Now, special education schools (which is the education of the intellectually disabled and not education of the intellectually gifted as it is also commonly known in other parts of the world ) is canvassing for it to be under the ambit of MOE which all the time it has been languishing under the wings of NCSS .
MOE only does a perfunctory educational audit but NCSS does a thorough financial audit with a net effect that special education schools are run like charity organisations with no proper educational structure or curriculum. Not to speak of ever dreaming to assimiliate with mainstream schools, the latter being important for ultimate societal integration especially for mildly intellectual dysfunctional cases.
If the two scenarios are not redolent of the same staid air of shirking one's educational responsibility, public and social good, rats can't stink any more than civet cats do.
James Gomez' "Self Censorship And Singapore's Shame"
James Gomez does a superbly well-surveyed and precise critique of the political scene here.
Yes indeed it is to Singapore's shame if we can't express our views or even hold a different opinion from any incumbent's . I can't blame people like James Gomez or Steve Chia who deem the opposition's case as a lost cause in politically apathetic Singapore. James has left Singapore for Sweden where he works and Steve has, after his disappointing showing in the GE results, decided to quit politics.
James has not only put in perspective how the political climate has evolved but he has also given very concrete examples of the self-pertuating mechanism that advantages the dominant political party .
Mechanisms like a lethal cocktail of a climate of fear, economics and ethnicity. In his last chapter, he has even set out an agenda for action, which led him to run for the May 2006 General Elections on Worker's Party ticket.
It Is High Time For An OmbudsMan
James speaks my mind exactly when he suggested this. But I am thinking of the people, not politically affiliated, but who are impacted by socio-economic policies. Economic policies which seem to preclude some non-partisans who just simply wanna get on with setting up a small business for example. When one examines the corporate structure here, one finds no small number of present or past politicial affiliates on its boards which seems to suggest that one has to be party-partisan to get anywhere here in Singapore.
The Ombudsman must be someone non-partisan, someone who is outside the establishment and who can lend an authentic voice to all who has been wronged by the system in one way or another. Anyone, from individual citizens to corporations, who has a legitimate concern or complaint against the existing regime. A final "court of appeal" when all community or trade association (which incidentally are filled with the rank and file of the dominant party) channels have been exhausted.
Aid could range from helping someone to apply for a licence or inquiring into the circumstances why a certain licence is rejected or simply helping someone exercise his individual right.
Above all, this ombudsman must be seen to be neutral and to be a true people's arbiter for social and economic rights, independent of any party politics or politics.
How Politics Get Ugly And The Citizenry Can Only But Revolt
For many of us, we just wanna get on with the day to day business of making a living and doing what we wanna do. Imagine, someone, like myself, who is neutral to politics in many ways (we may be politically aware and only choose to exercise our rights at the ballot box), coming face to face with political obstacles hurled our way that deprives us of our rice bowl (the bureaucracy after all is seen as a state controlled organ) that can only enrage the citizenry to revolt against the political regime.
Not to mention all the state-imposed controls ranging from certification to licensing. If these were for the better good, we cannot but follow but they were wrongly and absurdly applied with no good reason or rhyme in my instance. How can PSS, MOE insists on a URA search when a premise is HDB-owned or SLA-owned ?
If the certification imposed were of a gold standard, we would also oblige. But in many of my encounters, they were sub-standard and even ludicrous. Theoretical airy-fairy.
I am not embarking on a political route (or to go political begging and have political heavyweights tipping the political scale in my favour) just so to go on my economic or social freeway, which is my constitutional right, to make a living for myself in the first place.
It is already DAMN STUPID that our MICE people actually has a hand in encouraging entrepreneurs fritter their financial resources in the way of organising education fairs overseas to recruit international students when this should have been the prerogative of the recruiters themselves.
Otherwise why are they paid the hefty commissions? If the entire association of schools boycott this practice, can they refuse to admit these students to the commercial schools for a prolonged time?
We are spoiling the whole damn market. It is like one oil producer impinging on a cartel's pre-agreed fixed price which can only lead to a price war of sorts, to the detriment of all the producers' bottom lines.
Can our policy makers get this into their thick heads? Or can't they?
I shall leave you with this: "To be good is to be in harmony with oneself. Discord is when one is forced to be in harmony with others."
I cannot agree better after living with so many weirdoes the past couple of months and I am continuing to live with weirdoes right up till today.
Possibly My Last Blog
I think I have had about enough of blogging my thoughts here. I can't be forever here, watching the world and Singapore pass me by. I, like the rest of the emigrants, who have found this place wanting in many respects, will have to move on....hopefully to greener pastures.
All I can say to the people here is this: You make this place so shall you live and die by it too - for better or worse, for the moment or forever.
My Last Word On The Foreign Talent Debate
I have to state again, very categorically, that I do not begrudge any foreign talent on our shores his/her rightful place. But let us be very sure it is indeed a "talent".
Speaking for myself, if I emigrate (and this thought has besotted me many times recently) and if the lifestyle, culture and everything afford me the things I wanna pursue and I am madly enough in love with it, I see no reason why I shouldn't be embracing citizenship with my heart and soul. Why would I look over my shoulder unless of course the biblical "do not look back warning ala the destruction of Sodom and Gnorrhea" didn't sink into my head. Which can't say very much about me, can it? Didn't I turn into a pillar of salt after that?
This is my commitment to the country. Period. I can't speak the same for "dual/triple citizenries" or "permanent residents" though.
Just Own Up And Do The Right Thing, MOE
First you read about it in my earlier blogs. PSS, MOE registers commercial schools which confers some kinda authenticity and legitimacy to these schools while CASETRUST (Consumers Association of Singapore) takes over the accreditation, which in effect means that "private" education has been subordinated to a "consumerism" role. Imagine, the larger social good and objective of a holistic, meaningful education must surely be abrogated when Adam Smith's capitalism must surely be on entrepreneurs' minds. And who are we entrusting education to in the "commercial" realm? Ex-CEOs or ex-production floor workers?
If we were to have a commercial school system that shadows the mainstream one, wouldn't it make sense to abolish the former and incorporate its merits into the latter. Parents can be told that the money they spent on commercial schools can now be better spent on public schools viz enrichment programs or some complementary programs of sort. Better still, raise the fees a little and make the commercial schools into one with the public schools.
Now, special education schools (which is the education of the intellectually disabled and not education of the intellectually gifted as it is also commonly known in other parts of the world ) is canvassing for it to be under the ambit of MOE which all the time it has been languishing under the wings of NCSS .
MOE only does a perfunctory educational audit but NCSS does a thorough financial audit with a net effect that special education schools are run like charity organisations with no proper educational structure or curriculum. Not to speak of ever dreaming to assimiliate with mainstream schools, the latter being important for ultimate societal integration especially for mildly intellectual dysfunctional cases.
If the two scenarios are not redolent of the same staid air of shirking one's educational responsibility, public and social good, rats can't stink any more than civet cats do.
James Gomez' "Self Censorship And Singapore's Shame"
James Gomez does a superbly well-surveyed and precise critique of the political scene here.
Yes indeed it is to Singapore's shame if we can't express our views or even hold a different opinion from any incumbent's . I can't blame people like James Gomez or Steve Chia who deem the opposition's case as a lost cause in politically apathetic Singapore. James has left Singapore for Sweden where he works and Steve has, after his disappointing showing in the GE results, decided to quit politics.
James has not only put in perspective how the political climate has evolved but he has also given very concrete examples of the self-pertuating mechanism that advantages the dominant political party .
Mechanisms like a lethal cocktail of a climate of fear, economics and ethnicity. In his last chapter, he has even set out an agenda for action, which led him to run for the May 2006 General Elections on Worker's Party ticket.
It Is High Time For An OmbudsMan
James speaks my mind exactly when he suggested this. But I am thinking of the people, not politically affiliated, but who are impacted by socio-economic policies. Economic policies which seem to preclude some non-partisans who just simply wanna get on with setting up a small business for example. When one examines the corporate structure here, one finds no small number of present or past politicial affiliates on its boards which seems to suggest that one has to be party-partisan to get anywhere here in Singapore.
The Ombudsman must be someone non-partisan, someone who is outside the establishment and who can lend an authentic voice to all who has been wronged by the system in one way or another. Anyone, from individual citizens to corporations, who has a legitimate concern or complaint against the existing regime. A final "court of appeal" when all community or trade association (which incidentally are filled with the rank and file of the dominant party) channels have been exhausted.
Aid could range from helping someone to apply for a licence or inquiring into the circumstances why a certain licence is rejected or simply helping someone exercise his individual right.
Above all, this ombudsman must be seen to be neutral and to be a true people's arbiter for social and economic rights, independent of any party politics or politics.
How Politics Get Ugly And The Citizenry Can Only But Revolt
For many of us, we just wanna get on with the day to day business of making a living and doing what we wanna do. Imagine, someone, like myself, who is neutral to politics in many ways (we may be politically aware and only choose to exercise our rights at the ballot box), coming face to face with political obstacles hurled our way that deprives us of our rice bowl (the bureaucracy after all is seen as a state controlled organ) that can only enrage the citizenry to revolt against the political regime.
Not to mention all the state-imposed controls ranging from certification to licensing. If these were for the better good, we cannot but follow but they were wrongly and absurdly applied with no good reason or rhyme in my instance. How can PSS, MOE insists on a URA search when a premise is HDB-owned or SLA-owned ?
If the certification imposed were of a gold standard, we would also oblige. But in many of my encounters, they were sub-standard and even ludicrous. Theoretical airy-fairy.
I am not embarking on a political route (or to go political begging and have political heavyweights tipping the political scale in my favour) just so to go on my economic or social freeway, which is my constitutional right, to make a living for myself in the first place.
It is already DAMN STUPID that our MICE people actually has a hand in encouraging entrepreneurs fritter their financial resources in the way of organising education fairs overseas to recruit international students when this should have been the prerogative of the recruiters themselves.
Otherwise why are they paid the hefty commissions? If the entire association of schools boycott this practice, can they refuse to admit these students to the commercial schools for a prolonged time?
We are spoiling the whole damn market. It is like one oil producer impinging on a cartel's pre-agreed fixed price which can only lead to a price war of sorts, to the detriment of all the producers' bottom lines.
Can our policy makers get this into their thick heads? Or can't they?
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Researching Politics Now
Look ! More Rag Tag Library Patrons
Oops, don't forget this sour puss who hawks my papers most of the time even if there is another one nearby. Or all the other heavily painted, gleaming eyed or China female dominatrixes who seem to abound here. And funnily it is always the school galls who make the most noises here at the library. What is wrong with you, bitch!
Political And Philosophical Reads
I read and will read again "LKY - The Man And His Ideas", JBJ's "Make It Right For Singapore" andJames Gomes' books on censorship among others. It is a balanced read, weighing one against the other.
Edmund Husserl's "Phemonology" presuposses nothing and to take things to appear as they appear. This is something we should be learning from , I thought.
Philosophical Astrays
When Dennis interviewed me, he mentioned something about "paymasters (meaning parents) looking for results, not personal philosophies on teaching". He is right, given the reality of education here. The reality of examination scores that is.
But precisely because we did not get our philosophy right that education has failed in its nobler and larger social objectives. Or other objectives even.
Pawns On A Political Chessboard, Not Even Rooks Or Knights
A small band of elites deciding and toying with the lives of a teeming population. This is exactly what personality testing, or for that matter, whatever else, is all about. All, with a few exceptions, the personae behind them were high-flying academicians or professionals.
Can you imagine we entrust the "GODS" to design, manipulate and pigeonhole our lives, our very souls even?
Ernest Hemingway Again
One chapter "Out Of Season" even has nameless characters simply addressed as "the young gentleman" and "his young wife", though there is Peduzzi, the alcoholic gardener who takes them on fishing jaunts at forbidden gaming places.
Oscar Wilde
One glimpses the snooty English deriding the Americans at one point in the story's unfolding. We also get peals of wisdom of life in general in some of the wildy witty Wildean quotable quotes like "punctuality is the thief of time" or Lord Henry's firm belief in "looking life and not reading about it" plus a taste of English culture in the way the houses are decorated, its surrounds and the English way of life (the English has no time for reading literary works but they do newspapers).
It is again not an easy read as it is set in the Victorian era where things and places are not similar to our contemporary lifescape. But its pointers in life are almost uncannily similar to life today (like how the young look to their elders for money).
What Else Will The Educational "Experts" Have You Believe
It does seem that the education landscape here like to recast certain educational dropouts or failures who have made good, as their pin-up boys for making it through sheer hard work and dogged determination. This smacks of covering up for the educational system's failings, assuming every Tom, Dick and Harry can even make it thus far, given a small percentage who do. Education has become "politicised".
Back to the issue of singling educational establishments for international recruitment. It is as obvious as the sun in the sky that these were schools in the educational realm for many years whichhave vast material, land and economic resources. All three hot contenders are also members of the establishment.
As to whether their curriculum or the system they adhere to has produced as many international accolades and acclaim in the form of the graduating students' work in any sphere of life isn't as clear-cut.
Why are other competing and alternative educational systems not allowed to strike out and perhaps flourish here? What we have here are basically two educational routes : the public schools and the commercial schools (each duplicating and replicating each other in its curriculum with the latter shadowing the former in many ways).
What are the larger objectives of education apart from a string of high examination scores or winning at every conceivable competition? What does this translate into at the end of the day?
Pricks/Weirdos At The Community Library And Everywhere
One writes down names from the obituary columns of the Chinese newspaper. Others use the tables for reading newspapers as personal PC desktops or to read their books. Dwayne's "MR STALKER" was again at the fast food joint but he wasn't smiling . In fact he had on an unsmiling face, with dark circled eyes and a tad of distress and nervousness today, I thought.
Hefty Premium
We have community libraries in almost all neighborhoods but some are really small which can only mean a small collection while other neighborhoods have yet or may not have them. This is again something I am querulous about. More libraries everywhere, a bigger collection and more space.
And oh yes, the world atlas has few hardcopies but it is available in software. You can't view it at the library itself but you have to borrow it home. To borrow it home, you need to be a "Premium Account" member at a yearly price tag of $21.00.
That means accessing the public loo 210 times with that kinda money I spent.
Oops, don't forget this sour puss who hawks my papers most of the time even if there is another one nearby. Or all the other heavily painted, gleaming eyed or China female dominatrixes who seem to abound here. And funnily it is always the school galls who make the most noises here at the library. What is wrong with you, bitch!
Political And Philosophical Reads
I read and will read again "LKY - The Man And His Ideas", JBJ's "Make It Right For Singapore" andJames Gomes' books on censorship among others. It is a balanced read, weighing one against the other.
Edmund Husserl's "Phemonology" presuposses nothing and to take things to appear as they appear. This is something we should be learning from , I thought.
Philosophical Astrays
When Dennis interviewed me, he mentioned something about "paymasters (meaning parents) looking for results, not personal philosophies on teaching". He is right, given the reality of education here. The reality of examination scores that is.
But precisely because we did not get our philosophy right that education has failed in its nobler and larger social objectives. Or other objectives even.
Pawns On A Political Chessboard, Not Even Rooks Or Knights
A small band of elites deciding and toying with the lives of a teeming population. This is exactly what personality testing, or for that matter, whatever else, is all about. All, with a few exceptions, the personae behind them were high-flying academicians or professionals.
Can you imagine we entrust the "GODS" to design, manipulate and pigeonhole our lives, our very souls even?
Ernest Hemingway Again
One chapter "Out Of Season" even has nameless characters simply addressed as "the young gentleman" and "his young wife", though there is Peduzzi, the alcoholic gardener who takes them on fishing jaunts at forbidden gaming places.
Oscar Wilde
One glimpses the snooty English deriding the Americans at one point in the story's unfolding. We also get peals of wisdom of life in general in some of the wildy witty Wildean quotable quotes like "punctuality is the thief of time" or Lord Henry's firm belief in "looking life and not reading about it" plus a taste of English culture in the way the houses are decorated, its surrounds and the English way of life (the English has no time for reading literary works but they do newspapers).
It is again not an easy read as it is set in the Victorian era where things and places are not similar to our contemporary lifescape. But its pointers in life are almost uncannily similar to life today (like how the young look to their elders for money).
What Else Will The Educational "Experts" Have You Believe
It does seem that the education landscape here like to recast certain educational dropouts or failures who have made good, as their pin-up boys for making it through sheer hard work and dogged determination. This smacks of covering up for the educational system's failings, assuming every Tom, Dick and Harry can even make it thus far, given a small percentage who do. Education has become "politicised".
Back to the issue of singling educational establishments for international recruitment. It is as obvious as the sun in the sky that these were schools in the educational realm for many years whichhave vast material, land and economic resources. All three hot contenders are also members of the establishment.
As to whether their curriculum or the system they adhere to has produced as many international accolades and acclaim in the form of the graduating students' work in any sphere of life isn't as clear-cut.
Why are other competing and alternative educational systems not allowed to strike out and perhaps flourish here? What we have here are basically two educational routes : the public schools and the commercial schools (each duplicating and replicating each other in its curriculum with the latter shadowing the former in many ways).
What are the larger objectives of education apart from a string of high examination scores or winning at every conceivable competition? What does this translate into at the end of the day?
Pricks/Weirdos At The Community Library And Everywhere
One writes down names from the obituary columns of the Chinese newspaper. Others use the tables for reading newspapers as personal PC desktops or to read their books. Dwayne's "MR STALKER" was again at the fast food joint but he wasn't smiling . In fact he had on an unsmiling face, with dark circled eyes and a tad of distress and nervousness today, I thought.
Hefty Premium
We have community libraries in almost all neighborhoods but some are really small which can only mean a small collection while other neighborhoods have yet or may not have them. This is again something I am querulous about. More libraries everywhere, a bigger collection and more space.
And oh yes, the world atlas has few hardcopies but it is available in software. You can't view it at the library itself but you have to borrow it home. To borrow it home, you need to be a "Premium Account" member at a yearly price tag of $21.00.
That means accessing the public loo 210 times with that kinda money I spent.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
The Jaded Artist's Palette
Eeny Miney Mo
Now why would anyone call for proposals to set up some educational establishments, only to have the two most obvious and hotly favoured choices (only because of some affiliation) winning in the end. This happened not once but twice.
If this isn't farcical, what is?
Mr Too John Wah
Yes this is his name if I remember correctly. He was silvered-hair and was walking real slow and he didn't look all too good. I ran into him at the Ang Mo Kio Town Centre. I had sighted my other primary school CL2 teacher, Mr Heng Kok Tim, at Sentosa where there was a Family Day celebration.
The Cl2 teachers have my sympathy. Worse if they teach in a missionary school where it is a well-known fact most don't do well at their "mother tongue". So what we probably have is a case of highly strung CL2 teachers who have to try to boost grades.
Like Mr Too, they will come in and pull a long face and so on. In fact, if press reports about hpw inferiorly they are treated is true, then I remember Mr Too was tasked the physical logistics for a swimming event.
I know because I was one among a select group (based primarily on my height and weight I believe) who was called upon to help out at the Toa Payoh Swimming complex.
A Picturesque Scene
The vertical tall glass windows of the community library is framed by a wonderful green scenery. It has fat trunky stems, overarching brown branches, branches that fan upwards and outwards, shades of green interspersed with the gleaming yellow of the sun, fan-shaped palms, flowering shrubs and just about everything. This would be an artist's landscape dream come true.
Revisiting Ernest Hemingway
Now that I am reading its final two chapters, I realised what made it difficult to read were the resplendent details about the backwoods of America, the kind of hobbies indulged in like deep-sea fishing and hiking which are not something we do here very often (if at all) or are familiar with, especially the description of the kinda terrain or the actions employed in carrying them out. These are places in Michigan, close to the Lakes and mountains.
What Is Wrong With Visuals or Kinaesthetics In Educational Pedagogy?
I do not see anything wrong with catering to the different learning styles of students. But to administer a test to find this out is a boondoggle. No one student has just ONE style of learning so we cant stultify them like this. Teachers should test out a variety of ways to engage their students' concentration span and learning style. Nothing beats a well-illustrated dictionary, right?
I Am Not Xenophobic, Am I?
I shouldn't have written anything about any foreign talent. My mom was a China-born immigrant herself. But what distinguishes her must surely be the fact that she came here in her teens and literally grew up with Singapore, in fact even before Singapore, if you know what I mean. And she became a citizen.
A Flat Full Of Strangers
Five people. One flat. Each unto his own room and thus his own world, it seems. This is exactly how it is like living here. Totally disparate lives.
Hiro is hardly home. Tim too. It is only when beginning-of-the-month-foot-the-rent-time comes around, that I hand over the money. Chats veer from Tim's "gentle reminders" (which are usually some DOs and DONTs that do not apply to moi) to happenings around the house.
Poor Hiro! My first time meeting Tim and his Mom had them spilling their bile over the chap who has infringed about every sacred rule of the house.
The only persons I see most of the time is Auntie and her weekend domestic help. We exchange niceties and superficialities. Auntie has a night job at the Pasir Panjang wholesaler.
Ernest Hemingway's Anthology Again
I am about finished with the entire anthology except for the last two chapters. Ernest's living and visiting countries like America, Spain, Paris, Italy and Africa and his passions for deep-sea fishing, bullfighting and big game-hunting are all but reflected in his writings.
It isn't easy reading precisely because of the era in which it is set against. The turn of the 20th century rural America with Native Americans still roaming the woods and the booming lumbering industry back then. Favourite pasttimes like baseball and reading were also vastly different, with both heralding a unique genre of writers and teams.
A character Nick figures in many essays and one is led to surmise that he is the Nick who followed his doctor father to an Indian camp to help a squaw deliver as well as the Nick whose father was mocked at by the Indians for "stealing" driftwoods.
The same Nick who broke with Marge after a fishing expedition because "it isn't fun anymore" and who got drunk at a mountain lodge with Billy, went country snow-skiing with George and almost got bashed by a one-time champion boxer Francis when they crossed paths.
He also seems to be the Nick in the last two chapters who camped and fished alone but I haven't read these yet.
Oscar Wilde's Anthology
I am onto Oscar Wilde now. I am reading his "Picture of Dorian Gray". I can't believe many of the phrases I had used like "Gee" , "Ain't" (found in Ernest Heminway's) and"methinks"are to be found in this anthology and in the dictionary.
Wilde has a wildly witty chapter on "Wildean Wit" and "Phrases and "Philosophies for the Young to use". Simply awesome!
Political Stirrings
My love affair with politics began way back in secondary school. The literature of the time like George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and Shakespeare's political tragedy "Julius Caesar" coupled with my form teacher's very human translation in class stirred my political awareness.
I read MM Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs- his family life and his political career. In university, I had more of the same stuff and the man himself dropped in for a political lecture, literally, from a helicopter landing on a rooftop somewhere. We shook hands as he passed a line-up of us students in a welcoming party. That moved me to write about the event and the speech he gave.
Do We All Have To Go The Same Route?
Schools will have us believe that as part of character development, everyone has to go down the same path of leadership development. The CCA path, that is.
I believe there are other ways of honing leadership skills or qualities.
Precisely because of that belief, everyone is beaten down in some ways, made to wait and undergo a series of man-devised obstacles before the "GODS" decide when they think you are ready, what salary you should get, what jobs you should do and the path you should take.
It was the same thing a head of department in school told me. A VP was kept back by a P not because he wasn't ready for principalship but SHE just found him very convenient and handy to do all her bidding for some time yet.
It is the person who knows when he is or is not ready. He decides his fate, what he wants to do, when, how much he gets and what path he takes.
If this doesn't register, please read Sony-Ericsson's Swedish CEO's comments in The Straits Times' today.
Now why would anyone call for proposals to set up some educational establishments, only to have the two most obvious and hotly favoured choices (only because of some affiliation) winning in the end. This happened not once but twice.
If this isn't farcical, what is?
Mr Too John Wah
Yes this is his name if I remember correctly. He was silvered-hair and was walking real slow and he didn't look all too good. I ran into him at the Ang Mo Kio Town Centre. I had sighted my other primary school CL2 teacher, Mr Heng Kok Tim, at Sentosa where there was a Family Day celebration.
The Cl2 teachers have my sympathy. Worse if they teach in a missionary school where it is a well-known fact most don't do well at their "mother tongue". So what we probably have is a case of highly strung CL2 teachers who have to try to boost grades.
Like Mr Too, they will come in and pull a long face and so on. In fact, if press reports about hpw inferiorly they are treated is true, then I remember Mr Too was tasked the physical logistics for a swimming event.
I know because I was one among a select group (based primarily on my height and weight I believe) who was called upon to help out at the Toa Payoh Swimming complex.
A Picturesque Scene
The vertical tall glass windows of the community library is framed by a wonderful green scenery. It has fat trunky stems, overarching brown branches, branches that fan upwards and outwards, shades of green interspersed with the gleaming yellow of the sun, fan-shaped palms, flowering shrubs and just about everything. This would be an artist's landscape dream come true.
Revisiting Ernest Hemingway
Now that I am reading its final two chapters, I realised what made it difficult to read were the resplendent details about the backwoods of America, the kind of hobbies indulged in like deep-sea fishing and hiking which are not something we do here very often (if at all) or are familiar with, especially the description of the kinda terrain or the actions employed in carrying them out. These are places in Michigan, close to the Lakes and mountains.
What Is Wrong With Visuals or Kinaesthetics In Educational Pedagogy?
I do not see anything wrong with catering to the different learning styles of students. But to administer a test to find this out is a boondoggle. No one student has just ONE style of learning so we cant stultify them like this. Teachers should test out a variety of ways to engage their students' concentration span and learning style. Nothing beats a well-illustrated dictionary, right?
I Am Not Xenophobic, Am I?
I shouldn't have written anything about any foreign talent. My mom was a China-born immigrant herself. But what distinguishes her must surely be the fact that she came here in her teens and literally grew up with Singapore, in fact even before Singapore, if you know what I mean. And she became a citizen.
A Flat Full Of Strangers
Five people. One flat. Each unto his own room and thus his own world, it seems. This is exactly how it is like living here. Totally disparate lives.
Hiro is hardly home. Tim too. It is only when beginning-of-the-month-foot-the-rent-time comes around, that I hand over the money. Chats veer from Tim's "gentle reminders" (which are usually some DOs and DONTs that do not apply to moi) to happenings around the house.
Poor Hiro! My first time meeting Tim and his Mom had them spilling their bile over the chap who has infringed about every sacred rule of the house.
The only persons I see most of the time is Auntie and her weekend domestic help. We exchange niceties and superficialities. Auntie has a night job at the Pasir Panjang wholesaler.
Ernest Hemingway's Anthology Again
I am about finished with the entire anthology except for the last two chapters. Ernest's living and visiting countries like America, Spain, Paris, Italy and Africa and his passions for deep-sea fishing, bullfighting and big game-hunting are all but reflected in his writings.
It isn't easy reading precisely because of the era in which it is set against. The turn of the 20th century rural America with Native Americans still roaming the woods and the booming lumbering industry back then. Favourite pasttimes like baseball and reading were also vastly different, with both heralding a unique genre of writers and teams.
A character Nick figures in many essays and one is led to surmise that he is the Nick who followed his doctor father to an Indian camp to help a squaw deliver as well as the Nick whose father was mocked at by the Indians for "stealing" driftwoods.
The same Nick who broke with Marge after a fishing expedition because "it isn't fun anymore" and who got drunk at a mountain lodge with Billy, went country snow-skiing with George and almost got bashed by a one-time champion boxer Francis when they crossed paths.
He also seems to be the Nick in the last two chapters who camped and fished alone but I haven't read these yet.
Oscar Wilde's Anthology
I am onto Oscar Wilde now. I am reading his "Picture of Dorian Gray". I can't believe many of the phrases I had used like "Gee" , "Ain't" (found in Ernest Heminway's) and"methinks"are to be found in this anthology and in the dictionary.
Wilde has a wildly witty chapter on "Wildean Wit" and "Phrases and "Philosophies for the Young to use". Simply awesome!
Political Stirrings
My love affair with politics began way back in secondary school. The literature of the time like George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and Shakespeare's political tragedy "Julius Caesar" coupled with my form teacher's very human translation in class stirred my political awareness.
I read MM Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs- his family life and his political career. In university, I had more of the same stuff and the man himself dropped in for a political lecture, literally, from a helicopter landing on a rooftop somewhere. We shook hands as he passed a line-up of us students in a welcoming party. That moved me to write about the event and the speech he gave.
Do We All Have To Go The Same Route?
Schools will have us believe that as part of character development, everyone has to go down the same path of leadership development. The CCA path, that is.
I believe there are other ways of honing leadership skills or qualities.
Precisely because of that belief, everyone is beaten down in some ways, made to wait and undergo a series of man-devised obstacles before the "GODS" decide when they think you are ready, what salary you should get, what jobs you should do and the path you should take.
It was the same thing a head of department in school told me. A VP was kept back by a P not because he wasn't ready for principalship but SHE just found him very convenient and handy to do all her bidding for some time yet.
It is the person who knows when he is or is not ready. He decides his fate, what he wants to do, when, how much he gets and what path he takes.
If this doesn't register, please read Sony-Ericsson's Swedish CEO's comments in The Straits Times' today.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Educational Reviews (Part I)
Some linguistic food for thought
When I conversed with Muiz about his Ramadan (or is it Ramadhan) fast, it occurred to me that the word "breakfast" could have originated here. After a night's snooze (which is a kind of a fasting), we break the spell with a meal. So this meal came to be known as breakfast.
Ernest Hemingway's Anthology Of Short Stories
I enjoyed "The Snows Of Kilimanjaro" and "My Old Man" the most.
"The Snows Of Kilimanjaro" very graphically narrates how death creeps up on a man, stranded in the African outbacks after his jeep runs out of fuel, who lays "bed-ridden" on his cot while awaiting help to arrive for the gangrene that is infecting his entire leg. It is at once real and surreal with the man hallucinating about being bounded up to the summit of the snow-capped mountain that coincides with the discovery of his death by his girl-friend.
"My Old Man" tells the tragedy of an equesterian jockey and his son. There were narratives of their close relationships and outings together, ending with the father buying up a prized horse but only to lose his life in a fixed horse racing accident, with money changing hands of course for the winning horse.
Ernest Hemingway's stories are written based on his life experiences. From the short stories of the laborious pangs of birth-giving of a squaw and her husband's gruelsome suicide to the bull-fighting scenes that span several chapters of the novella as synopses before an actual essay, the descriptions are life-like and brutal.
It isn't an easy read and I had to re-read the sentences a few times just to picture the swift-flowing action, the lucid details and grapple with the going-ons. But what a marvellous read once you do.
Impressions of America after reading "The Cult Of Personality" And "The Simpsons And Philosophy"
America prides itself on being one of the most technologically advanced and powerful economy in the world. It is also a mecca for immigrants of every hue and color. This, no doubt, is one of its chief lineaments: from many, one.
There would be some who take advantage of its porous and welcoming stance, only to abandon it in times of crises when their own native lands offer better. Worse, they actually bite the very hand which has fed, trained and prospered them.
However in the midst of all this, it is also the well-spring of many a misplaced directive - be it its imperialistic conquests, its financial scandals or its cultural nonsense.
"The Simpsons" clearly illustrates this. From consumerism to capitalism with a capital "C". But America has its detractors, its very own citizens in fact, who unlike many other parts of the world, speak out and serve as a check on issues that have gone awry in American life.
Americans are a highly politicised and vocal body-politick. The Filipinos are not too far behind in this. This is the unique part of American heritage. There is a yang for every ying to counterbalance the disequilibrium. For every one Republican, there is another equally well-placed Democrat.
What do we have here?
Absolutely nothing or at least, not very much save for the occasional whimper and even that is scarce most of the time.
The education system will have you believe that too. Only scoring well at exams , winning at competitions, gaining entry to prestigious universities and landing a cushy, well-paying job matter. Never mind living and understanding life as wholey as we all should or grappling with global issues (which include ours) or being able to cut through a maze of goobledegook to get at the truth.
I think we should have schools of specialisations in various disciplines (School of English Language or Liberal Arts or Geography) after some years of a common and compulsory curriculum. If this occurs at a very late stage, students should not be penalised in their earlier years if they don't even have an inkling of what they really like or want to do for life.
When I conversed with Muiz about his Ramadan (or is it Ramadhan) fast, it occurred to me that the word "breakfast" could have originated here. After a night's snooze (which is a kind of a fasting), we break the spell with a meal. So this meal came to be known as breakfast.
Ernest Hemingway's Anthology Of Short Stories
I enjoyed "The Snows Of Kilimanjaro" and "My Old Man" the most.
"The Snows Of Kilimanjaro" very graphically narrates how death creeps up on a man, stranded in the African outbacks after his jeep runs out of fuel, who lays "bed-ridden" on his cot while awaiting help to arrive for the gangrene that is infecting his entire leg. It is at once real and surreal with the man hallucinating about being bounded up to the summit of the snow-capped mountain that coincides with the discovery of his death by his girl-friend.
"My Old Man" tells the tragedy of an equesterian jockey and his son. There were narratives of their close relationships and outings together, ending with the father buying up a prized horse but only to lose his life in a fixed horse racing accident, with money changing hands of course for the winning horse.
Ernest Hemingway's stories are written based on his life experiences. From the short stories of the laborious pangs of birth-giving of a squaw and her husband's gruelsome suicide to the bull-fighting scenes that span several chapters of the novella as synopses before an actual essay, the descriptions are life-like and brutal.
It isn't an easy read and I had to re-read the sentences a few times just to picture the swift-flowing action, the lucid details and grapple with the going-ons. But what a marvellous read once you do.
Impressions of America after reading "The Cult Of Personality" And "The Simpsons And Philosophy"
America prides itself on being one of the most technologically advanced and powerful economy in the world. It is also a mecca for immigrants of every hue and color. This, no doubt, is one of its chief lineaments: from many, one.
There would be some who take advantage of its porous and welcoming stance, only to abandon it in times of crises when their own native lands offer better. Worse, they actually bite the very hand which has fed, trained and prospered them.
However in the midst of all this, it is also the well-spring of many a misplaced directive - be it its imperialistic conquests, its financial scandals or its cultural nonsense.
"The Simpsons" clearly illustrates this. From consumerism to capitalism with a capital "C". But America has its detractors, its very own citizens in fact, who unlike many other parts of the world, speak out and serve as a check on issues that have gone awry in American life.
Americans are a highly politicised and vocal body-politick. The Filipinos are not too far behind in this. This is the unique part of American heritage. There is a yang for every ying to counterbalance the disequilibrium. For every one Republican, there is another equally well-placed Democrat.
What do we have here?
Absolutely nothing or at least, not very much save for the occasional whimper and even that is scarce most of the time.
The education system will have you believe that too. Only scoring well at exams , winning at competitions, gaining entry to prestigious universities and landing a cushy, well-paying job matter. Never mind living and understanding life as wholey as we all should or grappling with global issues (which include ours) or being able to cut through a maze of goobledegook to get at the truth.
I think we should have schools of specialisations in various disciplines (School of English Language or Liberal Arts or Geography) after some years of a common and compulsory curriculum. If this occurs at a very late stage, students should not be penalised in their earlier years if they don't even have an inkling of what they really like or want to do for life.
Ah, Aha, Erm, Ugh, Oo, Xx (Comics Speak)
Books Reviews
Another Nature Versus Man Tussle?
Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man And The Sea" didn't at first register very well with moi. The sentences were short, simple and stark, nothing spectacular. I wanted to give it up but persisted.
After a couple of chapters, it kinda embraces you, drawing you into the savage world of Man versus nature or is it nature against Man. Every little detail leap at you from the 126 pages novella: the cutting up of the tortoise with its heart still beating, the butchery of the flying fishes, the dolphins and the marlins (this vividly brought to mind my own out-at-sea boating trip to the island of Tioman, Malaysia, where flying fishes sailed through the air, darting in and out of the shimmering waters amid a bright sunny day )
Most of all, it was the finale where Santiago struggled to hold out and hold sway over the mighty Marlin and his fights with all the sharks on his journey back home that had me on tenterhooks.
Exhausted, bruised, hungry and thirsty, Santiago finally made it to shore, with only the skeletal remains of the Marlin's tail and body, tied to his skiff and anchored to a rock, lifting and swaying with the tides.
If anything, this novella is symbolic on several fronts. How the indomitable spirit of Santiago, despite his age, prevailed but that the Marlin (representing nature) in the end won. It didn't leave a single bit of itself to Santiago and in that sense, to Man (the sharks had all but devoured it).
What Is Wrong With Personality Tests
Annie Murphy Paul, in her book "The Cult Of Personality" delved into the personalities behind the profiling tests' origins. It would have you in stitches if you had found out how the tests came to be and how they were drawn up (Inkblots, Draw-A-Person and Dolls Tests, all purporting to draw out the unconscious part of us - and by the way, I had never placed great store by Sigmund Freud. He is, to me, simply put , ONE BIG FRAUD)
Except that this is no laughing matter. Millions in the States have been tested in all kinds of fields ranging from education to employment. With dire consequences: mislabelling, wrongly maligning, stunting and shaming these individuals for life, all in the name of industry ( a thriving US$400 million business, according to Paul - draw the same parallels with our shadow educational system).
I too was assigned one during one of my job interviews recently. I had to fill in the questionaire although none of the given choices fitted moi or even accurately describe moi or in the context I would have encountered.
One thing is for certain. No one person can be pinned down to a singular personality. We do evolve, are changeable and we are too huge in our range of complexity to be quantitatively or even qualitativey classified.
The Politics Of Education
I am saddened. Not because the last few days' news of more enlightenment and loosening up of the education system wasn't music to my ears but because it had to come at such a late stage, having impacted so many of us, despite the literature, despite all the old-time educators knowing better, in their heart of hearts, but who chose to keep mum (for reasons perhaps of not breaking their own rice-bowls, etc , etc) or of not lobbying hard enough, vocalising more vehemently and so on.
There were so much they could have done, given the power and influence some wield.
FUCK YOU ALL! MAY YOU DIE IN SOME ACCIDENTS! (and this include all the schoolmates, classmates or people I have met and got acquainted with in the education system plus the wimpy gaylords at all the homo-whorehouses). For sure, most of you guys were the educational elites so you never knew how we felt or learnt.
Muiz' predicament and mine - what should admission criteria be based on? A buffet or ala-carte?
Muiz got an aggregate score of 9 for his L1R4 (impressive insofar as I am concerned) but it was 14 for L1R5, simply because his mother tongue (mind you, Malay and it was Mandarin for me even though we (my family, that is ) don't speak a word of Mandarin at home but only Teochew or Chiu Chow in Cantonese) dragged him down the totem pole.
I am heartened that students may study subjects at both Foundation and Standard level (come some time in the future), standard level being pitched at a notch above the average only because this is the subject/s that the student is most proficient or passionate about. This happens at the primary level.
I am also of the opinion that all students should study English, Maths, Science and a Mother Tongue to have an overall sense of things happening around us. But to then expect students to be proficient at every single subject (because this is what an aggregate score like L1R4 and L1R5 or a numerical number like our PSLE's - 280 being the maximal mark and what have you- is doing for admission purposes into secondary schools, junior colleges , polytechnics and universities) is like asking Mother to whip up equally delicious Malay, Chinese, Indian and Eurasian dishes at a single sitting of a banquet feast. Question is, can she?
Is she G-girl or is he Superman ? Thank you kids from MINDS who showed me the way the other day at the bus-stop when one of you thought she was SUPERMAN.
Seriously, I think my mom can but that is another matter altogether. My mom is just one-of-a-kind in the world whom all of us have (meaning meself and my siblings) inherited a fair share of her very good genes. Here's looking to you Mom! I may not agree with you on some matters but that does not mean I dont agree with you on others.
For one thing, you taught us never to covet another's material wealth and you had never chosen wealth over anything else, living simply as you did, among your many other virtues. Too bad you didn't marry Lee Ka Shing (both of you were from Swatow, Guangdong, China and perhaps even coming from the same village or something ) but see, that is precisely you! TADA!
Oops, me digressed too much. Back to the issues at hand. So.......... can admission, especially at all the streaming levels from primary and up, be based on one or two subjects which the student is most adept, proficient and passionate at. Isn't that what the Foundation or Standard level is all about?
I know I like the English language very much and some humanities and social sciences. But I may not excel in all. Some may have topical interest for moi.
I also like physics, chemistry and biology. Some of their topics, not all. If the human genome had been the topic of the day for biology back then, I may have really SCORED THROUGH THE ROOF as it is more "human", something I can relate to, not some abstract, woolly ones like SPECIAL RELATIVITY or whatever? But I never know, I may grow to like and understand it, not now but some time in the future?
A reality of encounter may nudge moi in this direction, sparking an interest and illuminating maybe?
Hey, would I have a vested interest to blog about such matters. I do not have a kid of my own and my nephews and nieces aren't so close or attached to me for a very long time now, so why should I even bother?
What Else Can Schools Do?
Just as we do not impose the insistence that ALL students be sportsmen/women, so should we also impose the insistence that ALL students be academicians?
By this I mean, Tom may like sports but not academic studies. He should go on to the Sports School perhaps? But will he make the cut at the national or international level? After all, there are that 4 million and 6 billion others out there in the world, some of whom are potentialities in themselves.
More precisely, he may like only hockey and the English language. Even more precisely, he only likes being the forward for hockey and he likes the history and semantics part of the English language (not so much the phonological parts like vowels, dipthongs and whatver sexually fetishy and perverted "thongs")
Shouldn't he then be allowed to excel in these fields and pursue the career he can at them? He can study the rest of the subjects but he isn't gonna score that A1 or A2 for them, perhaps only managing a D7 or C6 or C5 or B4 or B3. So you can't penalise him for this, can you?
If you like only nasi lemak or men, you can't be asked to eat lontong or women, can you? Ok , ok, I can grow to like lontong or women in time. But at best, it is at arm's length or the occasional eat. Don't expect moi to have lontong at every meal or women sharing moi's sleeping quarters or bedding. GEDDIT? NO? You stinkhole, see a psychiatrist.
What it all boils down to is this. Every student has the potentiality for everything. It is a matter of time, it may happen, it may not. Students who are good all-rounder at all academic subjects, I applaud you. But remember, you may only have been lucky that the tested topics were your pet and you have the theoretical knowledge. Whether you can apply them, that is another thing altogether. You are probably only a select breed. The academic elites. Academic elites at memorization, regurgitation, exams, conformity and theorising, that is.
In most cases, it could only be that one subject or two a student is really good at. Can we allow him/her his/her place in this?
All students should participate in all sports (recreationally). If he excels in one, it may/may not take him to the national/international level. Can he just stay at the level he is good at, school or whatever. He may have the potentiality but he may not desire to, preferring to play at his own comfortable level or he just wanna do it recreationally.
By all the same reasoning, we can extend this to every sphere of our lives. Can we?
I have more to write but this blog has taken up too much of my time and money already. Another time perhaps. Real soon, I promise. Like tonight or tomorrow even? *Wink wink.
Some Clarifications
When I said to " get a life or at least give me your life" on an earlier blog with regard to the NTU don's sex escapades, I meant to give me his academic life, not his sex life. I would steer really clear of the smut he has got himself into. But I would have turned my academician life into a worthy pursuit of research, learning , teaching and community good.
Sigh - you FAT ASS just had it too good. I hope they repatriate you to Guatanamo Bay. That is if you are even wanted there.
Typography
Oh yeah, that blog should have one of its lines as "....anti-virus software foreign manufacturer..." OOps . Did I spot someone laughing his head off in that corner? An educator perhaps? You just wanna see moi trip up don't you and say things like...."AHA! There, you see!" You can't take criticisms can you? After all that I have written about you and how the whole education system sucks!
Let Us Not All Be "Typified" Involuntarily
It seems that we are all being swept up into fitting ONE concept of being a citizen here and of the world. It is a NOBLE and GOOD concept, no doubt but all that community work involving charities and humanitarian work overseas MUST TRULY COME FROM THE HEART. Not based on some reward system or self-serving interests or to project an image to society at large of what we want them to think of us.
If you ask me, it has spiralled (downward that is ) to one chiefly of a BUSINESS CONCERN, from religious institutions (which history has shown: think papal indulgences can actually be bought?) to educational establishments.
So if you don't do any of the above, you are most likely an OUTCAST.
OH MY GOD! DWAYNE, YOUR "STALKER" IS HERE!
Yeah that "nearly senior citizen liao" dude you showed the photograph of on your blog the last time. The one who stakes out fast food joints. Not too sure if he is a "stalker" but he smiles a lot, sits around at the fast food joint here, reads and so on.
I am so AFRAID! You want his contact number? *Wink.
Another Nature Versus Man Tussle?
Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man And The Sea" didn't at first register very well with moi. The sentences were short, simple and stark, nothing spectacular. I wanted to give it up but persisted.
After a couple of chapters, it kinda embraces you, drawing you into the savage world of Man versus nature or is it nature against Man. Every little detail leap at you from the 126 pages novella: the cutting up of the tortoise with its heart still beating, the butchery of the flying fishes, the dolphins and the marlins (this vividly brought to mind my own out-at-sea boating trip to the island of Tioman, Malaysia, where flying fishes sailed through the air, darting in and out of the shimmering waters amid a bright sunny day )
Most of all, it was the finale where Santiago struggled to hold out and hold sway over the mighty Marlin and his fights with all the sharks on his journey back home that had me on tenterhooks.
Exhausted, bruised, hungry and thirsty, Santiago finally made it to shore, with only the skeletal remains of the Marlin's tail and body, tied to his skiff and anchored to a rock, lifting and swaying with the tides.
If anything, this novella is symbolic on several fronts. How the indomitable spirit of Santiago, despite his age, prevailed but that the Marlin (representing nature) in the end won. It didn't leave a single bit of itself to Santiago and in that sense, to Man (the sharks had all but devoured it).
What Is Wrong With Personality Tests
Annie Murphy Paul, in her book "The Cult Of Personality" delved into the personalities behind the profiling tests' origins. It would have you in stitches if you had found out how the tests came to be and how they were drawn up (Inkblots, Draw-A-Person and Dolls Tests, all purporting to draw out the unconscious part of us - and by the way, I had never placed great store by Sigmund Freud. He is, to me, simply put , ONE BIG FRAUD)
Except that this is no laughing matter. Millions in the States have been tested in all kinds of fields ranging from education to employment. With dire consequences: mislabelling, wrongly maligning, stunting and shaming these individuals for life, all in the name of industry ( a thriving US$400 million business, according to Paul - draw the same parallels with our shadow educational system).
I too was assigned one during one of my job interviews recently. I had to fill in the questionaire although none of the given choices fitted moi or even accurately describe moi or in the context I would have encountered.
One thing is for certain. No one person can be pinned down to a singular personality. We do evolve, are changeable and we are too huge in our range of complexity to be quantitatively or even qualitativey classified.
The Politics Of Education
I am saddened. Not because the last few days' news of more enlightenment and loosening up of the education system wasn't music to my ears but because it had to come at such a late stage, having impacted so many of us, despite the literature, despite all the old-time educators knowing better, in their heart of hearts, but who chose to keep mum (for reasons perhaps of not breaking their own rice-bowls, etc , etc) or of not lobbying hard enough, vocalising more vehemently and so on.
There were so much they could have done, given the power and influence some wield.
FUCK YOU ALL! MAY YOU DIE IN SOME ACCIDENTS! (and this include all the schoolmates, classmates or people I have met and got acquainted with in the education system plus the wimpy gaylords at all the homo-whorehouses). For sure, most of you guys were the educational elites so you never knew how we felt or learnt.
Muiz' predicament and mine - what should admission criteria be based on? A buffet or ala-carte?
Muiz got an aggregate score of 9 for his L1R4 (impressive insofar as I am concerned) but it was 14 for L1R5, simply because his mother tongue (mind you, Malay and it was Mandarin for me even though we (my family, that is ) don't speak a word of Mandarin at home but only Teochew or Chiu Chow in Cantonese) dragged him down the totem pole.
I am heartened that students may study subjects at both Foundation and Standard level (come some time in the future), standard level being pitched at a notch above the average only because this is the subject/s that the student is most proficient or passionate about. This happens at the primary level.
I am also of the opinion that all students should study English, Maths, Science and a Mother Tongue to have an overall sense of things happening around us. But to then expect students to be proficient at every single subject (because this is what an aggregate score like L1R4 and L1R5 or a numerical number like our PSLE's - 280 being the maximal mark and what have you- is doing for admission purposes into secondary schools, junior colleges , polytechnics and universities) is like asking Mother to whip up equally delicious Malay, Chinese, Indian and Eurasian dishes at a single sitting of a banquet feast. Question is, can she?
Is she G-girl or is he Superman ? Thank you kids from MINDS who showed me the way the other day at the bus-stop when one of you thought she was SUPERMAN.
Seriously, I think my mom can but that is another matter altogether. My mom is just one-of-a-kind in the world whom all of us have (meaning meself and my siblings) inherited a fair share of her very good genes. Here's looking to you Mom! I may not agree with you on some matters but that does not mean I dont agree with you on others.
For one thing, you taught us never to covet another's material wealth and you had never chosen wealth over anything else, living simply as you did, among your many other virtues. Too bad you didn't marry Lee Ka Shing (both of you were from Swatow, Guangdong, China and perhaps even coming from the same village or something ) but see, that is precisely you! TADA!
Oops, me digressed too much. Back to the issues at hand. So.......... can admission, especially at all the streaming levels from primary and up, be based on one or two subjects which the student is most adept, proficient and passionate at. Isn't that what the Foundation or Standard level is all about?
I know I like the English language very much and some humanities and social sciences. But I may not excel in all. Some may have topical interest for moi.
I also like physics, chemistry and biology. Some of their topics, not all. If the human genome had been the topic of the day for biology back then, I may have really SCORED THROUGH THE ROOF as it is more "human", something I can relate to, not some abstract, woolly ones like SPECIAL RELATIVITY or whatever? But I never know, I may grow to like and understand it, not now but some time in the future?
A reality of encounter may nudge moi in this direction, sparking an interest and illuminating maybe?
Hey, would I have a vested interest to blog about such matters. I do not have a kid of my own and my nephews and nieces aren't so close or attached to me for a very long time now, so why should I even bother?
What Else Can Schools Do?
Just as we do not impose the insistence that ALL students be sportsmen/women, so should we also impose the insistence that ALL students be academicians?
By this I mean, Tom may like sports but not academic studies. He should go on to the Sports School perhaps? But will he make the cut at the national or international level? After all, there are that 4 million and 6 billion others out there in the world, some of whom are potentialities in themselves.
More precisely, he may like only hockey and the English language. Even more precisely, he only likes being the forward for hockey and he likes the history and semantics part of the English language (not so much the phonological parts like vowels, dipthongs and whatver sexually fetishy and perverted "thongs")
Shouldn't he then be allowed to excel in these fields and pursue the career he can at them? He can study the rest of the subjects but he isn't gonna score that A1 or A2 for them, perhaps only managing a D7 or C6 or C5 or B4 or B3. So you can't penalise him for this, can you?
If you like only nasi lemak or men, you can't be asked to eat lontong or women, can you? Ok , ok, I can grow to like lontong or women in time. But at best, it is at arm's length or the occasional eat. Don't expect moi to have lontong at every meal or women sharing moi's sleeping quarters or bedding. GEDDIT? NO? You stinkhole, see a psychiatrist.
What it all boils down to is this. Every student has the potentiality for everything. It is a matter of time, it may happen, it may not. Students who are good all-rounder at all academic subjects, I applaud you. But remember, you may only have been lucky that the tested topics were your pet and you have the theoretical knowledge. Whether you can apply them, that is another thing altogether. You are probably only a select breed. The academic elites. Academic elites at memorization, regurgitation, exams, conformity and theorising, that is.
In most cases, it could only be that one subject or two a student is really good at. Can we allow him/her his/her place in this?
All students should participate in all sports (recreationally). If he excels in one, it may/may not take him to the national/international level. Can he just stay at the level he is good at, school or whatever. He may have the potentiality but he may not desire to, preferring to play at his own comfortable level or he just wanna do it recreationally.
By all the same reasoning, we can extend this to every sphere of our lives. Can we?
I have more to write but this blog has taken up too much of my time and money already. Another time perhaps. Real soon, I promise. Like tonight or tomorrow even? *Wink wink.
Some Clarifications
When I said to " get a life or at least give me your life" on an earlier blog with regard to the NTU don's sex escapades, I meant to give me his academic life, not his sex life. I would steer really clear of the smut he has got himself into. But I would have turned my academician life into a worthy pursuit of research, learning , teaching and community good.
Sigh - you FAT ASS just had it too good. I hope they repatriate you to Guatanamo Bay. That is if you are even wanted there.
Typography
Oh yeah, that blog should have one of its lines as "....anti-virus software foreign manufacturer..." OOps . Did I spot someone laughing his head off in that corner? An educator perhaps? You just wanna see moi trip up don't you and say things like...."AHA! There, you see!" You can't take criticisms can you? After all that I have written about you and how the whole education system sucks!
Let Us Not All Be "Typified" Involuntarily
It seems that we are all being swept up into fitting ONE concept of being a citizen here and of the world. It is a NOBLE and GOOD concept, no doubt but all that community work involving charities and humanitarian work overseas MUST TRULY COME FROM THE HEART. Not based on some reward system or self-serving interests or to project an image to society at large of what we want them to think of us.
If you ask me, it has spiralled (downward that is ) to one chiefly of a BUSINESS CONCERN, from religious institutions (which history has shown: think papal indulgences can actually be bought?) to educational establishments.
So if you don't do any of the above, you are most likely an OUTCAST.
OH MY GOD! DWAYNE, YOUR "STALKER" IS HERE!
Yeah that "nearly senior citizen liao" dude you showed the photograph of on your blog the last time. The one who stakes out fast food joints. Not too sure if he is a "stalker" but he smiles a lot, sits around at the fast food joint here, reads and so on.
I am so AFRAID! You want his contact number? *Wink.
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