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.