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.