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.