| ord thoughts |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|11:26 pm] |
When I was still in school, I thought that National Service was a waste of time. I thought that people like me should not be required to serve 2 years of military service, for couldn't we better contribute to Singapore in other ways? Spending 2 years in the army will necessarily mean spending 2 less years of our prime outside, 2 less years to study, work and pay taxes. Surely the costs of NS were too great to justify conscription - couldn't a regular army do?
I don't think NS helped to change that. In 2 years, I haven't felt the existential threat to Singapore's survival that many say we face and I am not convinced that this is because of the strong SAF that we have. Indeed, although as an AI trooper I learnt how to do fire movement and clear trenches, it never occurred to me that I might one day have to do it for real. If I was a soldier, I was a soldier by name only.
But if NS did not convince me that NS is necessary, it taught me many things about life. NS forced me to interact with people of different educational and social backgrounds. I grew up in a well-to-do household and attended only brand-name schools. In 12 years of formal schooling, I hardly met anyone who speaks Hokkien, much less smokes and sports tattoos. NS allowed me to step outside these gates and meet other people. For what it was worth, I thought it was a good experience. As I got to know my platoonmates better, I learnt to step into their shoes and see the world from behind their eyes. Regardless of whether I agreed with them, I came to appreciate how they thought and why they believed what they believed. Interacting with my platoonmates has made my worldview more sophisticated. It enriched my life and made it fuller than before.
NS also taught me to take responsibility for my own actions and put in my best in everything I do. Unlike school, I struggled with training initially and got very frustrated as a result. I remember being the last person in my BMT company to pass my M16 technical handling test because I just could not assemble the rifle parts. I was also repeatedly shouted at for failing to coordinate my fire movement with the rest of the platoon. My failure to meet standards and persistent poor attitude must have resulted in my posting to 41 SAR after BMT. Thankfully,as I adjusted to army life with the generous support of fellow platoon mates, I learnt to take charge of my own duties and perform them well. Whether it was doing sentry during laager or cleaning arms after exercise, everyone needed to do their part to make things run smoothly. Although I do not have a natural affinity to army stuff, the tasks that I perform can mean so much to so many people. From there, I learnt to take pride in my duties naturally enough, if only to live up to others and myself.
NS taught me to take a healthy and positive attitude towards life. Too often, we, rightly or wrongly, hold on to our viewpoint stubbornly and try to destroy every other position. Many try very hard to down PES and/or slack as much as possible because they are convinced that NS is meaningless and a waste of time. I learnt that this tendency to tear down everything that we disagree with is unhealthy. Even if we disagree on the necessity of NS, we can agree to work towards a more effective AI company and a more effective SAF. Even if we think that we can better contribute to Singapore by not serving NS, we can still try to create a positive NS experience for ourselves and our peers. I learnt that our perceptions and beliefs interfere with and influence our experiences in profound ways. NS, like life, can only be as meaningful as we allow it to be.
Reflecting on the past 2 years, I feel very lucky to be posted to Glory despite all the training and saikang. At the end of the day, our NS experience is not judged by the number of field camps we have been through or how slacky the training was. We remember NS because it has made us fitter, stronger and better people. We remember NS for the 2 years of memories in the field, in the office and outside camp (during cohesion). We remember NS for the many wonderful people that we have met and the number of lives we have touched and changed. On these counts, I think Glory provided me with a meaningful and memorable experience; one that I am grateful for even as I feel relieved to move on with life.
(26 October 2009)
...
Several people commented that their problems with NS stem from their lousy superiors. I must say that the vast majority of my superiors have been pleasant to work with. Superiors cannot be expected to be perfect/most efficient. If they screw up and need help, naturally you are expected to help them. I think I have done a fair bit of such work in army, not to mention routine rounds of paperwork. I don't particularly dread them, because I know that if I screw something up, my superiors will try and help me out of my mess. Treats and good welfare now and then do not hurt too. For me, it works well both ways. |
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| more baking stuff |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|09:34 pm] |
thanks ivan. i think i am slowly getting more confident in baking. |
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| on immigration |
[Oct. 13th, 2009|10:26 pm] |
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/10/06/second-thoughts-on-immigration
even in singapore, immigration policy (closely linked with foreign talent policy) is becoming a very thorny issue. traditional liberal theory dictates that a society with a conservative immigration policy is insular, insecure or even racist. however, liberal immigration policies have largely failed to win over the masses. i would like to ask if there is a rational defense of conservative immigration policy? |
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| misc |
[Sep. 10th, 2009|10:00 pm] |
I used to be proud to tell people that I enjoy trekking and will be trying my hand at mountaineering soon. I was proud because trekking and mountaineering are activities that many people dream of, but only a few take up. But this pride is ebbing away because I have come to realize that my interests/’achievements’ are unspectacular. Anyone can climb Kinabalu or trek in Nepal given sufficient time and money. More than any other factor, my interest/’achievements’ should be attributed to my supportive parents. That may be personally important, but it is surely nothing to shout about. I have been lucky in many ways, that is all there is to it.
Pride wise, I am rather ashamed of myself for being technically incompetent. I struggle to climb the simplest routes and do not even attempt the more difficult ones. That is not the mark of a person who prides himself for his love of such activities. It only reflects that I am someone who has the resources to do fancy (and easy) treks overseas but lacks skills to do simple (and cheaper) technical rock-climbing. I remain interested in such activities, but I am not proud of being defined that way.
Perhaps I cannot expect too much, for I did not put in the effort to become a better rock-climber. I did not even do physical conditioning regularly. Having been exposed to similar activities since I was young, I expected myself to have an affinity with such activities. I have learnt that it is unreasonable to expect myself to have natural talent in a particular area. For many people, improved performance only comes with consistent training.
Rock-climbing reminds me of mathematics. I used to be proud that I am talented in math and can solve problems that many others cannot. However, looking back, I cannot seem to identify any period of time where I actually put in a lot of effort to improve my math. In secondary school, math was, as strange as it sounds, a social activity. All of us in the Math Olympiad Team will do math together during lazy afternoons in school or on Saturday mornings in NUS. I did math certainly because I was good at it and found it to be fun, but also because my friends were doing it. Saturday mornings were characterized more by Spinelli spins and curry puffs than the 7-mark problems. It only made sense to join my friends in doing math. When the math got too difficult and required more effort from me, I packed up and went away. Math is not for me anymore, I reasoned, and my problem solving ability has hardly improved since then. Against such a backdrop, do I still have reason to be proud of my above-average math abilities? Is being above-average in something sufficient for being proud in something?
Like having trekked in many countries, being above-average in math makes me stand out. Like having trekked in many countries, being above-average in math required little effort and conversely, involved much fun. Like having trekked in many countries, being above-average in math was a goal that I did not, for very long, consciously seek out. Crucially, I did little to further actively develop myself in both areas.
Upon reflection, my life has been somewhat of a contradiction. I get recognized for things that I put in the least effort. On the other hand, all my pursuits – doing volunteer work, getting to know more people, becoming better in badminton and tennis – have met with scant success. I believe in what I strive for and put in more time and effort into them than into things which I get recognized for. What am I to make of this? I feel displaced and lacking of direction. To be fair, I still enjoy math and trekking/rock-climbing and do consider them to be among my pursuits. Thinking about why I have not been more steadfast in developing these pursuits makes me even more confused.
More than ever, I feel overawed by the hype that surrounds me. All the hopes and expectations that I would do well as a scholar, that I will do well in oxford, that I will become a good citizen of the world in my own way. I wonder what people see in me and my story. Do they see a remarkable person rising from an unremarkable environment or remarkable environments shaping an unremarkable person? Have they heard of my stories or do they have their own?
I think I need to be motivated and moved. I don’t feel like I am growing anymore. I am reflexively doing my duties and attending to my weekend commitments. I am not deadened to the external world yet but I hardly feel the excitement and the challenge anymore, partly because I readily shrink away from them. But if there’s one thing that I have learnt so far, it is that I need to be passionately engaged. The self and the world cannot be thought of and treated separately; they need to be harmonized into a whole. Success and fulfillment do not come from hard work and perseverance alone; hard work and perseverance need to be applied to causes which the self is already motivated towards. My pursuits need to engage the entire person. I have not felt engaged in a long while.
Sometimes I stare into the future and try to imagine what I would be like in 10 to 20 years time. I daydream a lot and have many different dreams of the future. I spend afternoons dreaming about I could be a successful freelance tour guide who brings people to every corner of the world. I would tell them the history of western civilization while exploring Roman ruins and popular legends surrounding the Greater Middle East while descending into Istanbul by a hot-air balloon.
I dream about collecting important awards from important people for pioneering worldwide changes in social work and education. Surrounded by well-wishers, I would feel strangely honoured but not out-of-place. I would look back into my past and be surprised (but proud) of how I got the award by simply pursuing my interests all my life.
Of course, I also dream about becoming a world-class mathematician who is not only gifted, but is also bringing new crowds of people to like math and excel in it. I dream of emulating Chris Sharma as I climb impossible walls in Dairy Farm and the Himalayas.
Soon enough, I will get jolted out of my daydreams. As reality hardens, I will look into the mirror and reconsider how I will be in the future. Invariably, thoughts about my past and present states will come into mind and threaten to envelop talk about the future. Will I be strong enough to determine where I end up in future, or will the past continue to sweep me forward relentlessly, as I lay in meek submission? Am I going to end up in one of the faceless crowds toiling in the bureaucracy, comfortable but drained, stable but meaninglessly so?
It’s tiring to choose and to force things to go your way all the time. It’s tiring to think about which way you want to go too. Increasingly, I resign myself to the force of everything around me and slip into the mindset that things only appear as we want them to appear. I would drop grand modern notions of success and be content to find meaning in the small and routine things I do, whatever those may be.
I don’t know if this is the right way to approach the future. I just hope that things will turn out that way. |
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| first class |
[Aug. 25th, 2009|09:44 pm] |
just watched first class on channel 5. i am quite surprised that i liked it and thought it was funny. it was lame, unsubtle and sometimes i just felt that they were intentionally acting badly. but if it turned out to be a pleasant watch at the end, do these 'deficiencies' really matter?
i am not a qualified judge for stylistic and technical merits but ive been conditioned to judge actors based on their abilities to fit into character, to judge scripts based on their ability to create suspense and feeling blah. to me, first class fails on these indicators. it was a joke from start to end, albeit a pleasant joke that non-singaporeans will find hard to appreciate.
perhaps comedies require different rubrics for evaluation, though i would be hardpressed to come up with one that recognises and appreciates first class. not that i am obsessed with the need to critique first class though. if it cannot be called good, so be it. if what i like is not 'good', so be it.
this reminds me of js mill's "it's better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; it's better to be a socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." in what sense better? does better matter?
in a more general sense, ive been grappling with the last question for some time now. i'll leave it for a future post though. |
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| on tennis |
[Aug. 23rd, 2009|08:40 pm] |
is murray arrogant?
i was reading online reactions to the murray-federer match and the nadal-djokovic match and came across many people who thought that murray is getting over-hyped/shud just stop talking and let his racket do the talking. murray (and the djokovic of the past), many believe, needs to learn some humility. he keeps talking about how he could have put more pressure on fed by doing better in the slams; he doesnt talk abt him failing to do better in the slams...
okay. wtv. personally i dont find him arrogant. in fact, i used to think that federer was arrogant for insisting that his game is on despite having lost the past x games to murray, fed and nadal. murray is not typically an aggressive and adventurous player, but i like watching him play, even though i feel that he needs to 'take the initiative' at times.
anyway, i was thinking, why do most tennis fans rate fed so highly. i think its largely bcos he has won 15 slams and has an impressive slam record (number of finals, consecutive semis blah). if you look at his rankings breakdown, a staggering 7200/11040 of his ranking points have come from slams. murray's rankings points from slams stands at <3000/9250 and nadal's stands at 3080/8665. even djokovic has won more ranking points outside slams than federer! therefore, if we are talking abt consistency outside the slams, there's simply no case for the federer today to be considered as the best player. this shows in his poor record against the top 4.
is this sufficient reason to not regard fed as the best player currently? some fans argue otherwise, for slams are the most important tournaments and it is only a good sign that federer consistently peaks at the slams. --> he is not taking advantage of/being lucky because of the rankings system by garnering so many slam ranking points to be number 1, the slams are truly what matter.
fed's impressive record at the slams surely counts for something. a particular maturity, perhaps, something that murray and djokovic are still lacking of. but whether it suggest imba tennis skills is another question. it suffices to say that i dont think that federer deserves to be called the best player in the world atm simply bcos of his slam record.
nadal, on the other hand, has impressive records against the top 4 (or the top 10) for the matter. he was absolutely scintillating in the first half of the year before his injury and on that basis, it is quite reasonable to suggest that he is potentially the best player, potentially because his injury is hampering his ability to express his best form. it doesnt matter if he cannot win 15 slams because his playing style is too hard on his body. that only means he will have the long tour-life that is necessary to win 15 slams; it does not suggest that he is not the best player now. (okay...barring his injury)
murray is unhampered by injury and is arguably the most consistent player on tour this year. there are, as i see it, two possible objections to him being the best player.
1. his claycourt tennis is not worldclass yet.
2. his style does not allow him to win slams consistently because he will likely falter when playing against someone who is on top form.
both objections are not decisive. sampras' claycourt tennis is not worldbeating, but his grasscourt achievements are sufficiently impressive to 'cover' his lack of achievements on clay to the extent that many considered him the greatest before federer. murray's claycourt tennis is not worldclass but his hardcourt tennis surely is.
secondly, for the sake of argument, letssay murray will always lose matches against top 10 players when they are on top form, and all top 10 players are on top form 20% of the time. murray may not be able to win many stretches of games (due to the low probability) and consequently may not be able to win many tournaments, but surely his consistently good record against the top players suggest that he is the best? at least, it gives us little reason for us to think that someone is not the best just bcos he doesnt have a good slam record.
(okay i know murray played poorly against fed, even worse in the first set against benneteau. and he hasnt achieved outright hardcourt supremacy unlike fed 06/07)
...
enough random thoughts. i am just perturbed by people who measure greatness/bestness by performance in slams. anyway, what do you understand by 'best' or 'greatest of all time' and who do you think is the best player now/greatest of all time? also, does 'best'/'greatest' reduce to favourite? |
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| on literature |
[Aug. 15th, 2009|08:02 pm] |
i am reading colin thubron's shadow of the silk road. it's a celebrated book, very well-received by reviewers and laymen alike. however, i do not share their enthusiasm. as i review my difficulties in appreciating the book, perhaps u could better understand my 'problems' with literature.
"No one is here. Only the whirr of air-conditioning in the darkness. The museum is half demolished and the traffic of Urumqi mutters outside. In their cabinets the bodies lie as if tumbled in sleep. I walk among them lightly, fearing they might wake." (pg 110, harperperennial version)
what does it mean for traffic to 'mutter outside'? okay...mutter means to speak in a low and unclear voice. so here, the traffic noise must be low and unclear. but in the end, this scene where the traffic noise is low and unclear is beyond my imagination. words cannot and can never convey the meanings that their authors intended because meanings are twice refracted. the author transcribes his feeling into words and i interpret the word into feeling, my own this time. its not usually a problem but it is when the author is describing something that u have never experienced.
so i have a vague idea of a dark room with low and unclear noises from traffic and the aircon. now i need to add bodies that lie 'as if tumbled in sleep'. what does it mean to be 'tumbled in sleep'? tumble means to fall down, so tumbled in sleep means to have fallen down to sleep. okayy. but tumbled is surely an unusual choice of words. why would anyone tumble to sleep? why cant they lie down to sleep? -->what does it mean to tumble to sleep?
okay, this one eludes me. i really dont know. but my mental idea of the room has extended. now the room is dark, with low and unclear noises from traffic and aircon, and bodies lying down.
now the author walks among them lightly, 'fearing that they might wake'. what an odd feeling. you walk around a museum lightly because u are afraid of waking the dead/preserved bodies in the museum? i dont understand why the author would walk because of such a motivation. surely the bodies do not resemble sleeping ghosts? wouldnt it be more natural to walk lightly because the room is sacred and quiet and you dont want to disturb the tranquility? the author's 'fear that they might wake' is unfortunately not accessible to me. i guess i shud just read it as the author walks lightly.
now of cos i dont read like that. these things dont consciously come through my mind as i glance through the words. but i do stop every now and then to take stock of what i've understood from the preceding lines. then, more often than not, the feeling is one of catch-no-ball. what did the author just say? did i miss anything?
i did. i missed all the nuances and subtleties of description (which all good writing is supposed to be rich of). occasionally, i miss the entire plot with it and have to read everything again. the above represents an effort to reconstruct the blur that happens when i read descriptions like that. a blur, not a flurry of excitement and sensation. sometimes, i dont understand at all; at other times, it is simply too laborious and tiring to construct the understanding.
"Their dark, pitted faces were powdered with beards."
"A creamy mist dissolved into the sky."
okay. my sensibilities are limited. there are just too many things that escape me, that i dont get. dont even get started about poetry. |
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| physics |
[Jul. 21st, 2009|11:30 am] |
1. a piston-engine car takes 4.96 seconds to cover a quarter-mile. assume that the rear wheels lifted the front wheels off the pavement, what is the minimum value of the coefficient of static friction necessary to achieve this time?
2. a trapeze artist steps off an elevated platform, starting from rest with the ropes taut at an angle x to the vertical. suppose the size of the performer is small compared to the rope, the artist does not pump the trapeze to swing higher and air resistance is negligible. show that when the ropes make an angle y with the vertical, the performer must exert a force mg(3 cos y - 2 cos x) so as to hang on.
3. a particle of mass 1.18kg is attached between 2 identical springs on a horizontal frictionless tabletop. the springs have force constant k and each is initially unstressed.
a) the particle is pulled a distance x along a direction perpendicular to the initial configuration of the springs as shown.
show that the potential energy of the system is U(x) = kx^2 + 2kL(L-rt(x^2+L^2))
b) plot U(x) against x and identify all equilibrium points.
c) assume L = 1.2m and k = 40.0N/m. if the particle was pulled 0.500m to the right and then released, what is its speed when it reaches the eqm point x=0? |
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| misc |
[Jul. 19th, 2009|11:52 am] |
sometimes i feel ashamed that despite having played tennis so much so frequently, i am still so bad at it. actually its not exactly shame; its a bit of disappointment and disgruntledness too.
dont get me wrong, i still love tennis very much. i just feel like i cant do shit and need some help. |
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| misc |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|09:14 am] |
when the going gets tough, i often have this creeping urge to ord. i feel that i cannot take it much longer, even as my mind drifts away and forgets the hardship and the pain. i appear to be surprisingly calm, but in reality i can no longer concentrate. on the outside, i stare blankly at people and respond mechanically at orders. inside, i think about nothing but ord. i need to leave all the mess and shit as soon as possible, once and for all.
actually, the label 'all the mess and shit' is highly misleading. 'all the mess and shit' is routine business for many; it is 'just another bad day'. i always remind myself that i ought to do my own thing and not be so affected by outside events. the truth is, i am far less resilient than i thought. i dont have the fortitude to overcome even simple obstacles, partly because i never needed to my whole life.
besides, i always tell myself to rise above the everyday fluctuations in mood because moods change with environments but attitude towards life ought to remain the same. needless to say, i cannot motivate myself to stay positive/take the next chance to prove myself. the last few weeks have been one low point after another, separated only by time out of camp/free time before slp.
i take the above to mean that i am not born for army/still cannot settle into army. people like me who are hopelessly incompetent in the field should just serve their ns doing some menial job and get lost for everyone's sake. that had been my idea of how the army should accomodate me for some time, until one of my commanders told me that had i gone to sispec/ocs, i would have turned out less blur and more competent. having posted straight into a second year unit, perhaps i hadnt gone through the training needed to toughen me up and 'wake up my idea'. according to him, i look like a typical 'civilian', which is a strange description considering how wide a category 'civilian is, but less so if u consider just how much my attitude and traits differ from those required of soldiers.
with less than 5 months to go, i am at a loss of what to make of my army life. a confirmation of my inepitude in certain things? a difficult first step to being a better person? a waste of time?. i think i have made real progress in many areas, but it just embarrasses and scares me how much more i need to improve in various places. i am ashamed of myself for making so many errors and needing so many lessons to correct the numerous errors. it doesnt help that the more i try to correct my ways, the more i confront my fragile, vulnerable and weak being. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|09:44 pm] |
just want to say a few things abt tennis and sports in general.
1. confidence and attitude matter a lot. skills and tactics provide you with options, confidence and attitude provide you with the ability to select and execute these options. that was the difference between a stunned federer after dropping his first two sets and a spirited federer at the end of the third set. the stunned federer chooses his shots poorly (e.g. plays too many low-percentage shots, too many hard shots down the center) and times his shots poorly (because he is impatient/cannot believe that his opponent can hit so well). the spirited federer chooses his shots wisely (because he's thinking about his shots, not his (losing) position) and times his shots well (because he is relaxed and calm).
2. that said, federer was not playing well and was incredibly lucky. he was lucky to get real crowd support (something which nadal never got until it was too late), he was lucky to save his breakpoint with a risky inside-out forehand shot (that he has missed many many times before) and he was lucky that haas missed a few crucial shots early in the third set.
tbc. |
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| fyi |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|08:59 pm] |
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moe offered me an overseas teaching scholarship and ive accepted it. if everything turns out as planned, i will be studying mathematics and philosophy at oxford next year. |
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| misc |
[Mar. 31st, 2009|11:31 am] |
i got hold of a copy of the compilation of our is papers. i dont think most of them were particularly outstanding or even outstanding for that matter but that isnt important now. reading them two years on, its hard not to feel a sense of longing and fondness for ki lessons in the past. i no longer have the energy to criticise/nitpick and the audience to hear me criticise/nitpick anymore. more than that, i think the compilation serves as a marker to our intellectual development when we were 18. it reminds us how we we were in the past and how we have grown over the years. seen in this way, there's nothing to feel ashamed about having written a substandard paper (that was declared to be good). these, and other achievements that we accomplished in the past, are mere fleeting footprints in the sand as we continue to mature.
i think it is fitting to spend some time talking about life and objectivity here. i used to prize this thing called objectivity in the past and thought that all emotions, actions, etc had to follow from an objective reading of the world. i thought we needed to understand (objectively) what people were like, what communities, societies and institutions were like in order to move on in the best possible manner. its not that i no longer find it important to understand the world around me. rather, i realised that i am not an external agent appraising the world, like a surveyor assessing the suitability of a plot of land for constructing an mrt station; i am, inextricably, a being in the world.
being part of the world, my view of the world or following merleau-ponty, my lived world, is and has to be more than the objective state of affairs in the world. as far as my existence is subjective (directed and mediated by 'i'), my world is also shaped by my feelings, attitudes and choices. for example, whether we are dealing with global poverty or a lone beggar, we choose to sympathise or not sympathise, to hope or not to hope. the world is but a stage for us to exercise our choices; while some circumstances seem to lend themselves better to certain feelings (e.g. a prisoner in the holocaust might feel that the only thing he can do is wait and/to die), we ultimately decide whether to hope/dream/die and what to make of whatever we are facing. there's nothing objectively good/bad about doing/not doing community work or pursuing/not pursuing a cause that you feel for; you act because you choose to act, you hope because you choose to hope. because so much of our lived world is influenced by our character, attitudes blah, its as important, if not more, to develop, understand and find oneself (all highly subjective experiences) as it is to understand the world in itself.
...
“The clash is between intolerant people within different cultures – it’s a clash of intolerances. The Danish cartoons example is certainly relevant here. The key thing is that whilst freedom of expression is a right in the West, there is no compulsion to act upon that right. Just because we have the right to do something does not mean that we should neglect our duties towards other people. In the Danish case, the clash is between different absolutists in different cultures. People who believe in moral and political pluralism practice their rights in a way that leaves space for others. It has to do with listening and learning. It is not about whether there is the right to publish the cartoons - constitutionally speaking, of course it is legitimate – it is about the fact that it is necessary to think about the consequences of one’s actions if one does not want to harm people, and that puts limits on free speech.” Ramin Jahanbegloo
i think a lot of people disagree, but i do agree here. it reminds me of sth i came across recently, on how (i think) i am politically liberal, but personally conservative. politically liberal because you could be different from me, personally conservative because i dont often feel a need to challenge things, people blah.
...
will be in vietnam for a holiday until 13 april. |
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| misc |
[Mar. 21st, 2009|05:08 pm] |
i always thought that i would make a fairly good teacher, even though i could never really back that claim. it wasnt a matter of being helpful/unhelpful or patient/impatient; i thought i could understand kids/students/people better and while getting to know them as people, i could perhaps help them to grow/learn blah. i also thought i understood the basic principles of doing math problems/writing exercises quite well and if i could teach people to think in the same way, they would be able to handle academic work much more effectively.
but after tutoring/mentoring primary school kids for more than 2 years now, i find that i am not suited for the job (at least for p schl kids). you not only need to understand how they think and process information, you must also be able to relate to them, thereby slowly nudging them to think/treat things in the 'proper' way.
thats only my theory of how to teach people things anyway, and by that model, i fail at relating to kids. i try my best to talk to them at their level but i think i never really reached them, even though sometimes they seem to understand what i am saying. engaging the student and getting things across requires a tremendous amount of skill and it isnt as simple as recognising what needs to be done.
in the first place, i realise i do not really recognise what needs to be done, which makes my model woefully inaccurate. its very easy to recognise that someone needs to learn how to write grammatically, but very difficult to make him learn to write grammatically. i used to and still believe that the best way to learn grammar is to write and read more, but even if i were correct, there still remains a whole bunch of unresolved issues. lets take away motivational issues (e.g. how do you make him concentrate on writing? how do you make him focus on the text and not leave his chair after reading two lines?) for now and look at pedagogical issues alone. what type of writing exercises should you give? how should you go through his compositions? how should you guide him in reading? do you need to supplement this with learning of grammatical rules? if so, how?
for far too long, i never really questioned if i was doing things the right way. i started asking myself all these questions a while ago and feel totally unprepared to tutor kids properly. the truth is: education is difficult business. if you still have rosy and straightforward ideas about how to teach/learn, your idea of education probably extends only to yourself and people extremely similar to you.
the relating to kids part, i must confess i am totally at a loss of what to do when i deal with kids in a large group. i cannot manage/lead/control them or coordinate activities within the group. i cannot even make myself heard and known. i think the problem is that i can only relate to people in 1 way: my friend-to-friend way (if you know what i mean). when situations require a different approach, i know i need to change but such attempts are inevitably feeble and ineffective. on hindsight, i have never worked well in groups with people i dont know well too.
i still enjoy and am fascinated by teaching, if only by the thought of it. but the more i enjoy it and am serious about it, the more i need to be aware of my own capabilities and limitations pertaining to it. i dont think i will ever become one of those who can effectively motivate and excite classes and classes of kids. i think i would be better off in small classes in secondary school/jc. perhaps i would be even more effective and useful as an academic who sits in his office thinking through chim theories and complicated approaches to education while entertaining the odd graduate student. but if i somehow end up there one day, it will not be because i am 'too smart' for the humble classroom. rather, it would be because i am too useless and dumb for it. |
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| misc |
[Mar. 10th, 2009|07:56 pm] |
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if you havent applied for uni and/or are thinking of visiting nus this saturday, pls leave a msg or pm me. |
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| misc |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|04:14 pm] |
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| misc |
[Feb. 27th, 2009|10:30 pm] |
the bx course this past week reminded me of how pathetic i am as a soldier and how much more i need to improve in order to become a decent, respectable soldier. it pains me that i still cannot perform simple tasks properly and consistently and solve my own problems. im not trying to be outstanding - im just trying to be someone who can hold his ground and fight, someone who can say that he has learnt what it means and takes to be a soldier. my csm says i lack self-confidence and i believe he is partially right. i approach things with the default mindset that i will fail and therefore try hard to do items 1, 2 and 3 in order not to fail. half my idling time is spent repeating to myself what needs to be done and how that should be done and when i actually get down to doing it, my mind slips into a state of blankness where i just do things more or less in default mode. on a related note, i find it very difficult to concentrate and put 100% effort into things. its like i am never really in the present; not that i daydream or 'think too much' or am in 'somewhere else' but i always feel very detached from things. i get very frustrated and angry with myself, but that's a response to my actions/inactions, not to the task/surroundings.
(incomplete. too many things to say too little time.) |
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| misc |
[Jan. 31st, 2009|12:11 am] |
1. how do you make coffee using ground coffee beans? i dont have a french press or a coffeemaker but i have coffee filters. typically i heap 1 tablespoon of coffee and wet the beans with hot water for 1 minute before pouring hot water through the filter to make a cup. i read that a french press brings out the flavours much better but i am quite sure local kopitiams dont use them, and many of them still make good cups. (how to make the kopitiam kopi anyway? i have a bag of the traditional coffee-margarine mixture.) also, is evaporated milk replaceable by say, creamers or powedered milk?
2. can anyone kindly lend me a sat(1) book?
3. verdasco showed us how to use the drive volley today. if he keeps up his form and works on reducing his errors, he's going to be a worldclass player. |
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| misc |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|06:58 pm] |
http://rustbeltphilosophy.blogspot.com/2008/12/late-thursday-seriousness-blogging.html
a nice distinction, although i think he's being rather uncharitable in paragraph 4. i would be interested to read a reply to this.
i still think that the central ideas of the book (cosmopolitanism blahblah) are sound though, as with other books in the series. amartya sen's identity and violence and dershowitz' treatise on preemption are both excellent works. |
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| misc |
[Jan. 12th, 2009|08:42 pm] |
i was reading accounts of ascents of 7k+m mountains when it struck me how much work one needed to scale 1 7k+m mountain. i always thought of ascents as mere tests/markers of physical fitness, with the occasional rock climbing/rope/wtv skill but the more i read accounts the more i realise that if i go into mountain climbing with this type of mindset, i am just trying my luck and waiting to die. i am starting to see mountain climbing as much more than a x-day climb/walk but as a test in weather reading, ground reading, route finding and most importantly, being independent (learning to take care of oneself, treating oneself of frostbites/etc, motivating oneself, making decisions for oneself, blah). as they say, there are numerous ways to die on the mountain. better learn to watch out for them.
i have always treated trekking/mountain climbing as a leisure activity rather than a challenge. it may be somewhat challenging but i dont do it because it is challenging. i do it because it is fun and rewarding, of which only a part can be attributed to it being challenging. stepping up to 6k+m peaks, i feel rather unprepared mentally and technically. the technical part can be taken care of by alpine courses but i keep thinking that these (whatever i can take before the planned expedition) is not enough. mountain climbing is not a problem sum where you see how an example is done and attempt the next problem - its much less straightforward than that.
i still would like to do an ascent of a 6k+m peak in the near future, although i harbour no ambitions of being an adventurer out to assault peaks in the most spectacular/independent/challenging fashion. in that regard, i see myself more as a 'mountain tourist' rather than an adventurer, although thats really nothing to be ashamed of. i play tennis not because i aspire to beat federer/etc; i watch movies not because i wish to become a leading film critic; i (wish to) visit pyramids/stonehenge/blah not because i wish to unveil new findings to the world - i do them because i enjoy them at my level, in my capacity. for that reason, i dont see exploring the outdoors/mountains/wtv as a personal quest for excellence, where i take on progressively difficult challenges and forget about all the 'easy' or 'lesser' endeavours. sure, challenges are valuable in their ability to let you find out more about yourself, your limits, strengths and weaknesses. a technical ascent of a 6k+m peak would also be valuable in providing a new type of experience (that of iceclimbing and 'really feeling the altitude'). but when it grows and demands too much of you, you need to let go and hang on to your other passions.
atm, i need lots of money, time and confidence. i'll see how it goes, but i dont feel prepared for now. i am not confident of my ability to manage, survive and enjoy the whole thing, and there are always other things pressing me for attention. |
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| on chinese |
[Dec. 25th, 2008|07:53 pm] |
i started reading chinese books not long ago and am still reading the same collection of 小说 by 余华. it's surprisingly readable, not in the sense that the text is simple and easily understood, but the mood (情趣) grows grows on me in a way that i have never felt when reading fiction in english. i think that has partly to do with my tendency to rush through works in english (i still dont enjoy salinger/marukami/carver), although i think its plain to most who can read both chinese and english that chinese has particular emotive (煽情) and poetic (诗意浓厚) qualities. while reading 余华, i never thought about what this/that meant or how this/that fit with another thing. he sorts of lulls you and draws you in with repeated use of four-worded descriptions, although at the end, like so many modern(ist) writers, he leaves you with seemingly no satisfactory ending. that said, i realised that (his) written chinese is so different from the chinese that i am used to. he uses a lot of '故' to mean '因此', '其' to mean '他们的', '方' to mean '刚' blah, and i wonder if he's trying to sound poetic, or if my chinese is just simplified and singaporeanised.
anyway. my spoken chinese is still pretty bad. i tried to make a reservation at a restaurant through a staff who was obviously from china and i could not help slipping into english from time to time. he referred me to an english speaking staff in the end. :S
anyway, am looking for recommendations in
1. chinese books. not too long plx and preferably essays/short stories that are not translations. i still take pretty long to digest one page.
2. chinese songs. i like sandy lam (林忆莲), rene liu (刘若英), cass phang (彭羚), etc. i think my taste is highly 'classical', if u know what i mean. |
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| hanoi photo album |
[Dec. 14th, 2008|12:14 am] |
http://community.webshots.com/album/569196703eLGSwg
...
i am reading lots of poker strategy guides, but i am not internalising and applying any shit. i would first admit that my people/call-reading skills are very bad, but i am not even playing the odds properly. i need a coach or someone to consider my plays with me. bug on msn plx. am playing no limit texas holdem. |
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| misc |
[Dec. 3rd, 2008|09:25 pm] |
i realised in vietnam that prices of the same object differ greatly in different locations. i mean, its pretty commonsense that a bottle of evian will cost more at a restaurant than at a hawker center and more at a hawker center than at a supermarket and so on, but its kinda scary just how much money is sucked by intermediaries. oranges that are sold for 30000 dong/kg in a hanoi market are sold for 7000 dong/kg along the highway in the countryside, a bag that retails for 17 usd in a hanoi souvenir shop is sold for 4 usd in the countryside. i may be slightly ripped off by the market/souvenir shop but locals dont pay much less even when they bargain and buy at the right shops. the story doesnt end there bcos i am still buying from (countryside) shopowners, not the producers themselves. to give an idea of how much producers themselves actually earn, i was walking around the villages in the maichau valley when i came across a solitary old woman weaving silk scarves. her price: 2 usd.
i mean, i know it takes time/money to transport stuff to hanoi/singapore/new york and ppl at every stage (truck driver/middleman/immigration officer/packer/blah) need to support their families but its rather ludicrous how much actually goes to the producers. is fairtrade any better? i suspect its rather similar, not because ppl are inherently selfish but bcos london fairtrade directors still need to be paid london director salaries, warehouses in london still need to be rented at london prices, shipments to london still needs to be pay london port/transport/misc fees, etc. third-world-country workers, well, will continue to be paid third-world-country rates. i know fairtrade helps to ensure workers' rights, does not force them into unequal contracts, etc. and all these things are important (although one should always be cautious about expressing anything more than faint optimism), but that only shows that more needs to be done, if you buy my idea that third-world-ppl dont deserve third-world-wages that is.
speaking of this, i encountered many MANY foreigners this time (vietnam is especially inundated by french tourists), and am quite surprised that many actually come from quite humble backgrounds. there are pre-school teachers, airport check-in-counter staff and nurses on monthlong holidays, and it comes as quite a big surprise to me because i have always thought that being a pre-school teacher/airport check-in-counter staff/nurse in singapore will not earn you enuff cash to live comfortably enuff to think about going on monthlong vacations (that are not at all budget). in fact, arent many of these middle class ppl calling for more govt attention (c.f. middle class squeeze, forgotten middle class)? maybe i am mistaken, that many singaporeans in these vocations do enjoy their fair share of luxuries, but it is surely true that pre-school teachers/airport check-in-counter staff/blah generally earn more and enjoy better benefits in these countries (finland, australia, blah)? according to the ppl ive met, its actually (perfectly) respectable and rewarding being a pre-schl teacher/airport check-in-counter staff. maybe its my own biases and misconceptions, but i cant imagine that in singapore. everyone is clamouring for posh finance/executive/nice civil service jobs, bcos life is just unthinkable without them. |
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| misc |
[Dec. 3rd, 2008|08:24 pm] |
not to be dismissive or wat, but i dont quite understand how all these run/bike/hitch/climb/wtv-for-charity things work.
as in, these things require you to raise funds on top of running/biking/wtving and i understand that if you do not raise funds, you cannot participate in the event; but how is this running/biking/wtving for charity? if your mother makes you iron clothes before she lets you participate in a run, does it make your run a run-for-ironing/filial piety?
i do think it is good that we donate money/do some other charitable stuff whenever we run/bike/wtv to remind us that we are lucky to be able to run/bike/wtv. but this donating of money/doing charitable stuff either by stipulation or by choice is only an addition to the event, in the sense that deciding to donate money comes after deciding to run/bike/wtv. therefore, one cannot attribute the run/bike/wtv to charitable causes <--> it is just misleading to call these events runs/bikes/hitches/climbs-for-charity.
its like...if u have a single device that can take pictures and make calls, u can say that you own a cameraphone. but if u need to take pictures with a camera and make calls with a (separate) phone, then u cannot say that you have a cameraphone, but you can say, with little shame, that you have a camera and a phone rite? |
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| misc |
[Nov. 22nd, 2008|11:28 pm] |
for those who are thinking of doing some volunteer work nxt year, the grp i am with is currently open to new volunteers in the nxt calendar year. we run the 'supervised homework group' programme, which is organised and supported by cdac, once weekly on saturday afternoons (2:30 - 5:00, u can leave early if u have stuff on, but not come late). commitment is necessary as u will be assigned a student to teach/monitor/befriend/wtv. for the whole year.
to give a brief summary of what we do, we spend the first 1.5 hours helping our students with their homework. this can take the form of going through school work, teaching them concepts/stuff like area or subjectverbagreement, reading the papers with them, giving them a test paper to do; we are given the liberty to select the mode of instruction that we think is most appropriate for our student. as we only do these things once weekly, we are not required to account for our students' success/failure in schl, although we will be informed of their academic progress in school half-yearly and can ask to talk to their parents if necessary.
the 1 hour from 4 to 5 is meant for supervised activities. volunteers take turns to coordinate activities for all the students in the centre (~15-20). some activities that we have conducted are first-aid lessons, captain ball games, dog-and-bone games, clay figurine making classes, simple science experiments and mothers-day-card making classes.
training will be conducted by cdac throughout the year. these include familiarisation with pri schl syllabus, helping children with learning difficulties and assorted motivational workshops. there will also be a once-yearly overnight camp for all supervised homework group students that volunteers are expected to help out and attend. volunteers will also organise childrens day celebration + 2 outings every year.
most of the other volunteers are friendly and willing to help if help is requested. many have volunteered for >=3 years (there's an 'alumni' actually) and their age ranges from 19 (i am youngest) to 30+. personally, i cant really connect with most volunteers there (ive been almost loner-ing for two years) but thats more of my fault than theirs.
things to note: 1. i think the programme is well-organised. every center is helmed by a coordinator who manages and controls the students shud they get out of hand. he punishes/counsels students when necessary and is the one who liaises with parents/calls them when kids do not attend class. you can reasonably expect attendance rate of your student to be ~90%. most activities are well-organised and supported financially and logistically by cdac.
2. most volunteers are dedicated people. no fly-by sec schl/jc kids (i am a newbie with 2 years experience), no tutoring-while-doing-your-own-work. kids are generally nice (they opted in the programme and are 'interviewed' at the start of the year) although, like all kids, they are often restless and inattentive.
3. not for ppl who want to 'make a difference' in any large sense. change comes almost imperceptibly, if at all. but no surprises actualyl cos like everything else, organising the project is the ez bit, getting the result you want is the difficult part, esp when u only have <3 hours of contact time each wk. if you want to feel that u have made a difference, go start a fundraising project/paint a house --> most tangible difference liaoz.
interested, leave a note/email me. ty. |
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| sfi aunties |
[Oct. 30th, 2008|10:54 pm] |
i often feel sympathetic towards grouchy sfi aunties even though others often consider them irritating or even loathsome. i am sympathetic because i understand that preparing food for nearly a thousand people 3 times a day is no easy task, and they are not 20-year-old ippt gold awardees but 50-year-old aunties. from what i understand, they hardly rest between breakfast and lunch and only have a short break after lunch before they prepare our dinner.
but i dont think that we should give them some understanding and appreciation simply because their work is hard and we feel sorry for them; we should give them understanding and appreciation because if we were to work like them, we would probably be similarly grouchy and irritating people. assuming that what i understand is true, that they have to clean up the entire cookhouse after breakfast, cut, wash and cook 4 dishes for hundreds of people, prepare our cordial drinks in those massive cambros (which are so heavy that at least 3 aunties are required to lift a single filled cambro, with much strain of cos), etc continuously over 4 hours; i believe that all of us will be mentally stressed and easily irritable, even if not physically exhausted like them. and seeing nsfs letting cambro taps run, leaving cups on the tables, constantly asking if they can take food now, not to mention fellow sfi staff slacking, i will be lying if i say that i am confident that i will be able to treat nsfs and other people in the army passionately and with a smile.
what we need to understand is that it is unreasonable to expect a shift in attitude without a corresponding shift in circumstance because (and this is psychologically proven) we are immensely affected by our environment and our will is really much weaker than we make it out to be. if that is so, then expecting sfi aunties to be friendly and passionate would be holding double standards since we ourselves will probably be like them if we are faced with the same situation. consequently, it follows that sfi aunties are no more grouchy and irritating than us in themselves - they are only grouchy and irritating because they are in sfi, and that is why they deserve understanding and appreciation. a similar case can be made for construction workers. while it is true that theres a higher crime rate/tendency for violence among construction workers, it is wrong to simply attribute these statistics to the construction workers themselves because a large part of that higher crime rate/tendency for violence is caused by their working/living conditions. anyone who clocks >12 hour days doing backbreaking jobs in a foreign land living in bare conditions for years will be strongly predisposed to violence and crime because one cannot help but become so stressed and tired and mentally fragile after all the work. we cannot overcome our environment and our biology just like that and our supposed culturedness will not help. because culturedness is not a feature of us in ourselves - culturedness is a product of us being in this safe and relatively stress-free environment.
if we want to blame sfi aunties for being grouchy and construction workers for being prone to crime and violence, we need to establish that their behaviour is unacceptable even when mitigated by their less-than-perfect environment, that they have wilfully sought to irritate us and throw bottles around nearby hdb void decks. in the meantime, it is most productive to improve their environments so that they will be less disposed to these incidents which we dont like. the only alternative is to say that sfi aunties and construction workers shouldnt come and do their work at all, which is again holding double standards because if we were living in poverty in bangladesh and there's no reasonable hope of finding a job there, we would too come to singapore to make a living. |
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| misc |
[Oct. 26th, 2008|10:01 pm] |
they always say that singapore is located at the crossroads of the east and west, and although we live in a globalised world where distances are effectively bridged by internet/newspapers/planes/blah, cultures arent so easily bridged. that's where i think we have a natural advantage.
there are too many blogs/articles/speeches abt china being a country which 'systematically denies freedom to its people' or 'quashes dissent' or 'openly abusive'. people are fascinated by incidents and enjoy talking abt these incidents in themselves. this incident shows this and that, that incident proves that and this. but i dont think the interest shud solely be on what this incident is in itself, if only bcos incidents are next to nth in themselves.
its a particularly western phenomenon for things to have their individual identity. free speech is good because free speech is x, y and z. the eastern way of conceptualisation, however, defines things in relation to other things. an object's identity is no more than the sum of its relationships with other things. and once we see things that way, it isnt abt free speech or no free speech, democracy or no democracy, with us or against us. it is about free speech and democracy and culture and people and mao and agriculture and economy. we need to understand things in the midst of their inter-dependences, if only bcos that is how chinese understand themselves.
the value of being a singaporean does not rest primarily in our bilingualism, but in our ability to see and engage things from various angles. thats what u get when u try to meld voltaire and plato into a confucianist upbringing, when you visit china and western countries at a young age. |
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| physics |
[Oct. 15th, 2008|09:58 pm] |
some qns
1. bodies (e.g. planets) and light move in a straight line (technically, a geodesic, or the shortest distance between two points). however in general relativity, spacetime is curved due to the presence of mass and energy. thats why light and planets travel in curved orbits. its not because gravity bends them, but gravity bends 4dimensional-spacetime (which is identical to our 3d-space in the absence of matter), which results in the geodesic (shortest distance between 2 points) appearing to be bent when projected onto our 3d world. thats why we have curved orbits. true/false?
2. can anyone explain the black body problem (by rayleigh jeans, solved by planck) as plainly as possible. no websites plx.
3. how does special relativity explain why objects fall to the ground with an acceleration of 9.8ms-2?
4. can it be that time is not relative (<=>it is absolute) but that all measures of time (e.g. caesium clock, wtv) are distorted at high velocities? like in the twin paradox, the clock attached to the twin travelling at near-light-speed is 'distorted' to show 2 hours when in fact 3 hours (of absolute time) has elapsed?
5. i am standing on a train travelling at a constant speed of half the speed of light. you are standing on the platform at the 0m mark of the railway as the train is about to drive past. at the instant when i pass you, i will shine a beam of light in front and both of us will measure the time taken for light to travel to the 299792458m mark of the railway. what will i measure the time taken/distance travelled of light to be? |
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| misc |
[Sep. 28th, 2008|09:18 pm] |
i was looking ard facebook today and it kind of scares me how it seems like so many people are having fun out there. how so many people are happily sharing pics of uni life/travelling/f1/having fun and happily trading comments about each other/life. the level and type of activity on facebook is probably a poor correlation for the level of fun/wtv in life but that people bother to pose for pics/trade smiley comments/write animatedly about things surely suggests something?
it strikes me not simply because i dont seem to be doing all these things, but because in the past few days i have actually come to see myself as blessed/lucky, in the sense that i have people to play tennis with/talk to/play badminton with and i dont have to eat meals alone if i dont wish to. well perhaps we are all blessed with different forms of happiness/goodness (in life), corresponding to our different personalities. i dont feel resentful/zibei anyway; i feel strangely surreal, like i am living in the middle of a mosh party, in the middle of a sea of flailing arms and legs, quietly and contentedly. |
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| misc |
[Sep. 26th, 2008|11:44 pm] |
i thought mamma mia! was frivolous, almost spastic. i mean, it wasnt funny/joyful/wtv at all? and the way they transformed abba's songs, i dont know why abba sanctioned it. because it doesnt capture what is endearing abt abba, nor is it able to reposition abba's music in a modern (and nice) way, and when that happens, the songs drag the already sucky script/acting/wtv down.
...
that aside, i am still waiting to start on my new vocation (armskote man). everyone in my unit is in the ord mood already, and although i am not too bothered by that, i can almost feel the days becoming quieter and lonelier as people start to clear leave/off or ord. and although i dont mind spending weeks doing my own things (reading/running/watching tv/listening to radio), i cant help but feel reluctant. because slacking is not fun and eventually kills your soul. there's sth to be cherished abt normal combat life, i think u need to experience to understand.
i am now running <9-minute 2.4kms anyway. the past week i ran 8:45 for 2.4 and ~44min for 10km. i dont really know how to pace myself for 10km yet, and knowing how to pace myself in 2.4km probably slashed my timing by ~15-30 seconds. i know its hard to believe, but there's a hellot of technique to running fast. as a start, 1. dont kick off the ground too hard <=>keep ur feet as close to the grd as possible, if need be then consciously at first. 2. stop striding and work on increasing ur turnover rate instead. |
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| prize money and paralympics |
[Sep. 21st, 2008|08:57 pm] |
regarding the recent outcry over the unequal reward schemes for paralympic and olympic athletes, i think jeremy auyong's commentary "Unequal rewards can be made fairer" (which i cant find on the web) hit the spot. his ideas arent new at all but they are refreshing in the sea of overemotional/overenthusiastic comments in the wake of our paralympic athletes' success in the recent paralympic games.
the most important idea that he raised was that the level of competition is not the same in the olympics and in the paralympics. olympic athletes perform at a much higher level, in the sense that olympic athletes will almost always outperform paralympic athletes (exceptions such as oscar pistorius can probably outperform some olympic athletes) and therefore, here's the crux, a large part of rewards should be distributed on the basis of performance. i say 'a large part' because there are other considerations to keep in mind as well. for example, we do not pay charity chiefs/heads of state their 'market value' because of the nature of the enterprise, we reward paralympics athletes more than we do amateur athletes who outperform them because paralympics is more prestigious than amateur events and also because we recognise that paralympic athletes compete at a different platform from able bodied athletes and hence their prize money should not be equated/compared. (the same argument can perhaps be made for the equalisation of prize money for male and female athletes, but we will leave that aside for now).
that rewards corresponds to performance can almost be taken for granted because it follows from the core principle of meritocracy: that we reward people for excellence. we pay insurance agents who bring in more sales more because they bring in more sales. we award scholarships/awards/promotions to top students/staff to recognise and reward their achievements. since olympic athletes perform at a much higher level than paralympic athletes, there is a prima facie case for rewarding olympic athletes more.
i think the larger issue here is the need to decouple the notions of equality and fairness, which are often taken to be one and the same. the easiest way to distinguish the two is to see that equality is a positive concept while fairness is a normative concept, or to put it another way, that equality is a state of affairs in the world while fairness is a judgment on a particular state of affairs. while fairness should undoubtedly be informed by equality or the lack thereof, equating the two can be thought of as committing a naturalistic fallacy: that of deriving 'ought' from 'is'. we can also illustrate the absurdity of equating equality and fairness by thinking of the ways we treat animals and humans or the way we distribute tax rebates/gst credits/university places. we think that the unequal treatment of humans and animals is justified because humans and animals are, well, different. we only give tax rebates to those with dependents or have other reasons/give more gst credits to the needy/give more university places to singaporeans because that is required by the nature of the systems in question. in fact, to distribute all these equally would be unfair.
many proponents of equal reward schemes for paralympic and olympic athletes are, i believe, motivated by the fact that paralympic athletes often work very hard to overcome their disabilities and, on top of that, come up tops in their sporting discipline. surely we need to give credit to their determination/grit/perseverance, which in many cases, is greater than that of able-bodied athletes? let us first note that it is very difficult to compare the levels of determination/grit/perseverance, but even if we could be reasonably sure that a disabled athlete is more determined/persevering than an equivalent able-bodied athlete because the disabled athlete has to go through a whole host of physical/mental/emotional/social problems whereas the able-bodied athlete in question is just supremely naturally gifted like usain bolt, it does not follow that we should reward the disabled athlete more. reward schemes, like i have suggested and as their names themselves suggest, are meant primarily to recognise outstanding performances. perhaps we should admire the extraordinarily determined/persevering disabled athlete more than we should admire usain bolt for his strength of character, but let us leave that difference to a difference in our level of admiration. i am sure disabled athletes will already be pleased with that. |
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| on organ markets |
[Sep. 15th, 2008|10:25 pm] |
i dont support legalising organ trading because it leads to exploitation of the poor and those desperate for cash. u cant simply say that it is an economic transaction made by 2 fully informed adults (lets suppose we have a system to ensure that they are) and therefore it is alrite in the same way that u cant say that drug trafficking is alrite because it is an economic transaction between fully informed ppl (suppose they are). its sorta protecting people from themselves (akin to seatbelt laws; in this case protecting those who wish to sell their organs) and i think its necessary bcos they are extremely vulnerable and unlikely to be doing things in their own interest. which is not really a gd argument, but i suppose u would agree that a certain amt of paternalism is good (if not necessary) and a totally libertarian conception of the state cannot be justified. which, to put it another way, is to say that although people technically own their body parts, they are not totally free to do things to them (e.g. sell them) even when they do not directly harm external parties.
of cos, most proponents for the legalisation of organ trading back their views not simply on the argument that one is free to do anything to one's organs. there is also the point that legalising organ trading saves lives, and we need a strong counterargument to balance this (apparently) huge benefit. after all, isnt the state committed to protecting the lives of its citizens. but the state's commitment to protect lives, as well as its other commitments/functions, is circumscribed by certain communal value commitments, one of which is to uphold human dignity and protect the vulnerable. do these value commitments apply even when the party you wish to protect does not want to be protected? this leads us back to our conception of the state and more generally, to the legitimacy of the universal application of values. (consider: i think that seatbelts are cumbersome and irritating and i am willing to bear these additional risks, why do you continue to insist that i put on my seatbelts? suppose the boxing community is perfectly fine with boxers throwing punches at each other with minimal protection, why do we outsiders keep trying to improve the safety of the sport?) we could also ask if these communal value commitments are absolute, that is, whether they can be overcome by more powerful reasons such as the need to save lives.
this opens up more cans of worms and i dont have an answer on whats okay and whats not. its difficult enough to say what we mean by upholding human dignity (does forcing foreign workers to live in limchukang count as not respecting their rights to choose a place to live, hence a infringement of their dignity?), and even if we can agree on what's good and what's not, our attempts to balance the pros and cons will inevitably be precarious and uneasy. i would just like to make three points to end off.
1. i think communal value commitments are important and shud inform our practical decision-making even if they have little or no practical value in the short term, if only bcos we are, or shud be, moral ppl. every value commitment is inextricably related to one another in the sense that we cant expect to be negligent here and plead for moral understanding there. being committed to upholding values in every arena helps us to lead coherent lives.
2. i think the point that organ trading saves lives is strong, but hardly irrefutable. there are many things that we do that endangers lives (e.g. boxing) and there are many things that save lives that we dont do (e.g. stick to the speed limit all the time). if we really wanted to save more lives, we would have built a hospital instead of the esplanade and fund healthcare programmes instead of esplanade outreach programmes.
3. i think that while its understandable to be emotional abt life and death issues (and i dont think its bad to be emotional), 'emotional arguments' dont in themselves mean anything. if anything, our tendency to make 'emotional arguments' shud encourage us to think more critically abt these issues in non-emotional times and caution us from being too emotional. we need to reach a consensus on the value of saving lives and the value of our value commitments, among other things, and the only way to do that is to detach ourselves from the recent death of some relative/fren and to consider the emotional toll of death, alongside others, objectively.
...
yep. i am rather conflicted abt most things (bcos most things are too complicated?) so i tend not to say too much/reduce things too quickly in reallife. and so it becomes a disadvantage? :S |
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| sth for today |
[Aug. 25th, 2008|07:36 pm] |
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain. |
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[Aug. 22nd, 2008|01:15 am] |
i think it is important to move on from standard grouses about how army is a waste of time, if only because how much a waste of time army turns out to be really depends a lot on us. army life is but an environment in which we can grow, angst or die. it may not be, by all means, the most desired environment, but i think there is value in not giving us what we want all the time.
i think i understand why people say that having a shared army experience builds our social fabric. yes, most of us have shared several quintessentially army experiences, whether it is digging a shellscrape at 3am amid 1.5m high grass or running up and down elephant hill with an mg. we can relate to each other's joys and pains in this regard, but more importantly, i think the opportunity to interact closely with people from different backgrounds, cultures and aspirations is immensely useful for building a cohesive and harmonious society. it isnt so much abt learning explicitly how different people, who broadly represent different backgrounds, are like; but about interacting with various people while sharing a common goal (inadvertently killing the enemy, or in the longer term, waiting for ord). i think most people would come out from army more acutely aware of how people differ in very real ways, but also share more commonalities than they could previously imagine. many will also come out feeling humbled but empowered, and these experiences are things that most of us didnt know were possible while we were still feeling sad and resigned over having to join the army.
i dont wish to defend some form of paternalism here where we submit our desires to a higher authority all the time, since we are so poor at predicting what the future holds for us anyway. but suppose we could decide whether or not to join the army, whether or not to get a scholarship/a degree/a job/married/blah. if we could construct our lives to the finest detail or even have the choice to construct our lives to the finest detail, i think we would be worse off, not only because such a life is unreal and less fun, but also because each of us has too many deeply seated weaknesses and insecurities that we cannot liberate ourselves from simply by willing ourselves to, and which we would inevitably pander to if we could design our life. these shackles are overcome more incidentally and unconsciously as life presents us with a stream of constantly changing scenarios and opportunities. often, we change our views and insodoing, ourselves not because we force the change unto ourselves, but because we have been brought to see things from a different angle, and the army is, i think, a very good place for this development of perspectives. because in the army, we dont constantly strive towards some goal (like get a promotion/blah), other than to get one's job done/relax/blah, and there is a particular joy in not having to think about the future and just living and learning all the time. perhaps ambition has a place in our lives, but ive learnt that all these highminded aspirations are not everything there is out there. they can wait.
that said, it is perhaps odd that i feel almost exasperated that i am feeling rather powerless these days. it is not powerlessness of any large thing (state/culture/wtv), but powerlessness in the face of the unknown. i find it very difficult to ask for stuff or favours because it seems that however i position myself, i am being inappropriate in some sense. also, responses invariably confuse me and the scary thing is that the more i try not to offend, the more i end up offending.
which is perhaps why i am rather frustrated nowadays. because no matter how much i appreciate the world and the people aroujnd you, they remain inscrutable when i approach them. its almost as though you are thrown aside as soon as you are drawn closer, and then you slip into detachment quite rightly. because things are best when people are at their own, there is no place for me to be.
actually, these things dont affect me that greatly now. i tend to be easily comforted by the knowledge that i have tried to do my part with best intentions, but of cos i am also aware that they often arent enough. like how i increasingly lose games of chinese chess inexplicably, even though i started out winning (by a huge margin) and eager to finish the game off. yet too often things slide out of one's control unconsciously and efforts to rein in the situatio often only expedite the defeat. perhaps it may be because i dont really understand the principles of chinese chess, just like i dont understand the principles of life, if life has rules at all. which probably explains why some people say that i have become more mellow. army life has woken me up to the realisation that the self is a sad and lonely figure useless without his rank, teammates or friends, something to be kicked around like a ball. with them, the self is an insignificant speck in an ocean of happenings, always dispensable and often burdensome, else merely a puppet for greater things. i know its kinda ironic how all these often contrary thoughts emerge at once, but i kinda also understand how everything fits in nicely together, if not in life then at least in army life.
20 aug, 3am. |
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[Aug. 2nd, 2008|06:14 pm] |
why we want to study overseas
bcos thats the only way to success that we know.
why we want success (defined as such)
bcos thats the only way to life that we know.
...
a book recommendation here
donna foot's "Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America"
recommended for those who want to understand why many young people are so excited yet apprehensive about teaching, and what it entails in an innercity schl. imo readily accessible yet thoroughly revealing.
...
back to where we started, so many people speak about being a prozhe and living a greatlife, but what does it really mean. i take it generally to mean making big changes/discoveries/blah to/that affect big groups of people, and i kinda understand where thats coming from, but i think the constant emphasis of being the boss/organiser/advisor is unhealthy. ideas are only as useful as their implementation is able brings about positive results (read above book for some details). i dont think its wise or even necessary to demarcate how much of a success is owed to the conceptualiser and how much to the groundfolk, but i think we need more to foster a little more appreciation for those working on the ground. as they say, talk is cheap, and i would venture that organising/blah is nearly as cheap. its odd that people on top are paid/given more recognition owing to 'larger responsibility', even though this responsibility entails little more than getting people to do their work. i understand that in most organisations, you need an organisational structure but why is this purely functional structure, which exists primarily for communication, specialisation and accountability purposes, also so often a social hierarchy? |
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| army |
[Jul. 17th, 2008|10:14 pm] |
it feels surreal to be part of so many different worlds. its like having breakfast at a coffeeshop, lunch at mcdonalds, tea at cedele, dinner at lesamis, supper at fullerton and drinks at marriott.
it feels good too, to know and feel the world as one complex network of networks and to realise your place at the intersection of numerous interweaving threads. i enjoy listening to how things are happening around me at various levels in various directions but i often get lost in the process. to which narrative do i really belong? where now from here? because each level perceives a particular move differently and making a move in a narrative inevitably hinders your ability to move in certain narratives.
actually, i have always been thinking about the future very one-dimensionally. like i want to do x so that i can have y and z. but of cos i dont only exist on the xyz plane and i dont only want to have y and z; i also want alpha and beta, among other things i cant even name at the moment.
i dont know if i can ever reconcile all these disparate bits and make some sense out of life. maybe i will forever be left staring at the mess, maybe i will start to abandon some and focus my attention on the more pretty ones. for now, i often see chaos as a good thing. like before, it makes me feel human and real.
...
i am having an 'amazing race' these 2 days in lieu of normal training and its been quite a different experience from the ones ive been thru (and organised) in school. the main difference is of cos that the people are vastly different. we no longer have people who strive to win and would run earnestly from point to point in search for answers/clues/stuff. prizes dont seem to have any pulling power anymore, everyone just wants to slack and go home early. it doesnt help that its an amazing race with a 'national education' theme (the only way to justify an amazing race?) and most ppl just cant be bothered with it. actually, i dont think its reasonable to expect anyone to learn abt stuff on their own when u leave them at changi museum for 2 hours with a list of questions but what else can you do/is there to be done. its not surprising that most people just sat for hours at each checkpoint (minimum time imposed else ppl will finish and go back too soon).
maybe i am growing out of teenagehood but like chalets, i am starting to think that amazing races are now long-overused concepts. theres no excitement in going ard and exploring singapore, not to mention a shortage of activities to do. while getting people to answer questions may work for kids/sec schl ppl and getting ppl to do lame things (eat wasabi? pose with tourist with hat?) may work for sec schl/jc ppl, they dont work with army ppl/adults (and thats why they're not on the actual show). even if u hold it overseas, its difficult to get ppl excited abt the game. we need better things to perk us up and 'bond'. i would suggest getting the platoon to play sports with each other actually. its the most straightforward way of letting people interact with each other. lets just forget abt battalion (and higher) level activities. |
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[Jul. 8th, 2008|12:02 am] |
you know the recent announcement by tata that they are now rolling out $2500 cars? it has sparked worry in several environmental circles because the profusion of cars will further pollute the environment/cause congestion/blah.
i dont mean to suggest that these worries are unjustified but i think that these worries should be distinct from criticisms towards tata's production of these $2500 cars. simply put, it is not fair to say that producing $2500 cars is bad because they will cause these environmental problems.
in themselves, there is nothing wrong with these cars. like tata's spokesman commented, we should even cheer them because they are extremely fuel efficient (~20km per litre) in contrast with german/american petrol guzzlers. if we were so concerned about our environment, we should ban production of rolls royces and lincolns because these huge cars serve no critical need (other than ostentatiousness) and can easily be replaced by more fuel efficient counterparts.
the problem is that we want to enjoy unsustainable luxuries and still live comfortably. we want to live in a large country home surrounded with lush greenery that cannot be cleared to make way for new residences. we want to be able to travel monthly even if we know that our carbon footprint is probably larger than dozens of people combined. we want to visit the most beautiful places and not find ourselves huddling with other tourists. we are hypocritical, and we need to recognise and correct that.
what emerges from the production of these $2500 cars is that scores of lower-income people around the world will now be able to afford and purchase these cars. car ownership will rise, perhaps more dramatically in certain parts of the world, and if we celebrate our cars for the convenience that they bring us, we should also celebrate the convenience that these $2500 cars will now bring to others.
that said, we should be wary of the environmental side-effects. we should ask ourselves important questions about the news levels of pollution/congestion, about the overall sustainability of cars in general. is the world going to collapse now that almost every family owns at least 1 car? are we now going to face snaking jams at every corner? answers to these questions should prompt us to rethink the way we see cars in general. perhaps we may now conclude that it is frivolous for a two-person family to own two cars and give up one. perhaps we may conclude that we should take public transport at least once a week. but the point is that any such thinking should be consider the population of cars as a whole and not as my car vs your car or as existing cars vs new tata cars. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 7th, 2008|11:38 pm] |
i was reading about korean cram schools the other day. in these places, students reportedly study 18 hours a day and 7 days a week. and i asked myself if i despised these people.
i mean, i have always thought of mugging as something undesirable. you spend so much time for something i consider so worthless, and at the end you may have won the game but you have lost your life. underpinning that is a sense of selfishness that your (worthless) studying is putting me in greater and greater disadvantage and pressure and blah.
we shall leave further questions about 'apt' responses towards muggers aside for now...and of cos i dont despise these koreans in cram schls. i tend to empathise with them, because i know what studying frenetically entails and i can understand (somewhat) the pressure that they are under. which raises the question of why i have a different response to two groups of people doing the same thing.
part of it is certainly that they are not competing directly with me. if there were similar cram schools in singapore where students 'cram' to get into nus, i maybe similarly displeased.
but more important than that is, i think, the sense that people around me are REAL with thoughts, feelings and ambitions. it is so easy to treat groups of people as objects under certain social conditions, whether they are koreans in cram schools, monks in tibet or refugees in darfur. and then we talk endlessly about how these conditions cause or predispose them to act in certain ways and to do certain things because there is some appeal in that 'analysis'. there is some appeal when we look/laugh/stare/empathise at people from our armchairs because it gives us a sense of control.
its different with our friends because we know them not as digits but as real entities which we interact with everyday. we still think of them as somewhat made and determined by their social circumstances, but they can act on or even emancipate themselves from these circumstances in a way that 'digits' in korea, tibet and darfur cannot. as such we cannot as easily dismiss their actions as results of social pressure/wtv. we expect them to rise from the 'digits'. |
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| misc |
[Jun. 29th, 2008|08:57 pm] |
i couldnt sleep the other nite cos i lost to one of my sergeants in chinese chess. which was not unexpected although i was leading at one point because he's known for his chinese chess skills while i am not. in fact, i think i play the game poorly.
but losing is losing. its not about whether you are better or worse but about the game itself. after you lose the game, all you think about is the loss of the game. the comparison of abilities, while implicit and inevitably raised, is not at the forefront because we didnt start out comparing abilities per se. we started out seeing who could win the game. and once you tell yourself that you can win, it hurts to lose whether or not you are up to it.
this mood affected me pervasively. it got me agitated and pissed and i started to feel all the related physiological effects. i couldnt simply tell myself that it was only a game and i expected it and i should get to sleep because i need to get up at 4+ the next day because things arent so simple. maybe it was coupled with the fact that i didnt really respect the particular sergeant but at the end i cared more than i want to care and tt sucks.
everyone talks abt how you shudnt see things as x (subject) against y (object) but instead a celebration of sth (chinese chess) and/or a singular quest to improve oneself but i dont know if it is so simple. the truth is, i am so comfortable with/used to/familiar with certain ways of thinking/judging/seeing that i am afraid i will forever be stuck behind my own window, even if we necessarily have to see things through some window. you dont feel differently when you want to feel differently, just like you dont sleep when you want to sleep. |
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| misc |
[Jun. 15th, 2008|03:23 pm] |
looking for book recs.
likes:
ryszard kapuscinski - the shadow of the sun, the emperor
vs naipaul - a bend in the river
ian mcewan - on chesil beach
tony and maureen wheeler - the lonely planet story
nisbett - the geography of thought
okay...:
nadine gordimer - living in hope and history
paul kennedy - the parliament of man
milan kundera - ignorance
dislikes:
alexandr solzhenitsyn - one day in life of...
ayn rand - atlas shrugged (cant be bnothered to finish, too long lah)
texts on buddhist teachings/philosophy (as much as i am interested)
umberto eco stuff
missing:
a lot of very short introductions + i cant remember all the books ive read the past few months.
ive been reading mostly essays actually (from prospect and nyt) mostly due to a lack of patience. but yeah, am looking for recs, esp. modern world history (vietnam/coldwar/pinochet/wtv), history of ideas (feminism/existentialism/consumerism/wtv) and biographies. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 21st, 2008|09:52 pm] |
does it not strike you that in the st report on food wastage, saf was not featured? because the amount of food wasted in the saf is really...:S. something like 30% skip meals, a large fraction of the remainder take less/do not finish; more often than not >1/2 of night snacks is not finished and a large minority do not eat combat rations at all (apart from mebbe the dessert, unit ppl buy canned food/otherstuff for outfield).
and i can already predict the reply. nono...the saf doesnt overprepare food!? our caterers follow strict nutritional guidelines and cater to the number indicated in the ration file!
i somehow question the 'strict nutritional guidelines', if only because ive seen too many cases of toomuchfood (think tekong western food). on a related note, its difficult to determine the exact amount of food that someone needs. 3 night snacks for 2 hours of guardduty? surely that is ridiculous for some people at least. that aside, the more urgent problem is that since we are allowed to bring any quantity of food in, we are capable of skipping meals as and when we feel like it. instant noodle bowls litter the floors and few, if any, eat combat rations outfield.
in a way, these problems are similar to those that typical households face. few knowingly buy/cook too much food but food is still often wasted because sometimes ppl decide not to come home for dinner/eat less. given the perishability of hot meals (not storable like biscuits), the only solution would be to honour commitments to eat at home, but that would be a lifestyle tradeoff because you are unable to go out for meals/eat when u see sth interesting whcih few would be happy with. so wastage is the consequence of an increase in the number of choices, or at least until we are able to prepare all food instantly at the touch of a button.
...
i think my csm is incredibly respectable, if only bcos he's proud (but not overbearing) yet humble (but not feeble), serious abt training (but not garang) and serious abt welfare too (but no pushover). it's almost like the ideal middle-class singaporean worker. one who does not have a high social status (in this instnace rank) but is still proud of his profession and is serious about it. kinda reminds me of the toiletcleaner buzz and its difficult to determine whther we shud laugh at them for being manipulated/deceived or laud them for their attitude (or are the two inextricably intertwined?). but i think my csm gets my respect.
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anyone running army half marathon this year? i'll most likely be running btw. |
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| misc |
[May. 3rd, 2008|10:59 am] |
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am down with shingles. argh. |
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| misc |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|11:35 pm] |
i realise i tend to be kinder to those i hardly/dont know but harsher on those i know/grow to know/have once known. its one of the reasons why i find it so difficult to appreciate relationships. i constantly see myself drifting like a lonely cloud in the vast expanse of human networks, always somewhere but nowhere. this tendency to assess/criticise is surely symptomatic of some more fundamental problem, but it has made it trying, perhaps even unnatural, to love and appreciate things.
(yeah, i consciously try to be nicer all the time, and i dont think its superficial to try to be nice, although it startles me how much i need to curb myself. there are other issues of cos, but this is the only part i am concerned with today.)
...
i cleared year 1 ippt and icct grading today.
getting a gold = money+badge+2daysoff.
icct grading is wtf. its supposed to teach you how to deal with streetfights/lock ppl/break ppl's limbs and there's also a sparring component. which involves fighting with pugil sticks (you are told to go for headshots and all that, but got full protective gear on duh).
...
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 20th, 2008|09:24 pm] |
i escaped ~6 extras this week. ~3 for not signing out before nights out and ~3 for not returning walkietalkie after guard duty. i escaped the first because no one found out and i was spared the second because the guardscomm was unexpectedly nice. which kinda confirms that ive never really settled into ns and my posting as a man is really the best option for saf and me.
that aside, i am increasingly thankful for being where i am now. being with an eclectic mix of dropouts, o levellers and jc students has been less challenging than expected, although i havent and probably wont grow to become a part of the platoon. what surprises me is that i would rather be part of this mix than be back with my other platoonmates at bmt.
because while >70% of my bunk smokes and >50% have tattoos somewhere, there's very little infighting/bickering and everyone kinda knows their roles and duties. somehow you sense that people really enjoy joking with each other and that may be a product of being with each other for over a year now, but it remains a good sign. they say its bcos we arent competing to see who goes into ocs and what not, but i think its bcos of this yi4qi4 thing that defines the typical monointaker. yes, their spirit of 'brotherhood' applies to their gangs and secret societies and stuff like that, but it also arises in everyday duties in camp. up till now, there has never been a need to ask ppl to do saikang duties and from what i heard, the only one who used to evade duties routinely was whacked and chased out of the bunk by the platoon. he is a jc student btw.
i have spent quite some time talking to these ppl abt life and what not, and it is a panoply of stuff that i hardly experienced. in the past weeks, i've read >20 copies of fhm/maxim (and some of the stories in there are seriously interesting), watched a home-made sex video (which wasnt a wtf affair at all. that guy just showed the video from his mobilephone to everyone, many of whom were less than amused/surprised/interested.)...because this is the type of people im dealing with, the type who frequents nightclubs/brothels weekly and smokes likes nobody's business.
and i learn to empathise with all these nonsense, which is really nothing more than an outlet to express resentment and stress. resentment at how they are at the bottom of the pecking order and stress over financial/health problems of family members/relatives. one guy in my platoon receives financial aid and he desperately needs it to compensate for his inability to work while in ns. owing to his circumstances, he doesnt smoke and all that (and is super decent/helpful, like your typical straitstimes-sad-story-boy) but he's the exception of cos. most the rest indulge in drinks/cigarettes/sex to drown out their sorrows and misery. they know they are destined for nth great in the corporate/social world that we know so they create their own existence and reality in the underground world, in the backyards of geylang or in their violent hangovers.
there is this guy who had a gf for 7 years but was forced to break up with her bcos he was an oleveller and she was destined for uni. there's no fairytale here as he recounts how breaking up was hard and all that and how he laughs at her subsequent (failed) attempts to get re-attached. and then the usual rant about how our society, more than many others, is a 文凭社会 where love is not enuff (there are prerequisites) and where ppl judge you by the nature of your cert. because your cert places you in a 'caste' and while you can rise within it, its difficult to break through the glass ceiling. no matter how much more well-loved the ps is, no matter how many years he has behind him, the ps reports strength to the pc. no matter how willing some of these men are to defend singapore ('would you allow your enemies to rape your relatives?'), they will have to follow the directions of an oc, many of them openly admit that they would flee in time of war. i shud be more clear here, because its not just the army that plays rank but every single element in society, only more insidiously and hideously.
and then they tell me about how in their secondary school last time, their dm had a revolutionary idea to replace the traditional disciplined and well-mannered student council/prefectorial board with a boisterous one run by zealous but gangsterish students who typically dont pay attention in class. this scheme was in place for 3 months and the new councillors would go around disciplining ppl in their own way (shouting at ppl to obey instructions as compared to reporting matters to teachers-in-charge) and tirelessly organise games/activities that the school has never seen in its history. but all this was overturned after the trial period bcos the principal decided that it was a dent to the school's image and the student council should always exude the image of studiousness and character, whatever that meant. needless to say, the dm was replaced shortly.
they have to and are going to move up the educational ladder after ns of cos. after all, its they who have to adapt to society, society wont adapt to them. some intend to pursue hotel management at shatec while others are intent on doing courses at ites and the like. and as they get married and settle down with a small hdb flat, they will then form the silent underclass of the future, the future where you and i will (hopefully?!) soar on the backs of our 'scholar' credentials and continue to remind them of globalisation and how they need to accept their lower pay as reality.
the resentment is obvious in some but it does not appear in many. many of them, after all, are of the sort who 'gets things done' and spends the rest of their time living their own life. but all of them dont (openly, at least) stay away/despise/wtv from us (the jc batch), and that came as a surprise to me. the first time we had to clean toilets, they showed us how they do it and did it themselves. we still do some saikang of cos, but they were generally reasonable in assigning us duties and will share their movies/chips/cigarettes. they seem to acknowledge that yes, we are different, and we will leave our differences as such.
...
yeahhhhh...i'm feeling dreamy and restless as i wander in and out of ppl's lives . i dont know/care/wtv what i am doing/going/wtv but i often think that it doesnt really matter what happens in future. events are going to fly pass me before i know/care abt it and whatever will be will be. not to say that i dont mind being in ns but...you should know what i mean here.
(and since when did i become like that)
im starting to read math again btw, partly bcos i still like it and partly bcos i think uni talk and all that is too...if you know what i mean again.
(a nxn latin square/rectangle is a nxn square/rectangle where every column/row has the numbers 1 - n with no repeat, only that a rectangle obviously cant have ALL the digits 1 - n on its shorter side. show that every latin rectangle can be 'converted' to a latin square.) |
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| quick update |
[Apr. 5th, 2008|12:15 pm] |
in the past week i have
learnt how to solve (myself)
- kakuro, which is imo easier and more fun than sudoku.
- nonogram, which is really difficult. i can only do the simple puzzles, but even they take up lots of time.
- hashi, which is...okay.
its actually...not that challenging to figure out strategies for doing these puzzles. the list of strategies i worked out included all the tips offered by http://www.indigopuzzles.com and wikipedia. after you try out a few examples, you sorta get the main idea on what to look out for and how to proceed (and after that...it slowly becomes repetitive, but not yet.) actually most of these japanese puzzles arent 'trick-heavy'; the main skill is in being able to locate the right squares at the right time fast. for the more difficult puzzles (esp those nonogram ones), techniques can only get you somewhere (hardly significant, like 1/15 of the board!), and after that you have to 'trial and error', which only requires more trial and error and thats irritating of cos. i think i still lack lotsof skill (more of experience though) in doing nonograms properly, largely bcos the board is 300 squares large and its very tiring to scrutinise each square. i suspect there are lots of chim techniques that i missed out actually (and cant find on the web). there has to be the equivalent of sudoku's swordfish in these puzzles.
oh. and i discovered one new technique to solve sudoku puzzles, which relies on the fact that each puzzle admits one solution only. a consequence of that is that u cant have squares a1, a2, e1 and e2 all having the options, say, 4 and 5 only, cos you can then flip all the 4's and 5's and get an alternative solution. one immediate consequence is that if a1, a2 and e1 admit numbers 4 and 5 only, then e2 cannot admit 4 AND 5. i made use of another interesting consequence, but its too complicated to explain it here.
another thing i realised is that...often the mind works too fast for you to understand (clearly) why things are the way they are. sometimes, i find myself filling in squares before i am able to articulate why that square must be filled as such. my mind sorts of works in a haphazard flurry and determines the 'answer' and i know the answer is correct but i dont really understand the 'intermediate steps'. in a way its like intuition, and in another way its too much experience.
i have also read
- sophie's world, (i read this a while back actually) which is...wtf. i hate lame plots. but other than that, the way it gives a historical introduction to every idea is interesting.
- career guidance stuff, which is surprising since i usually resist selfhelp stuff. and its...slightly helpful i guess, even though most of the stuff are fairly common sense and i think most ppl's problems with career guidance isnt with knowhows but character/will/wtv.
- part 1 of atlas shrugged, which is long and tedious at times but still worthwhile i guess. some of the ideas...i already hold, like how (in certain circumstances) you hate ppl for loving you/giving you favours bcos the situation doesnt call for it; but its always nice to know that ppl understand you. some of the other ideas are just...???, or even if u (think you) understand them, you dont understand how anyone can/will hold on to them.
- tested (linda perlstein), which is (imo) a great book on the failure of nochildleftbehind. as they say, required reading for those who care abt testing in education.
and watched
- the bucket list, which is...bad by most standards bcos its too predictable and lacking in depth. but i still cried (though it wasnt heartfelt) so...???
- enchanted, which is...wtf. damn lame. but still watchable.
- 200 pound beauty, which is boring. i didnt finish it.
....
yeah in case u were wondering, training hasnt started for me yet. coy doing overseas ex in india and we basically have 14 hours of admin time everyday. |
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[Mar. 21st, 2008|05:38 pm] |
if you dont already know, i'm now an armour infantry soldier. wtf.
...
i keep getting stretches when i dont feel like talking to other people at all. not that i am not bored and occupied with other stuff - i am almost always bored and damn free - but i think i've grown weary and tired of life. i mean, after a while, you can sorta anticipate what the other party is going to tell you (and what you are going to say). because life (inevitably?) revolves ard ns (for guys), uni and work in the same predictable way with the same few predictable details. and as much as i am interested in knowing how people are, i can find that out from a factsheet.
i dont think its anyone's fault lah. sometimes, i just feel like that things are damn lame and if there's nothing better to do/say/wtv, so be it and let us stone together. i mean, obviously everyone hates sian-ness but the solution to sian-ness isnt to whip up some big party because i would rather do nothing than something that i dont want to do. i wish we could resume convos and stuff just liddat but you cant will these things so learn to let them by lah.
sigh, wtf is going on. |
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[Mar. 13th, 2008|01:31 am] |
im kinda inspired to say sth, so here goes. perhaps its even important to talk about such things as one grows up - its painful to lead a life hidden from and unaccessed by others.
so yeah, at the start of s4, i was kinda tired of not doing anything outside school. life was becoming a routine and i found it quite worrying that my life was contracting and revolving around chs. i decided to start taking some initiative and do some things outside, so i went hunting for some volunteering project and i found this project that looked quite interesting. basically this group (lets call it abcde) was planning to organise a charity concert to raise funds for the tsunami, among other purposes and i called them up to ask if i could be part of the team. they said yes of course and i jumped on board.
being a newcomer to the team, i didnt know what to do and how to contribute. the main team was already in place and preparations were already underway on all grounds, whether it is marketing or events. they probably needed more help, but it was difficult to figure what exactly needs to be done or could be done to make things turn out better. i spent the first few days looking around and asking what i could do to help. the strange thing was that they also kept asking me what i could do to help, which made sense because they needed to assess my suitability but was also completely pointless because i did not know anything at all. i think i replied that i didnt mind any planning job and in retrospect i dunno what that was supposed to mean for them. they probably were confused but too polite to force things and it was the start of an uneasy relationship, when i would attend all their meetings but not do a thing for a few months.
which in all honesty wasnt really painful. i sat through their board meetings and discussions and i dont think i learnt anything, but maybe i am new to all these stuff so i was okay with sitting and watching. i was more ashamed of dragging ppl onboard. cos for some reason they wanted me to bring a few other friends to do stuff (on hindsight, what stuff?!?) and i would ask them to come along for meetings and so they would come to some coffeejoint in orchard for 30 minutes before going back. i think it must have been extremely annoying for my frens, but i was already in there and you know how its very tedious and awkward to tell them that we feel totally useless and want to get out. they faced the same tediousness and awkwardness to tell us that we are really extras. besides, we were just kids then and i think they tried to be as nice to us as possible. i remember them treating me to drinks and stuff over meetings at centrepoint coffeebean even though i hardly uttered a word. in the end, all i did was to distribute flyers and posters, which, needless to say, was hardly useful in attracting audience bcos i had neither the contacts nor the passion. i was supposed to sell tickets to and no surprises here, i failed to sell em. in the end i was quite ashamed so i bought a few myself (and even then they were kinda displeased i 'sold' so little but there was no fuss of course).
yeah, its strange when i recount things like that. but it was like a small turning point in the way i viewed things. that its okay to be motivated to do things but one shud never do things for the sake of wanting to do things. i guess i was overzealous and ignorant in expecting to be given duties to do. firstly because i was never needed in the first place, they accomodated me and the burden was on me to carve out my own space and value in the team. secondly because i learnt that if you act like some dog who sits by the owner and returns the frisbee everytime it is thrown, you will be treated like some dog, albeit a loyal one (and by a nice owner). the sense of doing something important cannot be gotten like that and frankly, the world would be better of without your extra-ness.
which reminds me of some nat geog article abt post tsunami relief. some un officer was complaining how they were literally inundated with supplies and there were just not enuff logistical support on the ground. shipments of clothing/supplies were coming in too quickly so they actually raze/dump all the uncleared old stock, of which there were plentiful, when a new shipment arrives. ppl from various agencies were asking the coordinating staff what could be done so rapidly that for every call answered, tens were missed. and once u get your instruction and think about how you are serving such a great human cause, people behind you are secretly wishing you were never here. |
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