How to make a class keep quiet

One guaranteed way to kill a debate is by participating in it. At least, that's what's happened to the "education" thread in my kids' blogs. Try to be too clever, and they don't know how to respond after that. So I'm holding my peace in the thread on Law and Society, quietly observing as more and more of them start contributing to the discussion. It's fun to watch them pitch their theories at each other as they work out among themselves whether the Law makes Society, or if it's Society that makes the Law. When they get sufficiently confused and ask for my input, then I'll throw in my two cents. I have no wish to end yet another promising webchat prematurely.

Take a break

With so much work backlog, I only have time to post a quick link, which under the circumstances I think is quite appropriate: kids -- even big 'uns like me -- need RECESS! Fortunately, I have colleagues who believe in it as much as I do too.

We want to know the Truth

I happen to be pontificating again, so I'll just do a little copy-and-paste here as I respond to a couple of questions from the blogs of a couple of my current kids. Context: they're asking about the need for them to study hard in school because the end result as they see it is just a paper qualification that they are unlikely to make use of when they start a totally unrelated career [like maybe once the recession is over].

My response is a bit airy-fairy, a bit philosophical, but I only hope to provoke more questions to prolong an already interesting online debate. Here goes:

"We study because we want to know the Truth, and if we can't get the Truth immediately, we need to learn the tools we can use to discover the Truth for ourselves.

Why is the Truth so important? Knowing the Truth means you cannot be lied to, cannot be cheated or manipulated to do other people's bidding. Knowing the Truth sets you free, indeed.

Do we need a rigorous education system? Absolutely. The Truth is a slippery devil, and knowing the Truth will not always make us happy. So you have to be prepared to uncover the Truth and to deal with it when you find it.

Schools present truths (broken up into the different subjects) in their purest form. The longer you stay in school (right up to post-degree level), the more practice you get in discerning Truth from mere truths. Hence, it's a lot easier to become an empowered person through the school system than in any other environment because the school focuses its energy on EXAMining the Truth more so than anywhere else.

Sadly, most people go to the university just to get a degree they won't know what to do with when they graduate, when there is so much more education has to offer.

I'm actually a believer in education for education's sake. Our big mistake is to be rushing through the "system" and by doing so we take a lot of short cuts in the learning process.

If we examine the word "study" we see a process taking place in our minds: we observe (something... let's say a subject topic) -> we analyse it (break it apart to see what it's made of and how it works) -> we experiment (put it back together in new ways to see how it might behave differently in new and different forms) -> we apply (see connections between what we have just learned and what we already know in order to understand future implications) -> and when we are able to connect both prior knowledge and our new knowledge, that's when memory kicks in.

But because we are all in a rush to become paper qualified, we skip all the middle bits and what we end up with is students struggling to memorise a load of material that is new and unfamiliar because there's a test coming up tomorrow. That is no longer by definition "studying", that's just donkey work.

I know you don't have time, but I really hope you pick up one thing (just one) from our GP sessions: to stop doing donkey work and learn to study for real."

Oh dear, I just hope I haven't killed the ongoing debate. This looks like quite a chunk of text for the kids to wade through.

Brave soldier

Oh, the drama of it all! While taking down his club's recruitment poster, Josh falls off his stepladder and bangs up his elbow good. Refusing to trouble anybody, he takes a cab to the hospital on his own. Diagnosis: dislocated right elbow, slight fracture in his arm. Doc gives him 10 days' medical leave, and the next thing he does is show up back at work, arm in cast and sling, claiming to all and sundry that he'd rather return to campus to face the daily chaos than stay home and face the wall for the next 10 days.

He has a point there. A lot of our experience at work can be quite highly therapeutic. We're busy and occupied the whole day, our friends and other silly people are within a quick SMS away for a little break and general entertainment to break up the monotony of the day, and really the atmosphere is a lot more livening than an isolation ward at home. So I fully understand his reluctance to stay off campus, even though I and many other colleagues berated him fully for not taking care of himself by going home to recuperate from his rather serious injury.

The end of the matter came when he was banned from darkening our doors again by the P himself, so there's nothing more to be said about that.

Poor Josh. Take care of that elbow, keep it immobilized, rest well and recover soon!

Alvin gets hitched

And now a big Congrats! to Alvin on his long anticipated wedding. Here he is, just about to pop his champaign bottle, and his expression says it all. There's happiness mixed in with excitement and a little tense anxiety in not knowing when exactly the inevitable explosion of pressured fizz will occur, other than any second now.

I dunno, I'm just trying to find some significance to the champaign pouring ritual that Wayne's co-MC explained at length in Mandarin, but Wayne himself was unable to provide the requisite translation for us non-Chinese-speaking folks.

Anyway, I gotta thank Alvin for the invite. His dinner at the Grand Copthorne Harbourfront was an enjoyable Chinese 8-course. Notable dishes include the shark's fin soup (please no environmentalist commentary here -- I don't know if it was faux fin, so I'm assuming it was) with larger than usual chunks of crab meat in it; a lovely pomfret in some kind of veggie soup; a voluptous chicken, "pipa" style; an odd package of glutinous rice that tasted better than it looked; and a standard mango pud that was delicious simply because it was familiar.

Sorry to say our table was a clear split between dNYel folks and a bunch of guys I surmise were Alvin's chums from who knows where. We shared the table like we were at a crowded food court, except that we picked from the same dishes. Didn't need to get to know them any better as I was already in the presence of good company. 

Pix of said good company: click here.

El Cheapos go to the spa

June and I are taking up el cheapo spa treatments as they are offered to us through credit card promotions. Spas entice first-time tryouts with low trial prices, then hit us with a package deal after the initial treatment is over. But we've been good so far, holding our ground and refusing to sign anything, no matter how competitive the pricing sounds like.

Perhaps for me, the novelty has worn off some. I could not get my mind to relax at today's treatment. Usually, a good rub-down sends me off to zzz-land but all I could think about was work. I don't mean I am being unusually stressed out by my job and I have things in particular to fret over; I mean I was thinking about how to respond to some very good questions a couple of my kids have posed me about the nature of the Law in society. It was a juicy bone my inner bulldog would not let go of.

So the masseuse was having a hard time getting me kneaded down into the compliant jelly that I like to become by the end of a good session. Nevertheless, I think she did a great job on my shoulders, neck and back; and she did find a nasty sore spot in my left calf -- probably the result of standing for too many hours favouring one leg over the other. Hazard of my profession, I suppose.

Final score: top marks to the massuese for treating individual body parts, but sadly, not so high on my overall sense of well-being. It may not have been her fault, but my mind was just too busy to enjoy all the good things she was doing to me.

We continue not signing spa packages...

Back in familiar territory

M2's home from the shop at last! I never got used to driving the Altis, but now I'm back in familiar old territory again. M2's acceleration is a bit more gradual and he doesn't brake as abruptly. The one thing I'll miss about the Altis, though, is the air-conditioning -- chills the interior in seconds whereas M2's is little more than just ventilation on hot days.

Jack, my contact at the 'shop had some words of wisdom for me: "Sometimes you hit people, sometimes people hit you. Driving's like that." Gee, thanks.

Vanity, all is vanity

Well, this was inevitable. A shot of the "new" Altis taken by the new Samsung camera/cell-phone. Yes, pix is a bit blurry. Still working out some of the kinks.

Replacement Altis

M2's gone to the shop. Meantime, I've picked up a rental Altis provided by the shop. It feels odd to drive a strange car that's a little longer and lower that the one I'm used to. It has a rather mechanical feel to it, like it's operating on pure muscle power -- say, that of 50,000 rabid hamsters running under the hood. The brakes are so responsive, I'm pretty sure it's been especially tuned to accommodate twitchy drivers, whose nerves are slowly recovering from a recent vehicle collision.

That's good, 'cos by the time I get M2 back on Friday, the tic behind my left eye should have completely gone.

Conspicuous consumption

Old cell phone on the fritz -- after just over a year. Not receiving sound, though I believe whomever I'm talking to can hear my frustrated "hello, hello..."

Went with emotion instead of good sense and sprung for a Samsung SGH-F480. Doh, and I wonder why I'm always broke.

Happy bumpday!

Siiiigggghhh...! My poor, longsuffering M2 picked up a new ding in yet another traffic light incident. I swear, traffic lights cause as many road mishaps as they are supposed to prevent.

I am already stationary, waiting for the lights to turn green. They turn green and I wait for the car in front of me to move, but the guy behind me doesn't. His blue Jazz shoves its nose right up M2's butt causing a dent and a scratch on my rear door. He loses his licence plate, mine is still intact, though slightly bent.

At this point, I'm pretty philosophical. No one's hurt and our damage looks merely cosmetic. So we calmly trade personal particulars and will let IDAC and our respective insurances settle for us in the morning.

Meantime, I've got my folks and Aunt Shirls in the back seat. We're celebrating Mom's 70th with a grand seafood buffet at Aquamarine, Marina Mandarin. The bump at the lights did not spoil anybody's mood or appetite. With the USA half-shell oysters on offer, so fresh and so delicious ("tasting of the sea", June says), they proved more than a balm to soothe ruffled feathers, if there were any. And that was just the starter.

Aquamarine was also a good choice 'cos they gave us privileged seating, and a complementary chocolate truffle birthday cake (as in the pix above) and parking because of the special occasion. And 10% off for UOB cardholders.

Happy 70th, Mom!

dNYel's Big Day

dNYel's big day has finally come to an end. All the running around the past few weeks and the last spurt of frenzied activity over the past few days have come to quite a satisfactory conclusion, and I can finally look at this weekend with only "dinner" pencilled onto the calendar.

We themed Get Ed! day to focus on the mass media industry. We roped in speakers and guests from the press (broadcast and print), media academics (local and foreign), a local activist blogger, a psych, the Authorities, and a couple of other media interest groups to discuss industry issues in "breakout sessions" with the whole college. A local talk radio station set up a forum in LT3 to chat about "advertising", broadcast 'live' on air; while on our part I was thoroughly impressed with Madam A who ran with my idea for her to host a talk show (I once had a convincing vision of her as a talk show host and I spoke aloud about it) and she went whole hog, interviewing the queen of TV talk shows, Diana S, herself, on the "Terror Blanks Show" which she hosted in LT2.

Me, I got my own shot as Jeopardy! host, sans Sean Connery and his shenanigans, fortunately.

Why am I writing so much detail? 'cos I've been tasked to do a write-up of the event's more innovative aspects for Kevin's committee, and I need to remind myself who to interview for their side of the story.

In what was to become a very long day, we had reps from the three Universities' admissions boards to discuss entry requirements with the kids and their parents in the evening. We are very gratified that the Unis themselves have spoken on the issue that good grades are definitely not enough to guarantee entry. Rather, applicants need qualifying grades but must "stand out from the crowd" through their personalities, their activities outside of the curriculum, and their general and current affairs knowledge in one or more interviews with the Unis they are applying to.

This is good to hear because this is exactly what our GP programme aims to train the kids in. We feel much more validated now. 

Setting up for Jeopardy!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is... Jeopardy! And tomorrow is your's truly's big debut as a game show host for the JC1s. I consider yesterday's run with the JC2s as just a rehearsal.

This afternoon, we set up LT1 with CL's electric buzzer and scoreboard system, so the place really looks like a skeletal version of a TV studio set. Well, perhaps like one in some developing nation with an ambition to explore high technology in its near future, anyway.

Coincidentally, I found the above video clip about how TV's Jeopardy! has changed over the years. LT1 today is a hybrid of ancient marker-pen and current networked technologies. It's a little Frankenstein monster I can proudly call my own -- at least until the real Jeopardy! lawyers come a-callin'. Bwa ha ha!

Sums up the week

I began an email I sent today as follows:

"One thing I love about my job is the constant practice in juggling conflicting requirements and coming up with desperate, if not creative solutions to keep the show running. And I always thought I was never any good at improv."

That kinda' sums up the week I'm having. And it's only Tuesday.

The robots are coming!

This is typical cat behaviour. 1st, check to see if the newcomer is at all a) edible, or b) bully-able.

Maui gets a new playmate, and the playmate collects a new toy.

After some getting used to each other, Maui and the Roomba are new best friends.

May picked up a Roomba for us on her travels. With all the fur, fluff and whatnot sloughing off our pets, and forming a daily layer of sediment on the floorboards, we simply cannot spare the time to keep our place neatly vacuumed all the time.

Solution: let a robot from iRobot do it for us while we're out at work so that the house is pristine by the time we come home. Enter the Roomba 560, electronic self-directed dustbuster extraordinaire! Battery-operated, it circles our floor and sucks up all the pets' sheddings. When it gets low on power it automatically docks itself with its charging bay for a nom, and then it's ready to go again, if that's what we want.

May gave it an initial charging while in the US, and on that single charge it performed quite a satisfactory job in our living and dining rooms. But to charge it again, Tong will be helping us to find an adaptor that can tansform our current (240V) to a voltage its American tastes are more accustomed to (110V). Until then, its initial charge expended, it's temporarily dormant while it awaits its next meal.

The Roomba isn't capable of miracles, though. It's a lot faster to do our vacuuming manually, and it misses the occasional spot, but that could be perhaps due to Maui messing with its operations as he tries to play with his new friend. But since we expect it to be working while we're out, it should be able to get most of the floor clean by the time we get back. For us, that's good enough.

Cool! My 1st Robot.

Teachers behaving badly

What would the kids say if they ever saw their so-respectable teachers behaving like kindergarten children while playing 4-player "Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party" on a Wii? On that rather disturbing thought, thanks, Amy, for arranging tonight's fabulously hilarious CNY steam-boat dinner!

To say we had fun would be an understatement. :D

Hi, NBS and HP! Glad y'all could make the party too!

Life at the Improv

Improv games can be quite intimidating to have to engage in. Tina is making the kids do a lot of improv as a means to workshop and devise scenes from completely unrehearsed scenarios.

It's both amusing and annoying when the kids try to "take control" of the "situations" they find themselves in. They will gather for a chat about who is supposed to do what to create the scene, sort of mentally rehearsing their scene before they play it out. What's amusing is their elevated stress levels as they plan and project; what's annoying is that instead of watching a scene, the audience only sees a gaggle of kids huddling in a circle trying to decide what "should" be.

While there is a time and place for meeting and planning, much of what happens in life is unexpected and unrehearsed and it's important for us to improv through many potentially ridiculous situations in which "should" goes out the window in favour of "is".

Improv works when the players simply respond to whatever probable or improbable proposition is made to them through their fellow players. If someone suggests there is a giant spider behind their backs, the other players will accept such and move the scene along by simply responding to the fact. But scenes grind to a halt when certain players start dictating how the other players "should" react, or when players dispute the offer -- basically going into denial.

We play the same game in life. Much of what we encounter are unrehearsed scenes where the only rule is to accept the offer (good or bad, happy or sad, etc.) and move the scene along. Where we mess up in life is when we try to control the uncontrollable, or when we deny the probablilty or even the justice of what is happening to us.

Remember, our job is to move the scene along. Failure is when we bring our scene to a grinding halt.

When evil is evil, and good is clueless

The first movie I pick to watch this year was an orgy of of gore and senseless violence. It's about killing with perfunctory efficiency using small-arms, blades, and whatever else within grabbing range that can send a guy to meet his maker without the fuss and bother of a fair trial before a jury of his peers.

Enough clues? Yes, I watched "Punisher: War Zone", featuring everyone's favourite Marvel non-super non-hero psychopath, the Punisher. And the preceding paragraph roughly summarizes the plot.

This is by no means a critique of the movie. I take my hat off to director, Lexi Alexander, who courageously dispenses with a long, convoluted plot and opts in favour of dropping us straight into the world as Frank Castle himself views it: war with no end, any threat to the innocent is expeditiously removed because the good don't have a clue how to take care of themselves.

The only complication Castle finds himself in is that sometimes we can't immediately tell good from evil, and he has to come to terms with a mistake he makes while pursuing his own course of justice.

P:WZ is no summer blockbuster. I'm glad it doesn't even pretend to be. An acquired taste, then, and definitely not meant for everyone. There are few high points and even then, few as they are, they are tinged with uneasiness. There are "funny" moments, though we laugh only because there's no other way to deal with the brutality of the dispatch. There's a sense of, "Yes! Justice!", but at the same time, "OmG, what a way to go."

Welcome to the world of the Punisher. Thankfully for most of us, we don't live there.

Darwin Award candidate

Something should be done about dangerous barriers

I WISH to highlight the dangerous crossing for pedestrians walking to Thomson Plaza from Jasmine Road.

There is a side road at Thomson Plaza, near the Starbucks outlet. It has four lanes, one for cars and taxis to enter, one for cars to exit the carpark, and two for trade vehicles to enter and exit the delivery area.

There are two barriers across the lanes for trade vehicles and a zebra crossing across the other two lanes. As the traffic there can be heavy, most people use the zebra crossing. But one must negotiate the lanes for trade vehicles before reaching the crossing.

Recently, as I was walking to Thomson Plaza, I decided to go through the lanes for trade vehicles to get to the zebra crossing. One barrier was down while the other was up. It was about 1pm and there were no security guards stationed there. As I walked between the two barriers, one came down and hit my head.

I stumbled into Thomson Plaza for help and sought medical attention at a clinic. The doctor who attended to me told me that she too had been hit by the barrier, but that her umbrella had shielded her from the blow.

I wrote to the mall's management on Dec 21, five days after the accident, to ask them to rectify the problem. I have not received a reply.

Clarice Tan (Mrs)

(STI online Forum, 2 February 2009)

-------------------

Madam

The injury to your head must have been quite serious for you to be raising via the local dailies this oversight of due diligence. One possible countermeasure to prevent a repeat occurrence of this eventuality is to avoid walking under raised barriers altogether. This simple and basic precaution has saved thousands of heads from similar Blunt Force Trauma attempts committed by such wayward barriers as you have had the misfortune to encounter, and millions of dollars in medical fees thereafter.

You raise a legitimate concern regarding the lack of security guards stationed at the barriers. The emergence of sensor-equipped automatic barriers has completely eradicated the need for a manual labourer to perform this operation, forcing yet another uncle to undergo retraining in order to find alternative employment. Perhaps you'll be good enough and employ one to hold an umbrella above your head while you go strolling to the mall from now on?

Nevertheless, we must make allowances for some people who insist on swimming in the crocodile pond even after seeing the lifeguard on duty being devoured. To them, we present an award for thinning the gene pool, hence making the future safer for our descendants.

Hiking Henderson

Hiked the Southern Ridges with Cat and Sam. It was an excellent day for trekking as it was neither too hot nor wet enough to favour bed and blankie over the great outdoors .

It was also an opportunity to meet Sam's folks again, old friends they are from TO days. They did well to keep up with us most of the way, but eventually they left us young 'uns to finish the trail, or rather, until we reached the Hort Park before turning back.

Have to apologise to Cat for turning down her lunch offer. We'd already had it in our minds to reward ourselves with Belgian mussels, and we would not be turned from our culinary objective. All I can say is, we were not disappointed. Mmmm... mussels.

Jen hosted us at dinner at her place. We sampled her experiments with sambal pasta, chix rice balls and her apple juice/7-Up beverage and pronounced them most savory. No leftovers -- is that a compliment to the chef, or what?

A quick shoutout to Felicia and Jessica, new friends Jen introduced to us over dinner. Hi!