Lucky me!

Lucky me! Won this scanner-printer from a draw at the IT Show.

Edit 01:

Now, I wonder if my luck was in the drawing of the right coloured ball from the closed box, or in the choice of game. There weren't all that many balls -- I felt only about 10 at the most -- and10:1 odds aren't bad for this sort of game. I suspect Challenger was just giving them away.

The value of a college education

Yay! New entry, which means I have made a significant enough dent in my assessment pile to lift my silence. It was due to the all-nighter I pulled last night, accompanied by a cold pizza and my wife who ensured I stay awake and alert that my conscience is clear today.

One of the things I'm grading is an essay on the relevance of a university education today. I'm quite disturbed by the number of responses that say otherwise, and the reason (note the the singular) they give is that Bill Gates (he went to Havard!), Einstein (he got his PhD at 26 years of age!) and Thomas Edison (homeschooled) didn't have college degrees and still made a success of themselves.

That argument is wrong on at least three levels: 1) The facts are off base; 2) these three are outstanding individuals and hence non-representative of the general population; and 3) to consider the three as representative of 'today' requires some discussion on how they contributed to creating the world as we know it today, otherwise we have to consider two of the three as recent history and hence dismiss them as irrelevant to the discussion. Am I being too strict?

Only eight and a half months to throttle up their secondary school prattle to undergrad standard. I forsee a breathless run to the end of the year. But if there's one thing that'll keep me motivated, it's my own belief in the value of a university education, regardless of what the kids are saying.

I'm flipping through STI, and I'm thinking I was so close to being this guy. I don't want my kids to end up like him either.

Normal service will resume shortly

We apologise for the excruciating quality of the previous entry. Normal service will resume when the pile of papers awaiting grading on Xmac's desk has been significantly reduced...

What's inside the box?

I've got an article here that purports that secondary schools are an anathema to a child's creativity. It isn't the school's intention to do that, of course. We do want our kids to grow into thinking, creative adults, but our processes often send the wrong message.

I think there is a difference between (1) encouraging imagination and (2) nurturing creativity. Schools tend to focus on the latter at the expense of the former, which is what turns off most kids.

Imagination refers to wild flights of fancy, ideas that suggest "anything goes". These ideas are the most fun to play with, sometimes the most dangerous and scary too, but that's why imagination is so much fun, so outside of our mundane reality and existence. But when schools tell us to focus on the real and not on the imaginary, when they tell us to be practical, suddenly life becomes boring and our motivational engines sputter and die. All we want to do is sleep because we can't be our naturally wild and crazy selves any more.

But that's just imagination being curbed, which is not quite the same thing as creativity, though perhaps only one of creativity's more special ingredients. We define 'creativity' as 'out-of-the-box' thinking, but in order to achieve that level of intelligence, we need to know what's INSIDE the box first. That's what schools specialize in, putting students inside a package of social norms, rules, customs, expectations; wrapped in a common knowledge of science, math, languages, and occasionally humanities so that at whichever level we leave school at, we leave with a cohort of peers who know exactly what we know and so we all start out making lives for ourselves from the same, equal starting line. That's fair.

The assumption is that as long as we stay in the box, everything's nice, everything's safe and everything's fair. It's only a rare few who realise that it actually isn't, and they are the ones who start thinking 'outside-the-box', yes, the real creative ones.

Creativity (a.k.a. 'innovation') starts with dissatisfaction, and it seems that at JC level, only GP (and maybe elements of the Arts and Humanities) teaches that the world isn't perfect, that the world doesn't follow the rules that are supposed to work to keep society nice for everyone, that the world isn't fair in the way that math and the sciences with all their rules and formulae tell us it is. Just-follow-the-formula-and-everything-will-be-correct is nonsense in reality, but that's what's inside the box. It's a seductive message to be deluded by and take comfort in, but it's only the dissatisfied and unhappy who question the formulae and eventually become the creative ones.

Imagination, as I mentioned before, is a wild thing. Creativity is our ability to harness our imagination, tame it and make it go where we want it to go. We are creative when we can discipline our imagination, making it work for us. There's a riddle that goes, "what do you need to know before you can train a dog?" to which the answer is, "more than the dog!" That's where most of us are today, in the process of learning more than the dog, those of us who are looking to be creative in spite of our school experience.

Historic morning

College Sports Carnival was today. For the first time, our venue was ECP. Programme was simple; either sign up for a competitive 3 klik trot or a carefree 2 klik stroll on the beach.

As beings of remarkable foresight, June and I met Jojo and Derek for brekkie at McD's before our event. Inside, it was muffins, sausage, hot cakes and scrambled eggs. Outside, the rains swept over with sheets of wet. Just as we'd finished our meal, the word came round: Sports Carnival cancelled due to inclement weather.

Shortest Sports Carny in history. But it could also prove to have been an historic breakfast. The women have an idea which I think has lots of potential. More on that when things develop further.

Strange coincidence

WoW suddenly gets two mentions in the local news on the same day, being associated with the deaths of two promising young men in separate incidents. Both the army doctor and the undergrad were reported as accomplished WoW players, the former "one of the top 10 Warcraft players in Singapore and was among the top 100 in the world", the latter "suddenly threw himself into it with a vengeance, spending as much as six hours a day huddled in front of his PC."

Hope nobody gets too clever and attempts to assert a causual link between computer gaming and strange behaviour leading to deaths under mysterious circumstances. But it's just too convenient and tempting not to.

-----

On a separate note, congrats to the KIds, all of whom passed, ZH being our first ever 'Ace'! And it was great to be reunited with NBS, my partner in crime, again. We celebrated with a MOS and breathed a collective sigh of relief that we didn't let them down after all. Yay!

Who watched the Watchmen?

Me! Wow.

Yes, "Watchmen" the movie is based on a superhero graphic novel. Yes, there are odd-looking people in eyebrow-raising costumes walking among ordinary people in everyday dress. Yes, improbable gadgets are part of an arsenal of other impractical designs. They are there to remind us that this is a story about superheroes who live and struggle to co-exist in our imperfect world -- a world even their vaunted superpowers cannot help.

One feature that stands out in a movie of this genre is that there is no super-villain to fight. No arch-nemesis who plots world-domination that would give a team of superheroes a raison d'etre for their existence. The closest thing to one is a frail old man who has long given up his evil-suit and his evil ways, suffering from cancer and living off a meagre pension awaiting death.

The fact is, superheroes do not need a supervillain to trouble humankind. Superheroes themselves ARE sufficent trouble for us. They are us, flawed, psychologcally warped and twisted as we already are, but enhanced with superpowers. And really, the Watchmen individually don't have much by way of their powers to distinguish one hero from another. They are generally super strong, super fast, super tough, regardless of what name or costume they wear. When superpowers meet normal human strength, it is not a pretty sight. Bones break -- badly, blood spatters on contact. It's just a matter of degree.

In that sense, the Watchmen are a parallel of the Olympian gods and goddesses in Greek mythology, with their infighting and the spillover of that into the lives of mortal men. Some are amoral, like the Comedian who behaves much like the Joker would if he was on the side of law-enforcement, and whose murder begins the story. There are those who see the world in completely black-and-white terms, like the disturbed Rorschach, for whom good is good and evil must die a horrible death. And there are those whose powers far exceed those of human ken, like Dr Manhattan, confused about humanity's doings from his cosmic perspective. With heroes like these, who needs villains any more?

Nevertheless, they all feel responsible for the well-being of people, yet are hampered by their own human weaknesses and a sense of hopelessness that they can do nothing to stop human depravity from annihilating us all.

The world is on the brink of nuclear war, only hours away from The Button being pushed. With a supervillain, the solution is simple: beat up the bad guy, destroy his toys, save the world. But with superheroes vs (national) superpowers, the problem has become infinitely more complex; the solution perhaps more drastic than can be conscionable.

"Watchmen" does not promise brainless entertainment. The plot's throughline gets interrupted often with flashbacks adding little bits of exposition at a time. It's also disconcerting to watch the Watchmen not behave in the way we've come to expect from our heroes -- the mask only hides the face, but can't hide human nature lurking beneath the skin. And at the end, we, the audience are left to judge if in the use of power, even for the greater good, the end justifies the means.

Heavy stuff. Lots of dialogue; short, intense bursts of action; moral shocks and dilemmas to ponder over; nobility mixed in with a lot of nastiness; a movie that requires concentration and active reflection. Did I like it? Yes! But I felt quite drained after.

Sick? Leave!

If only our staff would follow the above advice, we might not be falling sick so often.

Today we had a lecture shared between Paul and Madam A. Coincidentally, both called in on medical leave, and we were stranded without a lecturer. It was a bit of a scramble, but Amy and I very quickly went through their notes and slides to cobble a lecture together on their behalf.

It's a bit strange going over other people's materials because there are often blanks and knowledge gaps that the speakers' would fill in on their own through a personal anecdote, aside, POV, or some visual material to present. Occasionally we stand-ins may not agree with a point here and there, or we feel that we have better material to illustrate it. So over brekkie we got me prepped to take the mike and pinch lecture for our absent colleagues.

When I got down to the LT, Madam A was already there, breaking her curfew. Somehow, she had got wind that we had no lecturer and so she made her way to campus -- croaky voice and all -- to take back the mike that was rightfully hers. One hour later, after having delivered her lecture and cleansing her conscience, we promptly chased her off campus.

There's something about our college that makes us want to pitch in and do whatever it takes to get our jobs done. There's a certain pride we take in doing a good piece of work. It's part ownership and part not letting the team down, and part because we have a strong belief in the rightness of what we are doing. And as Amy once pointed out, we aren't a calculating people either.

But we do need to take better  care of our health too.

New vocab: "Sidebarring"

I thought Professional Development (PD) was sort of exclusive to us? It seems we have copied from the Americans again, along with the problems that go with it... being that teachers make the worst students. Click here.

I will survive

Again, not much time other than to post a few links. CNN's got this series on people who are finding ways to survive this economic downturn and it seems like a good time to share some good news amidst the gloom so here goes:

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0902/gallery.optimism/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/02/26/economy.survivor.farm/index.html

To survive the lousy economy occasionally means forgoing our squeamishness for a regular paycheck
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/02/27/topless.coffee.shop/index.html

And distributing what would otherwise be wasted to people who really need it, gratis
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/01/ship.to.shelter/index.html

And a story from China!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/25/china.lifeonline/index.html

An enlightened 21st century robot employer

I am no technophobe. This is the 21st century and I own a robot. It keeps my floor clean, not perfectly but adequately.

I can't help anthropomorphosizing (omg, a 20-letter word!) it. When I push its activation button, it make a cheery beeping sound and backs out of its charging unit all busy and anxious to get to work. It bumps around blindly as it crosses and recrosses the floor picking up bits of debris as it goes.

It's a rudimentary trial-and-error function but it's persistent enough to get the job done. I'm even forgiving of the occasional missed spots -- considering that it works more like a child's toy than an actual intelligent machine, I'm surprised it can deliver the results that it does.

I even worry for it when it starts to lose its charge. When that happens, it will home in on a radio signal the charging base sends out to guide it back to safety and sustenance. But it becomes a game of "hot and cold" as the robot continues to bump around the room trying to locate the signal, sometimes getting close only to be bumped away when it hits a wall or some other obstacle in its path. Will it ever make it back in time before its batteries deplete completely? It's painful to watch, and I have to resist the urge to pick it up and carry it home myself when at times it looks so hopelessly lost.

But so far, the only times it has failed to find its way home was once when we accidentally switched off the charging base (duh) and another time when it jammed on a dishrag that had inadvertently fallen to the floor. But otherwise, it's always been at the last minute able to find the correct vector and go home on its own. As it docks, it chirps its relief, then settles down for a nice quiet nosh until we call it out for duty again, usually the next day.

That's my little robot, my almost fifth pet. So if that's how I'm like with robots as an enlightened 21st century robot employer, then why does the US Army's "Big Dog" send a shiver of fear down my spine?

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.