Business as usual

And so the dust has settled, the rhetoric spent. It is a brand new day, but perhaps not exactly the one we were promised. On the whole, our voters voted for status quo, business as usual. The Workers gained a lot, the incumbents lost a little by way of vote share. So while there is movement towards more alternative voices in public debate, the electorate has been careful not to jump at making radical changes too quickly.

What the Workers proved is that the GRC system is not as undefeatable as is widely claimed. As long as the Opposition can field a credible, capable and trustworthy team to rival the incumbent, they will win the backing of their voters and their seats in Parliament. This election has already thrust several potential Opposition candidates into the limelight, so if they can get themselves together and prepare for the next election their challenge will be even stronger.

In the meantime, the incumbents have been shaken enough to make a campaign apology for past mistakes and they have a lot of catching up to win back the voters they have lost since the last election. But really, the writing is on the wall. This election has been the most exciting one in a long time. During the campaigning there was a sense that the results may not be the forgone conclusion they were in the past. With the massive turnouts at the rallies and the incumbents put on the defensive with practically every ward being contested, the people are beginning to aspire towards a less lopsided Parliament. But not so soon.

The Workers have their chance to prove themselves more than just fiery campaigners who can talk a good fight, but as the MPs their voters have mandated them to be. If Hougang and Aljunied can deliver both the goods and the alternative voice they promised in their speeches, the next election will prove to be even more exciting.

Time to choose

When it comes down to it -- and it HAS come down to it -- I only need the government for one thing: to just do for the common good whatever I, the individual, am unable to do for myself. All I want is a system that functions cleanly, efficiently and without bias to take care of the material wellbeing of society in general.

The arguments put forward during this round of election campaigning generally boil down to one key issue:  to have a government with a heart for the poor little individual person. Me. But by the criterion above, that's quite the antithesis of the reason why we need a government.

And anyway, I think that if we, the people, already have no heart for one another in the first place, then having the government take over that responsibility on our behalf isn't going to change diddly-squat for anyone.

I know who I'm voting for, and why. Do you?

A couple more Grimm pix

Drama Night details revealed! The kids unveiled this huge banner last night. Did I mention the Drama kids are quite ambitious this year?

The J1 cast in partial costumes.

I know which seat to take

I'm alive! Alive, I tell you! Survived a harrowing drive from downtown back to campus with two girls squashed under a 2m long art board that took up almost all the space there was in M2's driving compartment. It was raining, it was night-time and visibility was poor, with me sitting up as straight as I could so I could peer over the board through the windscreen. The rear window was completely obscured.

Art supplies were for the set of Drama Night which we are making on our own, from scratch. With one girl kickin' in the front seat and the other sittin' in the back seat, both complaining bitterly about how crammed M2 was and if I would ever consider upgrading to a lorry, this must be one of the craziest things I've ever done for NYeDC.

A Confucian family

Dear diary
Mommy and daddy are squabbling again. Every 4-5 years, mommy can't stand it any more and throws a hissy fit at daddy's excesses. Daddy can be a bit of an a** at home, focused as he is on work but not taking as much time out to sayang us as we'd like. Whenever there's an argument, daddy can only say that he knows best... etc. He's really not very articulate at home.

Mommy feels especially indignant because daddy earns so much money, but our household sees so little of it. Parts of our house are falling to bits, but he only seems interested in fixing the bits that he feels most at home in first. Mommy is mad that daddy didn't take his housework seriously. He forgot to clean the drains, and they overflowed twice in 50 years. Also, some of our siblings are not so well-off because they have difficulty finding good jobs, but daddy doesn't see fit to take away the privileges of our more successful brothers and sisters to help them. After all, if we're so concerned for our needier brethren, then we should help them out of our own initiative and not let them depend on handouts from him all the time. Selfish man.

Another of mommy's pet peeves is that he makes us siblings who are working chip in to fund his many hare-brained investments which, as the stock market goes, you win some, you lose some. Daddy is such a dreamer, driving mommy nuts with his impossible schemes -- and though some of them actually do come true, they're exorbitantly expensive and guess who pays for them? Fortunately, for all our losses, we haven't broken the bank yet and our wins are still enough to keep us decently watered, fed and clothed and our house is still the envy of the neighbourhood.

And despite mommy's shrill insistence that we're all on the verge of poverty, most of us do earn enough money to occasionally splurge on mad things like good food, movies, expensive handbags, new cellphones, big-screen TVs and high-speed Internet access -- though we don't have all that much money to buy them without thinking it over a few times first. But it sure would be nice if we could just buy whatever we wanted like rich people, wouldn't it?

Daddy allows the neighbours' kids to drop in and visit, and sometimes they have sleepovers with us. Mommy doesn't like them very much because they aren't very well-behaved, they're dirty, smelly and poor and she feels that they are just sponging off our goodwill. She would chase them out of our house, if it were up to her. After all, Daddy's too busy at work all day, so who's going to clean up the mess they're making and stop them from snatching the spoons out of the babies' mouths?

Mommy can't help thinking like a housewife, always demanding for her money... now, complaining that daddy isn't helping out in the house 'cos he's spending too much time outside making crazy deals or cozying up to his buddies from around the world. She doesn't like how he can't discipline his children properly, like my bro, Mas, who has rage management issues. He threatened to break some of our nice home furnishings and hurt some of us because... well, we don't really know why. All daddy could do was to talk nicely to him but he ran away from home. Fortunately, because daddy's good friends with the neighbours, they helped to find Mas and bring him back. Now he is safely sitting in the corner until he has a change of attitude.

That's the one thing I worry about mommy. Daddy can be an indulgent, neglectful and fairly absent Asian father with terrible parenting skills. But mommy is quite insular, especially with her regard of our neighbours toward whom she is quite openly hostile. Left to her, I'm worried that she will throw our friends out (except the ones we can entice to do our housework for us) and not let us play outside either. Her view doesn't stretch beyond the four walls of our house, and her agenda doesn't extend towards maintaining good relations with our neighbours. But because our house is the envy of our neighbourhood, we're likely to become a target for people to throw rocks at, if we're going to act all uppity and unneighbourly towards them.

If we were self-sufficient and lived in the middle of nowhere, we can afford to be parochial; but we live and thrive because we have been able to maintain our relevance as the centre of everywhere. Even if we don't take the paranoid view that our neighbours are homicidal maniacs on a hair-trigger, the worst thing they can and probably will do is ignore us when we cease to interest them any further. Fact is, we depend on the goodwill of our neighbours for even our basic necessities. Let's see how quickly we turn to cannibalism once our household supplies run out.

With daddy looking out and mommy looking in, both become total jerks around this time. Fortunately, our family has rules about quarrels of this sort. Mommy and daddy will rage at each other, call each other names and try to sway their children to support one or the other through threats, bribes or pure undiluted vitriol. But once the haranguing on both sides reaches its apex, it stops. Everything calms down again and life goes on.

It's looking like a Grimm Affair

Our Producer reviews her grand plan for Drama Night 2011

The minions, hard at work

What would we ever do without our blocks? They are the stars of every Drama Night since we got them!

Mirror, mirror, on the... hey! Are you paying any attention to me?

"Flames! Flames!"

Let the sparks fly

What's going down in our little dot these next few days is the showdown between the two main factions of people that comprise our national electorate.

In the Champion's corner is the lightning bolt -- a spark of electricity that powers every comfort and convenience we depend on in modern society. With electricity, everything we want we get in an instant, at least those of us who are wired up into the system. Electricity operates safely only when insulated. It prefers being left to function on its own as the more resistance it encounters, the more heat it generates at the expense of work output. Electricity is determined to drag us kicking and screaming into the future, but with its relentless pace always pushing forward and outward, only those who can keep up benefit the most, while the rest get left behind.

In the Challenger's corner is the hammer, a symbol of manual labour, requiring human muscle and motor skill to operate. A hand tool for the individual worker building plank by plank, nail by nail, the hammer needs the community cooperation of the sort the Amish rely on to build their barns. Everyone rolls up his sleeves and pitches in out of friendship, kinship or some other social obligation -- no one is above his neighbour in this effort. The hammer builds a close-knit but closed-off society whose particular traditions and values identify others as unwelcome strangers and outsiders. But in the age of electricity, the hammer just seems a bit obsolete and slow as an implement of work.

Progress vs tradition; individual opportunity vs social solidarity; insulation from the people's views vs insulation from the world's realities. In about a week's time, we will again get to choose our path for another political term. As always, our choices seem so mutually exclusive.

Not going down well

Cats are hair-tearingly contrary. After our last vet's visit, we bought a pack of Hill's Prescription Diet T/D Feline Dental Health so that Momo could clean her grungy teeth while she eats her meals. At first, she wouldn't touch  the stuff, though Maui and Kaiser who have no teeth problems went for their new diet with no trouble. Eventually, hunger got the better of  Momo and she too ate. Hours later, she threw up everything. Silly girl ate without chewing, the precise action of which would have cleaned her teeth. I give up. Anyone want a slightly used bag of dental care kibble?

Moral support

Helping a kid with her project. She wants me to respond to a qualitative survey about the state of moral education in schools today. Q+A follows:

What is lacking in the system of instruction in the teaching of moral education in S'pore schools and how can we get around this problem?

What's lacking is a common set of standards upon which to clearly determine "right" from "wrong" in specific cases. What we do have is a vague set of general guidelines as to what kind of social behaviour can be tolerated in public, but true moral education would impart what behaviours are self-disciplined, whether in the public eye or in private, knowing and trusting that everyone else in society believes in and adheres to the same standards, likewise.

Why we lack such a clear set of common standards of moral behaviour is because we live in a pluralistic society which accepts differing interpretations and applications of moral behaviour as prescribed by the official religions and followed by their adherents. However, since we live in a secular society, these religions have no basis to enforce their brand of morality on their own adherents, let alone people who follow other faiths. Hence, our society can only enforce a general social code of behaviour which is codified in our laws and statutes that although regulate our social behaviour, do not seek to interfere with our private behaviour, and hence, there is no basis to lay down a standard moral code for all S'poreans to accept and follow.

When it comes to moral education teaching in schools -- especially in secular schools -- we cannot by definition teach moral behaviour since that is under the jurisdiction of whichever religious institution each student belongs in, we can only teach what can be considered pro-social, or socially responsible behaviour and that's as far as we can go. Although schools have no authority to prescribe any particular moral code for our students, we can get around this problem if we teach from an Authority we DO have: our legal framework which is the only standard that applies to all citizens and residents regardless of individual beliefs. That will have to be enough.

How is the teaching of moral education carried out in your school(the school you teach in)? What are the modes by which moral values are transmitted formally?

In the practical sense, 'moral' education at JC level is prescribed by topics of discussion and presented to the students in interactive sessions such as in CT period via various forms of media ranging from printed handouts, to performed morality plays ('live' or on some other form of recorded media), or by a guest speaker with some authority or expertise on the issue in question. As for the modes of transmission, direct discussion of the issues and sharing of stories and personal anecdotes tend to stimulate memory retention the best.

Do you think moral education should be taught within classrooms or are there other methods which may prove more effective?

Moral education belongs to institutions that are most concerned about moral behaviour -- religious orders. They have the backing of an omniscient being who is present and watching a person even in his or her private life, and thus can truly address a person's morally driven self-discipline. Schools can't claim that their Principals have a similar power (although there are some Principals who can be quite scary), so all we can offer is assistance and lessons in making pro-social choices (as opposed to morality which usually offers a Hobson's choice, which is no choice at all) when faced with such dilemmas in life.

Annual family outing

Our family outing involves three cats and a dog on a visit to the vet's. They are long overdue for their shots and today happened to be a clear day on all our busy calendars.

The cats are like kids. We have to grab each one and stuff them in their individual portable cages before we can load them in the car. That IS the standard procedure, right? But as always there's the howling, the screaming and tears -- mostly from me, as Kaiser (such a disagreeable boy!) gashed my finger with an ill-placed claw. I'll wear the scar for a few days, I'm sure. Otherwise, everyone arrived safely at the vet's eventually, singing lively choruses in the trunk all the way through the whole trip.

For routine cases like ours today, a trip to the vet is a laugh-a-minute. But while we were there, it happened that a couple of other pet owners had to make the decision to sign the dreaded pink form. Maybe that's why pets don't like seeing the vet. For us, we get sick, we consult a medical practitioner, we go home with bags of pills and stuff. But for pets, a trip to the vet could potentially mean taking one last ride in the car. :'(

System error

Starting to rethink the utility of content. Firstly, because I'm now on the committee producing the stuff in large, predigested quantities to be regurgitated for the benefit of our little fledglings. Secondly, because after today's in-class exercise I've come to the conclusion that for some pockets of children, they are truly lacking in intelligence.

Before you haul out the pitchforks and torches, I don't mean 'intelligence' in the sense of being able to process information (although that outcome has yet to be empirically tested). I mean that they are deficient in 'intel', knowledge. In other words, they're ignorant. There, I said it. Now you can pick up your riot gear again.

All the processing routines I've instructed them in to date is sound, but while my attention has been on designing the synthesis, analysis and application software, the kids do not already come equipped with even a basic hardware reality interface input module. Translation: today when I tried booting up, my system immediately crashed with a "No keyboard detected" message.

Prior knowledge processes new knowledge, but today's flood of new information from the prescribed data package was almost entirely new knowledge. It was neither accessible nor manipulable because there was little to no prior knowledge to contextualize the new knowledge in. Attempting to run a processing routine with no/minimal/garbled input results in a divide by zero error. Exactly what happened this morning: unintelligible printed text in, unintelligible scrawled text out. Brilliant.

Despite my disdain for 'airplane' games involving baby food, I have to accept that many of our kids haven't yet grown the requisite teeth to chew grown-up food on their own. True, we're working to rebuild them from the inside, but we can't let them starve in the meantime. Mashed carrots, anyone?

Communication let me down

I take back what I said about one of the non-majority parties needing an image consultant. It's the majority party that needs one more. Seriously, they're going with 'incentivize the vote' as their campaign platform? Instead of making us feel good about voting majority, this approach sounds like we're being made to feel bad about not voting majority.

Guilt is a poor marketing tool and though many mothers wield it with alarming efficacy, it simply isn't the best motivator of confidence for children who are growing up.

If netizens are turning unfriendly towards them, it's not because of what they're doing or even what they're saying, but rather how they've been presenting national agenda to the voting public. Good news or bad, delivery is the key to win support. They claim the best plans and the best interests of the nation at heart, and the most forward-looking mechanisms in place that work, but communication isn't their strongest asset right now.

They'll have to fix their message, or more and more people will want to change the messenger.

Getting stiffed

Francis thinks he's being discriminated against at Changi Airport. His flight to Perth got cancelled and...

"...after waiting for more than three and a half hours in the queue, we were told to go home and return the next day for a confirmed flight and to claim reimbursement for taxi fare.

As we were leaving the counter, a hotel representative approached us and asked us whether we were passengers of QF72 and if so, he would take us to his hotel for an overnight stay and the next morning, after breakfast, drop us back at the airport. As we were not told of this arrangement by the counter staff, we approached them; they quickly gave us an identity tag and asked the hotel representative to take us to the hotel.

We wanted to seek an explanation from the counter staff regarding the practice of asking local passengers to go home and foreigners to stay in a hotel..."

Wait, it makes sense for locals to go home because they have a home to go back to. And foreigners are likely to stay in a hotel because that's what hotels are for. This claim on grounds of discrimination is farcical!

And now Francis wants compensation from Qantas for his stay at this hotel.

Dude, how is this Qantas' problem? Some shady character offers you an night in his unnamed hotel. He doesn't claim to be a representative of Qantas, so he's likely to be a hotel tout whose pitch you fell for. In fact, as you say, the counter staff already said that you could claim for taxi fare, but you thought you could squeeze out a free night's stay in some cushy hotel at Qantas' expense too. Nice try.

I'd sympathize with you, being a fellow traveller getting fleeced everywhere I visit -- but trying to turn it around and trumping up a frivolous claim against someone else to compensate you for your own gullibility is a touch too desperate. I'm sorry for your loss, but the best comfort I can offer is, Kuah Kuah!

Teach less doesn't mean teach less

When we take the idea of "Teach Less, Learn More" too literally, we get the idea that there is some kind of reduction in the curriculum and that what schools were once meant to teach now becomes the burden of parents, and as a result, "slack" teaching staff.

Actually "Teach Less" doesn't mean teach less, in the sense of less content, less curriculum, i.e., less quantity. What it does mean is to stop being so full of ourselves and teaching the way teachers think they should teach, but instead look at the specific needs of our learners and teach the way our learners learn best.

The call is out for teachers to be less pedantic, less didactic and to put an end to filling our classroom time with inane teacher talk (a sin I'm quite guilty of, ha ha), and learn ourselves to be quiet, listen to what our students have to offer, give space for them to work. In other words, we teach not as authoritative, top-down "Teachers" but be fellow learners with our students, co-involved in constructing a community of learning.

This philosophy may be more difficult at some of the younger levels. It's hard to be a fellow learner if your fellow students are a bunch of 40 juvenile monkeys going stir-crazy in a crammed classroom eight hours a day. And with kids, it's important to show them who's Boss and instill in them a healthy respect (fear works too, apparently) for learning.

But at higher levels, it becomes necessary for the kids to start learning on their own. That's the time to let go and apply TLLM -- gradually.

Upgrade mania

The PM's taking flak from disgruntled e-authors over a shoot-from-the-hip response to a sensitive question posed by a young voter. What the PM said was tantamount to a bare-faced statement that wards represented by the majority party get priority when it comes to estate uprgading programmes. The implication that there is bias in assigning who gets to stand at the head of the line for the "good things" rankles an electorate that believes in the Democracy of its political system.

I wonder if I could spin a more politic reply to the question on why a non-majority ward looks rather shabbier than the majority ward next door...?

"Young man, I fully sympathize with your situation. Estate upgrading is a right of every constituency regardless of representation. Bright and shiny new covered walkways, bus stops and elevator upgrades are in high demand in all constituencies and everyone has the right to expect them.

But because they take time to complete, we can't upgrade everyone all at once. Thus, at least some estates can remain conveniently functional while others have to live with the inconvenience of dust, noise and odd detours as they undergo upgrading. Upgrades also cost a lot of money, so we have to even out the costs over time rather than spend everything in one lump sum.

As to why your estate seems to be lagging behind your neighbours', I assure you it isn't so. However, your constituency stood behind your representative's platform of less stress, slower pace of life and above all, lower cost of living. Thus it's logical that being the most frugal of voters, your constituency is the one most willing to put up with a slightly shabbier appearance for a little while longer than the others. Even if they don't look too glitzy and ultra-modern right now, it'll be a shame to replace your current facilities when they are still functional, still good, anyway.

There's no need to stress ourselves and rush things. See? Everything Singaporean voters want, no matter who represents you, your Government has already provided you with. I know you can be patient. When your facilities really need upgrading, the funds will definitely be there for you. :)"

Can I write the King's Speech, or what?

Irradiated

Japan is dumping radioactive water into the sea? I envision boatloads of comic-book fanboys crowding Japanese beaches, hoping to get bitten or stung by an irradiated sea-critter, thus gaining powers beyond the ken of mortal men.

Ooh, what's the number for the Japanese tourism agency?

It's dead, Jim

It's done. Officially killed NYeDC's IFD performance, which during last night's rehearsal started to take shape, but still not enough to be fully developed by Thursday. However, there's no stopping this show from proceeding at another special time of the year with a more compatible theme.

Edit 01:

If ever a political party needed an image consultant! What's with the NSP's uniform? The bright orange colour reminds me of US correctional facility inmates' coveralls:

Whoa, Nelly!

Once in a while, you have to rein back the kids' enthusiasm and give them a reality check. NYeDC jumped headlong into agreeing to stage an item for the upcoming IFD assembly programme while we're already neck deep in Drama Night rehearsals. If they'd let me look at the script they chose earlier, I would have said there's nothing in there remotely indicative of either "International" or "Friendship" without a serious reworking of its original intention. Not that we haven't done anything like that before, but this one especially would have taken time, certainly more than the two days remaining till curtain.

Now considering very carefully whether to do the unthinkable and pull the plug on this performance. Usually, my approach is that the show must go on, but this one...?

Among the cats

Two plush pups are what we brought back from our visit to Mdm Wong's Shelter for strays. Each plushie is worth a $10 donation towards the upkeep of the numerous dog and cat residents there.

We were supposed to partake in the open house tour this morning, but took a detour into the cattery before our group could even form up -- and spent our whole visit among the Purring Ones. The tour organizer must have wondered where his two prodigals had disappeared to.

I never knew cats could be so deprived of human affection. In every enclosure we entered, we were swarmed by cats rubbing up against our legs and meowing to be stroked and petted. No, they weren't after food or water 'cos they had that a-plenty in large plates already, just a friendly voice and a gentle hand to make them happy. And, boy, were our hands busy as cat after cat got its share of mussin' and fussin'.

A particular kitten in a cage was particularly memorable because it was so adorable. Bright-faced, striped on the back, and spotted on the belly, but sadly crippled in the hind legs. Such a feisty little monster, nonetheless, as it acted up for our attention, actually climbing the bars of his cage despite having back legs that wouldn't support it. Silly thing reached out and grabbed my finger when I wasn't looking. It sank a tiny, tiny claw beneath my skin, drawing a drop of blood. Is that cute, or what? With that kind of spirit, and Mdm Wong's care, I believe it'll regain the use of its legs again soon. Then the world better beware!

Thinking of swinging by again one of these weekends to drop off supplies and pay the inmates another visit. Any other animal-lovin' human being wanna make the trip to Pasir Ris with us?

Don't get your Hops up

I expected a lot more from 'Hop', coming from the same studio that gave us 'Despicable Me'. Maybe it's because Easter lacks the commercial mythos that Christmas has embodied so richly that there's little there to connect us with the characters in Hop. Neither the traditions nor the rituals associated with the Easter Bunny are familiar to us, so we don't really care if we don't get our Easter baskets this year. We never did, anyway.

What's left of the movie is the familiar theme of slacker sons disappointing their fathers. EB runs away from his *groan* Easter Island home to chase his rockstar dreams -- the heck with inheriting the mantle of Easter Bunny from his ageing predecessor. In Hollywood, Fred has no idea what he wants to do other than 'something great', but since nothing like that has approached him yet he remains in a perpetual state of employment limbo, which does not amuse his father [hmm... sounds familiar, heh].

When 'toon Bunny meets live-action human, we have an 'Odd Couple' pairing -- and the accompanying gags therein -- while they help sort each other out. But when Fred is mistaken for having killed EB by the no-nonsense Pink Berets, EB has to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his friend. At this point, the Prodigal Son becomes a badly (barely?)-disguised Messiah figure whose 'resurrection' facilitates reconciliation with their respective fathers.

'Hop' is mostly a series of cheap running gags (which isn't so bad in itself) but with little depth of character development. Without a serious antagonist (Carlos, the chick, is at best a distraction), both EB and Fred can only fight their fathers' aspirations for them and their own egos simultaneously, which for an animation is a bit too inward-looking. Mixing animation with live-action limits the potential for out-of-this world situational wackiness, which is what we're looking for in an animation in the first place. Lol moments there were, but they didn't really string together for me.

Too bad. The cartoon magic formula didn't happen here. Hop away, l'il bunny. No carrot for you.