Mr L33t's monitor is secure again. Somehow, over the last week or so the stand had snapped and the screen was balancing precariously on the pylon. Any light touch would send the whole thing crashing down on the keyboard. Thankfully, I have the reflexes of a 10 year-old for catching things... like measles, mumps and chicken-pox, and so I've managed to avert total disaster.
Not trusting my luck for too much longer, I brought it to the local Samsung customer service facility. It appears they don't get too much experience fixing simple mechanical problems like this one. Selling me a replacement mounting strut was easy: $5, please. The next thing was the proper procedure for helping me install it since part of the original strut was still stuck inside the housing.
After a bit of ding-dong with the retail guy, the service girl and the unseen backroom tech, they eventually decided not to charge for the extra service -- the service of removing the entire back panel in order to jiggle out the remnant piece before installing the new part.
In case you are wondering how a monitor could possibly snap off its support stand... it's a mystery to me too. It definitely has nothing to do with the time I had finally, after several frustrating attempts, delivered the killing blow to the Prime Evil on Nightmare mode, the Diablo servers went down for maintenance right at that very instant. I swear it was broken before that.
Friday, June 01, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Computers don't make people smarter
This really is an epiphany from last Wednesday since the staff sharing and the subsequent meeting with the Infocomm bigwig of our cluster:
ICT is not and can not be used to deliver content. If it did, we might as well substitute ourselves with a netbook, then we can get on with more important things in our lives... like defeating Diablo in 'Inferno' mode.
Sadly for us, that's not going to happen. Content delivery is still firmly within the domain of the biological facilitator, i.e., yours truly. Someone still has to maintain discipline and focus in the classroom, and that someone isn't likely to be Facebook or YouTube (or 9Gag, or whatever).
So why all the fuss about ICT? We're looking at it all wrong (I'm on a roll!). ICT does squat for Teaching, so we shouldn't even bother going there. Besides, we're the teachers, so that's our job. What it does best is enhance the Learning, and that's where we should be focusing our attention on with its use.
The main idea is to move our classroom culture away from spoon-feeding each individual kid towards a whole new skill-set in which the kids can pick up on the trail of breadcrumbs we leave for them and establish launch-pads from which to explore and learn more on their own. So within our so-called ICT lessons, what we are really doing with the kids is to demo how marvelously these wonderful new toys work so that they will decide to start using them on their own.
At the most basic level, with backchannel logs like todaysmeet, we can gather real-time feedback on how our (biologically facilitated) lessons are going; identify common problem areas; and use the feedback to plan subsequent lessons to address these difficulties. By posting queries and seeing that they are really being addressed, the kids should be gaining the confidence to start taking their first baby steps towards independent learning. When they start reading beyond what they are required to learn for the finals, that would be utopia -- but that eventuality is out of our hands. It's up to them, but it'll be us pushing them in that direction.
The communication part of this technology is what gives the kids the opportunity to teach each other outside of classroom time. We plan lessons requiring the kids to collaborate on, say, textual analysis using a crocodoc, and co-author a long response with a titanpad. Google docs works well for both, and with the built-in templates you can make pretty worksheets too, if you're into that kind of thing.
Our objective (if I may remind us again) is not to teach a content point, but to teach them the rules of collaboration, the rules of engagement, to set the social environment in which the kids realize that when they combine their different strengths on a task, they more than make up for their individual weaknesses. When the kids start trusting each other with their learning we don't lose the one teacher, we gain 20, 30, 40 new teachers the kids can learn from. That's where we are going with ICT. Computers don't make people smarter; people make people smarter.
ICT offers the opportunity to turn the kids from individualistic passive learners (which we turned them into for the sake of classroom management) to socially participatory ones. If we're looking for a KPI, it shouldn't be about how much ICT we use to teach in class, it's how much ICT the kids are using on their own in order to learn better.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Re-envisioning the industry
Invigilations are spots of empty time when we are forced to occupy ourselves with thoughts and ideas that do not originate from any medium other than our own cerebral wetware. In these long stretches, we occasionally get epiphanies that look like bad ideas and are, in fact, likely to be Very Bad Ideas.
My VBI for today goes like this: the industry has got it all wrong. Everything along the production line has been misidentified and mis-prioritized. As a result, the economy is about to balk at the kind of crappy product we are churning out -- if it hasn't already rebelled on us.
First, we have to accept that the school is a manufacturing plant. We take in raw material which we process and deliver in a useful form to the customer. Where we totally screwed up is in misidentifying the customer. Our current philosophy is to view the student or even the student's parents as the customer and we tailor everything we do to make the customer happy. While that makes good business sense, we have completely forgotten who our real customer is.
Whomever this mysterious customer is, it isn't the student or his parents. So let's start by relabeling all the process elements properly. Parents are vendors who provide us our raw materials. The students are the raw materials that we turn into our product. We deliver this product to... the workforce, i.e., employers who demand competent workers who are trained and skilled in meeting the needs of a challenging work environment; and who can contribute to the growth and development of their companies.
Now the process chain makes sense. We were beating ourselves to death trying to get every kid who passed through our hands into the university because that was what we thought the customer wanted. Of course parents would want their kids to get tertiary education, but they are NOT the customer. Neither are the kids. Raw material is definitely NOT the customer.
As with all other industries, our processes grade and classify raw materials by their quality and put them to work where they are best suited, and priced for retail accordingly. It is our responsibility to minimize waste, but in the end, quality sorts itself out. Our other problem is our criteria for quality. Mistakenly, we assess quality by academic performance. The assumption that the lower the L1R5, the higher the quality is as faulty as it gets. Academic performance only tells a fraction of the tale.
Our real customer, the employer, knows this and clearly does not want workers who only know how to pass their final exams and pretty much nothing else. After all, there is no equivalent of a final exam in the workplace, so equipping the kids with nothing but exam skills is a complete mismatch with what our customer wants: smarts AND character.
Our job is to deliver the best possible product that the customer demands. They demand a product that is not tested at the end of the year, but every day of its sad and miserable life. The kind of test is not a pen-and-paper exercise that proves how well the product can memorize a limited number of facts but the kind that puts it through a daily hell to see how well it can stand up to incredible pressure; intractable deadlines; tedious, boring, routine and often pointless work; work that has to be done, revised and redone with no end in sight; irrational, occasionally garbled instructions from somewhere up the food chain; all the sorts of things one can reasonably expect from a office job -- and can still drag itself looking presentable and sufficiently enthusiastic back to work every day for more of the same. Now, THAT is character development in practice -- no need for extra lessons that are just going to be artificial, theoretical and more for show than anything else.
JC students already have an 'O' Level qualification so they are qualified to work and support families of their own, although they might have to live more frugally than others. So there should be no problem in letting those kids who are so bored with attending classes (and are causing disruptions for their fellow students) quit and look for a job instead. Since they have already been educated beyond their right as a human being to expect we shouldn't feel so bad about seeing them go.
To be educated at tertiary level, one has to deserve the place, not just by dint of one's previous academic success alone but by making a daily choice to conform to the rules of the institution and to do the work prescribed in the most diligent manner possible. The workplace in one's future demands no less. Sometimes, we forget this and take it personally when some kids are hard to discipline. All they want is to be free. Let's do everybody a favour and unshackle them from their misery. Of course, we do our best to minimize such a waste of raw materials, but that, like allowing some others to fail is part of a QC process that works.
Some of the problems we've been having in our industry lately will never be experienced in any other industry because the roles and places of things are much clearer for the latter. The vendor does not question the industry about how his raw material is put to use. Neither does the raw material question the processes it has to undergo. The clay does not tell the potter that it would rather be a plate; the iron ore does not complain about the temperature of the smelter nor the force of the hammering as it is being made into a farm tool. The reason why our industry is such an anomaly is because we put the power of demand in the wrong hands.
The real customer is behaving like any other retail customer would. If it can't get the product it wants locally, it will outsource or import suitable substitutes from other markets. It's time the industry remembers and acknowledges the legitimate customer once again. Although our intentions were good, our processes delivered a product that passed the QC (for academics) but largely failed to meet the customers' needs in the end. Please give us another chance. We'll do better this time!
My VBI for today goes like this: the industry has got it all wrong. Everything along the production line has been misidentified and mis-prioritized. As a result, the economy is about to balk at the kind of crappy product we are churning out -- if it hasn't already rebelled on us.
First, we have to accept that the school is a manufacturing plant. We take in raw material which we process and deliver in a useful form to the customer. Where we totally screwed up is in misidentifying the customer. Our current philosophy is to view the student or even the student's parents as the customer and we tailor everything we do to make the customer happy. While that makes good business sense, we have completely forgotten who our real customer is.
Whomever this mysterious customer is, it isn't the student or his parents. So let's start by relabeling all the process elements properly. Parents are vendors who provide us our raw materials. The students are the raw materials that we turn into our product. We deliver this product to... the workforce, i.e., employers who demand competent workers who are trained and skilled in meeting the needs of a challenging work environment; and who can contribute to the growth and development of their companies.
Now the process chain makes sense. We were beating ourselves to death trying to get every kid who passed through our hands into the university because that was what we thought the customer wanted. Of course parents would want their kids to get tertiary education, but they are NOT the customer. Neither are the kids. Raw material is definitely NOT the customer.
As with all other industries, our processes grade and classify raw materials by their quality and put them to work where they are best suited, and priced for retail accordingly. It is our responsibility to minimize waste, but in the end, quality sorts itself out. Our other problem is our criteria for quality. Mistakenly, we assess quality by academic performance. The assumption that the lower the L1R5, the higher the quality is as faulty as it gets. Academic performance only tells a fraction of the tale.
Our real customer, the employer, knows this and clearly does not want workers who only know how to pass their final exams and pretty much nothing else. After all, there is no equivalent of a final exam in the workplace, so equipping the kids with nothing but exam skills is a complete mismatch with what our customer wants: smarts AND character.
Our job is to deliver the best possible product that the customer demands. They demand a product that is not tested at the end of the year, but every day of its sad and miserable life. The kind of test is not a pen-and-paper exercise that proves how well the product can memorize a limited number of facts but the kind that puts it through a daily hell to see how well it can stand up to incredible pressure; intractable deadlines; tedious, boring, routine and often pointless work; work that has to be done, revised and redone with no end in sight; irrational, occasionally garbled instructions from somewhere up the food chain; all the sorts of things one can reasonably expect from a office job -- and can still drag itself looking presentable and sufficiently enthusiastic back to work every day for more of the same. Now, THAT is character development in practice -- no need for extra lessons that are just going to be artificial, theoretical and more for show than anything else.
JC students already have an 'O' Level qualification so they are qualified to work and support families of their own, although they might have to live more frugally than others. So there should be no problem in letting those kids who are so bored with attending classes (and are causing disruptions for their fellow students) quit and look for a job instead. Since they have already been educated beyond their right as a human being to expect we shouldn't feel so bad about seeing them go.
To be educated at tertiary level, one has to deserve the place, not just by dint of one's previous academic success alone but by making a daily choice to conform to the rules of the institution and to do the work prescribed in the most diligent manner possible. The workplace in one's future demands no less. Sometimes, we forget this and take it personally when some kids are hard to discipline. All they want is to be free. Let's do everybody a favour and unshackle them from their misery. Of course, we do our best to minimize such a waste of raw materials, but that, like allowing some others to fail is part of a QC process that works.
Some of the problems we've been having in our industry lately will never be experienced in any other industry because the roles and places of things are much clearer for the latter. The vendor does not question the industry about how his raw material is put to use. Neither does the raw material question the processes it has to undergo. The clay does not tell the potter that it would rather be a plate; the iron ore does not complain about the temperature of the smelter nor the force of the hammering as it is being made into a farm tool. The reason why our industry is such an anomaly is because we put the power of demand in the wrong hands.
The real customer is behaving like any other retail customer would. If it can't get the product it wants locally, it will outsource or import suitable substitutes from other markets. It's time the industry remembers and acknowledges the legitimate customer once again. Although our intentions were good, our processes delivered a product that passed the QC (for academics) but largely failed to meet the customers' needs in the end. Please give us another chance. We'll do better this time!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
I'm not dead!
Just rendered temporarily incoherent and fatigued due to an accumulation of work, late nights... and levelling up my Monk character in D3. Back soon, promise.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
At Antoinette's for breakfast
Both the wife and I have been putting in a lot of hours at work last week. This week doesn't look much better. We're tired, cranky and seriously craving good food. Figured that if we take care of that last detail, things will spiral back upwards to uplift our spirits again. And that explains why we are at Antoinette's having brekkie instead of... somewhere else.
The eggs Florentine was a good choice. Served with Hollandaise sauce on finely sliced Serrano ham on a slab of dark bread, it was the pick-me-up I was looking for. While the ham sent a salty kick upside the head, the egg yolks were a glorious mouthful that burst into a river of molten gold, warmly flowing down the gullet and coating the stomach wall with comfort and reassurance. Lovely...!
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Let the games begin!
Campus has a new track and a new astroturf field which we are officially inaugurating as a college today. Guess that spells the end of sports carnivals in strange, exotic locations as of years past.
It's also family day, when staff and their broods bond over street soccer, rock climbing and hoops.
...and with all this excitement going on, yours truly spends the rest of the afternoon trudging around town in a failed quest for a rubber chicken. Darned things are so hard to find when you want one.
...and with all this excitement going on, yours truly spends the rest of the afternoon trudging around town in a failed quest for a rubber chicken. Darned things are so hard to find when you want one.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Curtains up!
NYeDC bounced back from a shaky full-dress on Monday and did well at the big showing this morning.
No doubt there were hiccups -- still, like the curtains messing up some set elements. Quite evidently we didn't factor in that little wrinkle into our rehearsals. :p There were flubbed lines, though not many and not too obvious. The idea to streamline the script somewhat allowed the show to breathe more, to make full use of pauses in dialogue and movement, though I felt this performance took a little too much time between lines, which slowed down the pacing quite a bit. We may have overshot our time limit some, but at least we didn't get chucked unceremoniously out the stage doors for doing so.
Regardless, it was our best run yet. Crew were moving efficiently backstage, cast was working very hard to enunciate the way they rehearsed with Sirius, though that made them sound artificial and strained. But better that in order to be understood than be unintelligible and leave the audience scratching their heads.
Now that the preview show is over, it's time to bring the show home. Playing to laymen and a casual audience will be a different experience from performing to today's expert auditors. In some ways, the more crucial performance is the one people have paid money to see, so while the pressure valve has eased up a tad, we're still going to need another brilliant show come next week.
Thanks to our supporters in today's audience; Amy, HP and the P! It's always good to have more friendly hands clapping.
No doubt there were hiccups -- still, like the curtains messing up some set elements. Quite evidently we didn't factor in that little wrinkle into our rehearsals. :p There were flubbed lines, though not many and not too obvious. The idea to streamline the script somewhat allowed the show to breathe more, to make full use of pauses in dialogue and movement, though I felt this performance took a little too much time between lines, which slowed down the pacing quite a bit. We may have overshot our time limit some, but at least we didn't get chucked unceremoniously out the stage doors for doing so.
Regardless, it was our best run yet. Crew were moving efficiently backstage, cast was working very hard to enunciate the way they rehearsed with Sirius, though that made them sound artificial and strained. But better that in order to be understood than be unintelligible and leave the audience scratching their heads.
Now that the preview show is over, it's time to bring the show home. Playing to laymen and a casual audience will be a different experience from performing to today's expert auditors. In some ways, the more crucial performance is the one people have paid money to see, so while the pressure valve has eased up a tad, we're still going to need another brilliant show come next week.
Thanks to our supporters in today's audience; Amy, HP and the P! It's always good to have more friendly hands clapping.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Chicken soup between the ears
Monday, May 07, 2012
Waiting is the hardest part
It's our official day off but...
Two days out from show and we're stuck in the rain waiting for the theatre to open its back gates so we can unload our set and get on with the full-dress rehearsal.
We've been on the road since early this morning and we've arrived at the performance venue early. We wait nearly half-an-hour before the gates finally open, but perhaps the delay was a blessing in disguise. By the time we got in, the rain had significantly abated and we could move the set in dry.
Though today's run did not go as planned, I believe in the strength of our performance. The kids have been really working hard; and they have proven my initial concerns about the complexity of this performance quite wrong. We still have a few wheels left to grease, some fat left to trim, some bolts left to tighten... and we don't have much time.
Fortunately, NYeDC has always been strong on work ethic, which covers a multitude of sins. One more day to rehearse and get the whole team moving faster, smarter and sharper. This is it, kids! Whatever training you've undergone never fully prepares you for the real thing. Nevertheless, just go for it -- knowing your jobs and getting them done. That's all we ask to make us proud of you. That's all you need to be proud of yourselves.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
We are one tonight
Really? Is that for me? Really???
How the heck am I supposed to blow that out? I don't got no lips!
Oh, very well... say grace first.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Ooh... sensitive!
So much drama, being in the Drama Club. One misspoken word over the public address system during morning announcements by one nervous announcer, and the Tech Union is all up in arms against us claiming besmirched honour and the right to satisfaction.
Note to club members: do not EVER say anything that might be construed as dissin' the equipment while holding a 'live' mike. The techs will take it as a personal affront to their profession and will sue for libel or defamation and seek punitive damages for their bruised egos.
Game face on. Time to soothe some ruffled feathers. Perhaps bringing along a sacrificial scapegoat or two might help, though maybe with things this delicate only an offering of gold, frankincense and myrrh would suffice.
Note to club members: do not EVER say anything that might be construed as dissin' the equipment while holding a 'live' mike. The techs will take it as a personal affront to their profession and will sue for libel or defamation and seek punitive damages for their bruised egos.
Game face on. Time to soothe some ruffled feathers. Perhaps bringing along a sacrificial scapegoat or two might help, though maybe with things this delicate only an offering of gold, frankincense and myrrh would suffice.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Not my job
Sometimes I have to ask my kids if they are working to learn or learning to work? Work is inevitable, but the approach to the work makes all the difference. There is also no doubt that the kids are all hard working individuals, but I wonder if they are only capable of working within very narrowly defined parameters, beyond which they will unionize and go on strike.
While they don't walk out of class with their feet, from their blank stares we can tell that any problem we set for them is assumed to be pre-solved and they'll hang back and wait for an answer to appear rather than try tackle it on their own. If an activity does not seem directly related to The Exam, it's beyond their job scope, no thanks, pass. "Can I write an essay instead?" ... followed by protests of their lack of creativity, can't do this, can't do that...
When we do focus on exam-related material, they work a lot more diligently; but they're tired, bored and go with the attitude of doing the job just to get it out of the in-tray and move to the next item on the daily checklist. To them, that's a good, honest day's work.
There doesn't seem to be any spark of learning excitement, no sense of adventure or exploration, no willingness to be creative. So here we are at a dilemma: the kids resent school because it's no fun for them, it's regimented and narrowly-focused, and enforces conformity; but try to offer a different kind of learning experience and they worry they won't pass (or ace) the exams -- their raison d'etre for being in school.
I don't think this situation is confined to any particular school system, however. I daresay this is the case regardless of where the school is located on the global map. It's clearly the case in Asia, developing nations are grateful for any kind of education they can get, and since the US is currently focused on getting its grades up, they're pretty much facing the same problem on their education frontlines.
Perhaps it's time to acknowledge that formal schooling has its limitations. We train kids to be cubicle workers, and maybe I should come to terms with that. It's not too bad, being in the rank-and-file. The job may be robotic and routine, but it puts food on the table. That's all anyone can really ask for in life. Anything more is just cherries and whipped cream, which some will undoubtedly get once they leave school and forge a life of their own. But that's not my job.
While they don't walk out of class with their feet, from their blank stares we can tell that any problem we set for them is assumed to be pre-solved and they'll hang back and wait for an answer to appear rather than try tackle it on their own. If an activity does not seem directly related to The Exam, it's beyond their job scope, no thanks, pass. "Can I write an essay instead?" ... followed by protests of their lack of creativity, can't do this, can't do that...
When we do focus on exam-related material, they work a lot more diligently; but they're tired, bored and go with the attitude of doing the job just to get it out of the in-tray and move to the next item on the daily checklist. To them, that's a good, honest day's work.
There doesn't seem to be any spark of learning excitement, no sense of adventure or exploration, no willingness to be creative. So here we are at a dilemma: the kids resent school because it's no fun for them, it's regimented and narrowly-focused, and enforces conformity; but try to offer a different kind of learning experience and they worry they won't pass (or ace) the exams -- their raison d'etre for being in school.
I don't think this situation is confined to any particular school system, however. I daresay this is the case regardless of where the school is located on the global map. It's clearly the case in Asia, developing nations are grateful for any kind of education they can get, and since the US is currently focused on getting its grades up, they're pretty much facing the same problem on their education frontlines.
Perhaps it's time to acknowledge that formal schooling has its limitations. We train kids to be cubicle workers, and maybe I should come to terms with that. It's not too bad, being in the rank-and-file. The job may be robotic and routine, but it puts food on the table. That's all anyone can really ask for in life. Anything more is just cherries and whipped cream, which some will undoubtedly get once they leave school and forge a life of their own. But that's not my job.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Forum facepalm
ST Forum editor is scraping the bottom of the slow-news barrel today:
On the issue of supermarket plastic bag waste reduction:
On the issue of supermarket plastic bag waste reduction:
Amy (not my friend, Amy) takes issue with our policies "encouraging public instead of private transport", saying that it's not practical to carry groceries in anything other than supermarket plastic bags in buses and trains;
Henry asks how to "get rid of leftover food daily" without them;
Michael will miss them when he is "chucking... rubbish";
and Mr Wang is not concerned about the lack of biodegradability because we incinerate our garbage instead of bury it.
Which part of "waste management" do these people not understand?
Amy: encouraging public transport over private reduces our society's overall carbon footprint. No point conserving in one place only to make waste elsewhere.
Henry: cook less food daily and reduce your leftover problem. Eat everything, waste less.
Michael: reduce consumption, chuck less rubbish.
Mr Wang: it is SO much better to breathe in incinerated plastic toxins right now than wait for it to biodegrade over hundreds of years, isn't it?
About the incident of the cat being set on fire over it's own waste management practices:
Mr Lee wants to know why the cat's owner allowed it to poop at a place where it was tempting for the perp to flame the feline literally.
Um, I have no answer to the question as cat owners should keep a sandbox at home for the cat's use. But, Mr Lee, where's your sense of proportion? Just because cat poops on the guy's doorstep does not give him licence to turn fluffy into a flambe, as hilariously as that might be portrayed in a funny movie. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Finally, representing the dregs that have leaked out of the barrel and is currently staining the floor is Mr Yeo, who jumped at an early-bird discount on F1 tix and is now screaming blue murder because he found out that there were other avenues that offered an even better price on the same tix. He is not asking for redress -- he actually shrilled his way into cancelling his initial purchase in order to make a new purchase at the lower price. His complaint is that the organizers should have been "transparent" about which was the best offer in the first place.
Mr Yeo, it is the vendor's prerogative to offer a price and the buyer's responsibility to do the shopping. That's called "due diligence". The vendor gave in to you even though you had no legal claim, and for that Singapore GP gets a thumbs up from me. On the other hand, Mr Yeo has proven that early birds are indeed what they say they are. What do early birds say, Mr Yeo? ... Yes, that's what I thought.
Henry asks how to "get rid of leftover food daily" without them;
Michael will miss them when he is "chucking... rubbish";
and Mr Wang is not concerned about the lack of biodegradability because we incinerate our garbage instead of bury it.
Which part of "waste management" do these people not understand?
Amy: encouraging public transport over private reduces our society's overall carbon footprint. No point conserving in one place only to make waste elsewhere.
Henry: cook less food daily and reduce your leftover problem. Eat everything, waste less.
Michael: reduce consumption, chuck less rubbish.
Mr Wang: it is SO much better to breathe in incinerated plastic toxins right now than wait for it to biodegrade over hundreds of years, isn't it?
About the incident of the cat being set on fire over it's own waste management practices:
Mr Lee wants to know why the cat's owner allowed it to poop at a place where it was tempting for the perp to flame the feline literally.
Um, I have no answer to the question as cat owners should keep a sandbox at home for the cat's use. But, Mr Lee, where's your sense of proportion? Just because cat poops on the guy's doorstep does not give him licence to turn fluffy into a flambe, as hilariously as that might be portrayed in a funny movie. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Finally, representing the dregs that have leaked out of the barrel and is currently staining the floor is Mr Yeo, who jumped at an early-bird discount on F1 tix and is now screaming blue murder because he found out that there were other avenues that offered an even better price on the same tix. He is not asking for redress -- he actually shrilled his way into cancelling his initial purchase in order to make a new purchase at the lower price. His complaint is that the organizers should have been "transparent" about which was the best offer in the first place.
Mr Yeo, it is the vendor's prerogative to offer a price and the buyer's responsibility to do the shopping. That's called "due diligence". The vendor gave in to you even though you had no legal claim, and for that Singapore GP gets a thumbs up from me. On the other hand, Mr Yeo has proven that early birds are indeed what they say they are. What do early birds say, Mr Yeo? ... Yes, that's what I thought.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Fluffy handful
On our way to lunch, Elim and I found this little fella casually lounging on a step just outside the college side-gate. As she and I both already have a menagerie at home, we had to be hard-hearted and say 'no' to a new addition to our respective families. Fortunately, this furball looked cute and knew how to flirt with passers-by. A bunch of our kids had gathered around and a few were discussing their adoption options out loud. Hope he (or she?) finds a good home with one of them.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Making 'Impressions': the countdown begins
The kids are now rehearsing in costume and the set has also arrived. It's between two to three weeks to curtain and though the show is still a little slow in coming together for my liking, the progress has been concrete. The props and costumes teams have done their work amazingly quickly, the publicity team has delivered the promo banner and tickets are ready for sale. In situ rehearsal went reasonably well today, backstage focused and on task, though they were taking a while to get oriented to the performance space.
It's good to know that at this point we only need concern ourselves with fine tuning. We are far from being ready, however -- the second play in our double-bill still has quite some work to go yet. We're still facing many more late nights, but I believe they're going to be productive instead of the usual hair-tearing experiences of previous years. And now... a few rehearsal stills:
It's good to know that at this point we only need concern ourselves with fine tuning. We are far from being ready, however -- the second play in our double-bill still has quite some work to go yet. We're still facing many more late nights, but I believe they're going to be productive instead of the usual hair-tearing experiences of previous years. And now... a few rehearsal stills:
I don't know why, but the name 'Spike' comes to mind
Sometimes, I worry about the boy
It's not a fix. It's a prescription.
*sings "With a hand on my chest, what have I here?"
Ooh... intense.
Cure for insomnia
Here's a first: falling asleep seated upright on my office chair at my study desk... overnight.
Welcome to Term 2, when the co-curricula work of producing theatre in the evening coincides with the regular curriculum in the morning. At this time of year, both staff and kids -- given any surface at the appropriate height -- would rest their heads, shut eyes, gape jaw, loll tongue and drip a puddle on the laminate.
Thank God I love my job. *slouches off to fetch mop.
Welcome to Term 2, when the co-curricula work of producing theatre in the evening coincides with the regular curriculum in the morning. At this time of year, both staff and kids -- given any surface at the appropriate height -- would rest their heads, shut eyes, gape jaw, loll tongue and drip a puddle on the laminate.
Thank God I love my job. *slouches off to fetch mop.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Snail hunter
Instead of uprooting trees, as we usually do every year as part of our collaboration with NParks helping to maintain our natural reserves, this year it's snails. Too many, and non-native to our local environment, they've become a pest and we have to [I don't really want to know what their eventual fate is] but our job was to remove them from their unnatural habitat by collecting as many of them as our buckets would hold before dumping them into a black trash bag... and then who knows what after that?
I was initially reluctant to go snail-picking on the principle that I don't harm animals, but the apple snail website even tells us that they shouldn't have been released back into the wild in the first place. Inert and innocuous as they look, they are still clogging up the waterways and generally messing up the existing ecosystem as they have no natural predators to keep their numbers viable.
#asgoodanexcuseasitgets
Monday, April 16, 2012
Thoughts ascending
Overheard conversation this morning...
J and M are discussing how the kids seem to stratify into higher level critical thinkers, mid-level thinkers, and an unfortunate bottom few for whom higher-order thinking seems to fly far above their heads. Then out of the blue, the following improvised dialogue emerges:
J: Me hungry.
M: That's the lizard brain functioning.
J: Me want eat meat!
M: That's the brain starting to make rudimentary decisions.
J: Meat taste good!
M: Now the brain is making value judgments.
J: Me think me have headache!
M: Ah, now you're thinking about thinking. Your brain is becoming metacognitive.
J: That just blows my mind!
M: And now you're able to appreciate aesthetics and abstractions.
J and M dissolve into laughing fits at that point (yes, GP tutors have a very strange sense of humour), but I'd like to add the next line to the conversation, just to round things out:
J: Wow! Wait till I tell mommy!
M: And now you're finally living outside of yourself! Sharing information is probably the highest level thinking ability of all.
So, is it true that each of us maxes out at a particular intellectual potential, or are all of us capable of thinking more than a penny's worth of thoughts?
J and M are discussing how the kids seem to stratify into higher level critical thinkers, mid-level thinkers, and an unfortunate bottom few for whom higher-order thinking seems to fly far above their heads. Then out of the blue, the following improvised dialogue emerges:
J: Me hungry.
M: That's the lizard brain functioning.
J: Me want eat meat!
M: That's the brain starting to make rudimentary decisions.
J: Meat taste good!
M: Now the brain is making value judgments.
J: Me think me have headache!
M: Ah, now you're thinking about thinking. Your brain is becoming metacognitive.
J: That just blows my mind!
M: And now you're able to appreciate aesthetics and abstractions.
J and M dissolve into laughing fits at that point (yes, GP tutors have a very strange sense of humour), but I'd like to add the next line to the conversation, just to round things out:
J: Wow! Wait till I tell mommy!
M: And now you're finally living outside of yourself! Sharing information is probably the highest level thinking ability of all.
So, is it true that each of us maxes out at a particular intellectual potential, or are all of us capable of thinking more than a penny's worth of thoughts?
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Just what the chef ordered
New fave eating place for Japanese: Senki. Have heard of places where the thing to do is sit at the bar, shut up and let the chef serve whatever he feels like serving, and finally got to experience what that kind of service is like.
First to arrive was a sashimi platter featuring the usual salmon, tuna, yellowtail, swordfish and sweet shrimp, and also a hunk of salmon belly, fresh as anything. Then the dishes kept coming in: baby tako; agadeshi tofu; deep fried mackerel and a salmon cheek (gotta love the fish oil flavours these give off); a plate of dragon maki (house specialty made with mango, avacado and crispy prawns); shrimp and sweet potato tempura; tuna belly sushi lightly fried in oil (awesome!); bean sprouts fried in garlic; mango salad on the side. Sake we turned down, opting for green tea which I was really grateful for as it was the perfect counter to all the richness of the food.
I believe that was it, but shared among only three -- we had lunch company -- it took quite some effort to finish everything placed in front of us. So. much. good. stuff. Lunch company was a bit formal, hence the lack of pictures which would have brightened up this entry gorgeously. You'll just have to take my word for it.
Cost? Since lunch company paid, I assume we went with the buffet... though he said the chef reserves the best stuff for regular customers like himself.
First to arrive was a sashimi platter featuring the usual salmon, tuna, yellowtail, swordfish and sweet shrimp, and also a hunk of salmon belly, fresh as anything. Then the dishes kept coming in: baby tako; agadeshi tofu; deep fried mackerel and a salmon cheek (gotta love the fish oil flavours these give off); a plate of dragon maki (house specialty made with mango, avacado and crispy prawns); shrimp and sweet potato tempura; tuna belly sushi lightly fried in oil (awesome!); bean sprouts fried in garlic; mango salad on the side. Sake we turned down, opting for green tea which I was really grateful for as it was the perfect counter to all the richness of the food.
I believe that was it, but shared among only three -- we had lunch company -- it took quite some effort to finish everything placed in front of us. So. much. good. stuff. Lunch company was a bit formal, hence the lack of pictures which would have brightened up this entry gorgeously. You'll just have to take my word for it.
Cost? Since lunch company paid, I assume we went with the buffet... though he said the chef reserves the best stuff for regular customers like himself.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Oh, that special feeling
I wonder if Elgar Lee who wants his citizenship to "feel special" remembers what it really feels like to be at home?
Nobody "feels special" when they're at home. Parents yell at each other and at the kids. Elder siblings yell at younger siblings, then lock themselves up in their rooms to feel unloved and unwanted. Small children are always getting underfoot, grandparents always getting in the way. Home is where the chores are, where we wash our dishes and underwear alike, sometimes in the same sink. How glam is that? We pick up after ourselves if we want a clean, orderly environment to live in. At home we dress down, slouch, burp and f*rt in front of the TV (and each other). That's home: the one place in the world where we can be ourselves and NOT have to be special though the rest of the world demands it from us.
It's home because despite our differences, family is still family. We can fight each other all the time, but whomever else threatens one of us threatens all of us. It's home because without that piece of land or concrete or dirt to stand on, we have nothing else and we have nowhere else to go. In no way does the land need to be special, nor do we have to be special to stand on it. Like it or not, it just happens to be ours. Does Mr Lee have anywhere else to call home? No? Then home is here. How special does he feel now?
If Mr Lee takes issue with having to defend his home, then who else is going to defend it for him? It is sometimes said that because of National Service our boys feel like second-class citizens. O persons of impaired judgement! Only first-class citizens will defend their home because they have something to defend. Second-class citizens either have somewhere else to call "home", or defence doesn't matter to them one way or another because they have no home to begin with.
At home, traditionally, the only ones who should feel special are our visitors. Because they DON'T belong, we treat them with extra care to make them feel welcome. We pay special attention to their comfort, to see to their needs, and defer our needs to suit their convenience. We do what we can to make them leave with a good impression of us. That's basic hospitality, and it's especially important to be hospitable with friends, neighbours and even strangers, when we know we won't last long in a tough neighbourhood without their goodwill. And even if this wasn't the case, it's still how well-bred people treat one another.
But S'pore has come such a long way that we might just have forgotten the realities of home. We feel special now that we have a maid to boss around and do all the things we are supposed to be doing for ourselves at home. We feel special when we have someone at home calling us "Sir" or "Mam", and we can just put our feet on the coffee table and enjoy instant-home, where everything we need or want appears like magic (though we hardly give a toss about the human cost behind the magic). We feel special when our parents put us precious little darlings on a pedestal because theydon't know how to keep us quiet otherwise love us so much.
We know we've had it too good for too long when we want to "feel special" in our own home.
Nobody "feels special" when they're at home. Parents yell at each other and at the kids. Elder siblings yell at younger siblings, then lock themselves up in their rooms to feel unloved and unwanted. Small children are always getting underfoot, grandparents always getting in the way. Home is where the chores are, where we wash our dishes and underwear alike, sometimes in the same sink. How glam is that? We pick up after ourselves if we want a clean, orderly environment to live in. At home we dress down, slouch, burp and f*rt in front of the TV (and each other). That's home: the one place in the world where we can be ourselves and NOT have to be special though the rest of the world demands it from us.
It's home because despite our differences, family is still family. We can fight each other all the time, but whomever else threatens one of us threatens all of us. It's home because without that piece of land or concrete or dirt to stand on, we have nothing else and we have nowhere else to go. In no way does the land need to be special, nor do we have to be special to stand on it. Like it or not, it just happens to be ours. Does Mr Lee have anywhere else to call home? No? Then home is here. How special does he feel now?
If Mr Lee takes issue with having to defend his home, then who else is going to defend it for him? It is sometimes said that because of National Service our boys feel like second-class citizens. O persons of impaired judgement! Only first-class citizens will defend their home because they have something to defend. Second-class citizens either have somewhere else to call "home", or defence doesn't matter to them one way or another because they have no home to begin with.
At home, traditionally, the only ones who should feel special are our visitors. Because they DON'T belong, we treat them with extra care to make them feel welcome. We pay special attention to their comfort, to see to their needs, and defer our needs to suit their convenience. We do what we can to make them leave with a good impression of us. That's basic hospitality, and it's especially important to be hospitable with friends, neighbours and even strangers, when we know we won't last long in a tough neighbourhood without their goodwill. And even if this wasn't the case, it's still how well-bred people treat one another.
But S'pore has come such a long way that we might just have forgotten the realities of home. We feel special now that we have a maid to boss around and do all the things we are supposed to be doing for ourselves at home. We feel special when we have someone at home calling us "Sir" or "Mam", and we can just put our feet on the coffee table and enjoy instant-home, where everything we need or want appears like magic (though we hardly give a toss about the human cost behind the magic). We feel special when our parents put us precious little darlings on a pedestal because they
We know we've had it too good for too long when we want to "feel special" in our own home.
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