Crash

is quite a good show. good social commentary, interesting insight into human behaviour, great exposition on the stereotypes that people have. the shots were well composed too. though there were some scenes which were too... in-your-face.

all said, it's one of those shows that left me feeling emotionally drained. and i am already very emotionally drained as it is. so... the following week is going to be a tough week.

well... when the going gets tough... you grit your teeth and hit back with all your might.

Shall we dance?

i remember the last winter i experienced. there was one particular day when it snowed really heavily. the whole place was covered by a blanket of soft white snow.

i remember looking out of my window, mesmerized by the drifting snowflakes. they were like little fairies caught in an enigmatic ballet, twirling and swirling, prancing, skipping and pirouetting, dancing to some unheard symphony, following some divine rythm.

it was 2002. i was in London.

Newton's First Law

states that an object in at rest will remain at rest until a force acts on it and similarly, an object in motion will maintain that state of motion until a force acts on it.

this is also known as inertia. it is a property of mass.

however, i have come to realise that inertia does not only apply to mass. it applies to a lot of human lives in general: the inertia to change our lives for the better because we are too used to this life, which, though might not be very good, is familiar and hence we are unwilling to take the chance of changing it for fear that the change might make it worse. so we stagnate, we consign ourselves to mediocrity for the sake of being safe, until some big enough force sends our lives sprawling out of control, into an erractic trajectory that then compels us to find new bearings.

sigh.

Take the Lead

you know all these leadership conventions and camps that we have... i wonder whether it really works, whether it really develops leadership.

some of these conventions are chalk full of talks by 'inspirational' speakers, trying to make the participants feel that they have to do something. i suppose there is indeed a need for some ways to convince these young potential 'leaders' that they need to do something for the good of society, change the world for the better, creating a brighter tomorrow, etc etc. but leadership is beyond just plenary sessions, discussions and making your point heard.

leadership is about... manifesting the traits in Kipling's "If". it is about inspiring others to manifest those traits. it is about having the abilities and characteristics to make real a vision of a better, brighter future regardless of whatever shit life throws at one. it is about having the common touch and humility. how many of our young 'leaders' have the sort of common touch and humility though?

therefore, if anything, any leadership camp/conference/etc ought to build character, resilience and fortitude through 'tough love'. subject the participants to emotional, physical and mental stress to the point that their spirits are about to break. but you don't let them break. you hold them at the brink and keep them there, slowly pushing their breaking point back, bit by bit. until at the end of it, they come out stronger.

it would be difficult though. i wonder whether any schools dare to do something like that.

Of Fingers and Fabric

the rule about hemline for JC students (most JC's anyways) is that it should not be more than 4 fingers above the knee. so... the length of the skirts of some students could imply one (or more) of the following:

1. our students have very fat fingers. cos by my fingers, they would be many hands above the knee.
2. fabric is very expensive. so enterprising students have cut off bits of thei skirts and sold the fabric for a tidy profit.
3. students are stupid and cannot understand simple instructions/rules
4. students are openly defiant, can't even follow simple rules, which says a lot of their lack of character and discipline. it also does not bode well for their future.

Tofu

i think our children these days are soft as tofu. and their egos are as huge as they are soft.

a friend of mine did this camp for a group of student volunteers working on a programme. he has been working with them for some time already and the camp was meant to be a team-building cum planning event. as part of the teambuilding, he arranged a dragonboating session.

as they rowed, they met some adverse weather conditions. there was a huge wave. that means that if the rowers were not careful, they might be sucked into the water. the water has jelly fishes, which pose another problem. so my friend asked them to raise their paddles. twice. but they didn't. they were still fooling around, joking, laughing, etc. so he lost his temper and shouted, using some very strong language. because of that, the students got pissed off with him. and despite him explaining his actions and even apologising, they continued to sulk and are refusing to talk to him.

how stupid are these students?! unfortunately, a good portion of our students today are like that. they think that they are always right, that no one has the right to criticise and scold them. and if anyone scolds them, that person is a bad person who ought be punished. our students expect us to talk nicely to them, to speak softly to them, to mollycoodle them. throw a vulgarity at them and they get offended, crumble and break down. they take the comforts and privileges that they have as their God-given right, that things would be done magically for them without them lifting a single finger.

but life is not going to mollycoodle them. life is not going to speak softly to them. life is going to show them their idiocy in the most direct way possible. true, life is not going to hurl vulgarities but life is going to throw tragedies in their faces and sneer when they are felled by the burden of failure, writhing in pain and humiliation.

and we are not helping our students prepare for that moment when they have to bear the burden of responsibility for their own lives by themselves. our being soft on them just condemns them to a weakness of character which would damn them to be failures.

this tofu generation needs toughening up. they need us to break them, to push them into ditches and learn for themselves how to claw back up rather than wait for someone to pull them out.

Superman Returns

watched Superman Returns at the IMAX. the IMAX experience was pretty good.

few things that i noticed:

1. in the scene when Superman returned and where there was an earthquake. and the scrabbleboard had the word 'alienation'. a reference to the state that Kal-El finds himself in?
2. Jor-El tells Superman that 'it is this capacity for good that I give them you, my only son'. biblical reference? so now Superman is Christ? or perhaps an allusion that Christ is a Superman of sorts?
3. Perry asked whether Superman still stood for 'truth, justice and... all the good stuff" rather than whether Superman still stood for 'truth, justice and the American way'. a recognition that international sentiments about America isn't all that good?
4. of all the many cries for help, of the many disasters, which one does Superman respond to? a bank robbery. just goes to show that he is capitalist. of course one might argue that he managed to slot the bank robbery between saving drowning children in the third world, rescuing refugees, stopping wars, etc etc. but... even for Superman, i'm sure there are still endless things for him to do than stop a bloody bank robbery. so that makes one wonder, how does he decide what to do? only conclusion, he's a capitalist, more concerned about the wealth of the rich than the well-being of the downtrodden.
5. (spoiler warning) when Superman fell back down to Earth after throwing the chunk of rock into space, he had a very 'Christ-on-cross' posture. but he did not really die. he rose again. perhaps another analogy with Christ?

one thing that Superman did in the show that i am not capable of (at least for now): (spoiler warning) at the end of the show, he let go of his relationship with Lois and walked (or rather, flew) away . and with such equanimity too. all because, even though he knows that Lois still loves him, she is married to Richard and the moral thing to do was to let her get on with her life with Richard.

sigh.

Speaky no Engrish...

so the Speak Good Campaign is about to be kicked off.

and to demonstrate the success of the current efforts to get people to speak 'good English', Mediacorp interviewed a secondary school student, who dutifully said, "Yar, now I know the importance of speaking good English, like now I say 'how you doin' and 'whassup' instead of like 'relak la'."

erm... so that Americanised, Black hiphop slang talk is good English but Singlish is not? how come? why are we still denying our right to create our own culture while validating other people's right to do so? is it because we are ashamed of ourselves? is it an expression of our subconscious insecurities that we pander to bigger nations/stronger cultures?

The end is neigh

so the Chinese Listening Comprehension was broadcasted over 92.4. before the broadcast for the listening comprehension, some 'soothing' music was played over the station. the invigilators were supposed to use the music to tune the volume so that all the candidates were comfortable with the volume. and once that was done, the radio was left on till the exam.

while waiting, in between pieces of soothing music, the DJ was trying his best to calm the students down. he kept telling the students that if the exam will start soon and that if they have an impending sense of doom, they really shouldn't.

what an idiot.

i'm sure the students weren't thinking about impending doom until the stupid DJ mentioned it. fortunately, quite a few students were sleeping (they had to be roused, some rather violently, from their slumber about 5 minutes before the exam, so as to ensure that they were 'fresh' and 'alert'. i had a good mind not to... i mean... they are 17 year old's! they should be responsible for such things.) and hence did not hear anything about impending doom.

i think the lesson that we can learn from this is that, very often, one has good intentions. but if the execution is flawed, the results can turn out to be more harmful than good.

Fishing in Troubled Waters

there was another story that i heard on 92.4 today. again in Mandarin. here's the (roughly) translated version:

boy goes fishing. sees old man fishing in the most turbulent part of the river. boy thinks old man has few nuts loose cos boy thinks no fish would go to where waters turbulent. boy can't take it anymore, go ask old man. old man smiled, poured out big fishes which he has caught and dishes out ancient wisdom. old man he say, "small fish can survive with not much oxygen. but the strongest of them come to turbulent waters where the turbulence aerates the water. so they get more oxygen, get bigger."

i think that this is analogous to life. only the strong can take the challenge of chaos, of tumult, of pandemonium, of troubled times. only the strong can survive in the most trying of circumstances. and these obstacles, these challenges give them the added nourishment they need to grow even stronger, even fitter.

but the analogy breaks down (as most analogies do). going by the logic of the old man, the big fishes would die in calm waters, since they won't have enough oxygen. but strong and fit people would not die in calm, orderly times. on the contrary, they would do extremely well. they would dominate the weaker people around them, chew them up, spit them out. but if these stronger people continue to languish in calm and order, they revert to being soft and weak.

in other words, the biggest fishes in human society, while capable of domination, has to continue to seek challenges so as to remain strong. and if one does not want to be dominated, one should challenge oneself, revelling in overcoming obstacles so that one eventually becomes stronger.

Acrobatic Act

for those of you who, for one reason or another, were listening to 92.4 today at 3pm, you would have heard a story which was originally in Mandarin. i now, very roughly, translate it:

at the end of this circus show, the ringmaster said that the acrobat, to thank the audience for their support, will do one last super high difficulty stunt. and so he flipped and twirled in the air, but missed the trapeze. fortunately for him, he had a safety net, so he didn't get smashed into little bits and pieces. he picked himself up and told the audience that he would try again. the audience cheered him on. the second time round, he twirled and spun, flipped and somersaulted and he managed to grab the trapeze. the audience roared with approval.

now it turned out that the acrobat planned to fail in the first attempt. the protaganist, who was one of the people in the audience, said that not only did he not feel cheated by this, he felt that it reflected life. because it is analagous to how failure is the mother of success in life. how a previous failure makes a present success all the sweeter.

i don't know about you. but the cynic in me see it in a completely different wayi see it this way: if you have failed before, people's expectations of you are lower. and so when you have a minor success, people celebrate it more. so it is about managing expectations. if anything, the story of the acrobat tells us that we should keep a low profile (i.e. plan to fail), so that when it really matters, we can succeed and our success would seem extremely spectacular.

problem with this trick is that it probably would only work once. so one must learn to use it wisely, strike only at the opportune and most critical moment.

Star Gazing

so i brought a group of students to this Astronomy night thing organised in conjunction with the International Physics Olympiad. thing is, i know very little about astronomy. i wasn't able to tell them where each constellation was or where which star was. so i made it up as i went along. i told them what i could. i told them about astrophysics. gave them short explanations of how energy is generated from fusion, how the fusion process creates other elements and how we are thus the children of the stars, made from star dust. it was unfortuante that i couldn't add more value to the trip. however, they did manage to see some stars, using some of the more powerful telescopes that NUS people brought. they also managed to see Jupiter, with its 4 moons, using our own telescope.

the whole trip reminded me of the last time i was star gazing. i was in Peru, doing the Macchu Picchu trek. it was the last night of the trek, we were at this place called Puyapatramarcha, which translates as "The city at the edge of the clouds". it was at about 4000m above sea-level. the reason it was named thus was clear as the sun set. by about 5, the clouds were at our level, making everything misty. and when the sun has completely set, the clouds were way below us. the sky was full of stars, as if someone splashed them across the canvass of the night. the light from the stars and the moon gave the clouds a greyish silvery tone, making it look like a rolling, shimmering sea. there were occassional mountain peaks peeking above the clouds, like little islands.

it was cold. very cold. and quiet, except for the wind. and the skies, full of stars, seem to stretch on forever. i remember sitting by the entrance of my tent, staring up in awe, thinking of the enormity of the infinite space. i remember imagining us, a tiny speck, silently hurtling through the empty space. i remember feeling really small, insignificant.

it was one of the most beautiful experiences that i've had.

Birth

giant furnaces of light, bellowing into the oblivion of the endless night.

silent stellar explosions spew elemental debris into the infinite dark, drifting, amalgating, coagulating, accumulating carbon, helium, hydrogen, nitrogen, into planets, with wind, water, earth and the fire of LIFE.

from fatal and cataclysmic births, we sprung forth. we are the children of the stars.

Religion

Ladies and gentlemen, our Holy Spirit is Absolut.

Taking a Break from SPA

where SPA stands for School-based Practical Assessment. it is very exhausting squinting at little crosses drawn on grids of tiny squares, trying to ascertain whether the points have been plotted correctly. and it's even more tiring considering that is done after making sure that the numbers have been correctly computed. grr...

apparently, some students from the JC that i teach in has stumbled on my blog. i wonder whether more students will consequently find out about this blog.

well.. if you are a student in JJC and reading about my blog... i'm sure you have much better things to do... like STUDY!!! or get a life. or something.

i got my dongle today. the first time i heard of a dongle, i thought it was a reference to some really sensitive part of the human anatomy... probably something to do with the genitals. i mean... you can't blame me... dongle is but one letter away from dangle. and what else dangles? grapes? bananas? see what i mean?

but no. it's not. it's basically something like a key for computers. if you want to know more about dongles, click here. sometimes, this dongle things is also known as a token.

i love wikipedia. i think i've already said that before in my one of my previous posts. but heck. no one would trawl through all of my previous entries. except perhaps...

anyways. back to wikipedia. it's a wonderfully accessible repository of information. and it's free! and being the good Singaporean, i wonder how much it costs to keep Wikipedia running, who's picking up the tab and why would this person be so kind?

well... back to SPA. what i really need now is a trip to a good spa... :(

Making something out of Nothing

i received a call yesterday. person at the end of the line asked, "Are you Rencheng... or something?"

well... i'm both really... or neither.

in other news, i've been made one of the teachers in charge of the Students' Council of the school. and they just had their stepping down of the 25th and investiture of the 26th Council. i was affected by the stepping down, especially at the part when they were asked to remove their council badges. yar... i know... i'm a sucker for such things...

well... we'll see how it goes... should be interesting.

also... i've had many people ask me about my birthday. mainly students asking on behalf of other students. but that's not the funniest. the funniest was when one of my colleagues (he's a Senior Teacher, i.e. very experienced, wizened man...) asked me my birthday on behalf of one of his students! apparently, the student SMSed him to request that he ask me when my birthday is. very disturbing...

Crash II

Brazil lost too...

:(

so both of the teams that i support have lost...

but on the bright side, that means that i get more sleep...

What do I make?

conversation with friend reminded me of this from Thomas Friedman's speech that he gave in 2005:
The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued this way. 'What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher? You know, it's true what they say about teachers: 'Those who can do, do; those who can't do, teach.' To corroborate his statement he said to another guest, 'Hey, Susan, you're a teacher. Be honest, what do you make?'

"Susan, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness, replied, 'You want to know what I make? I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could and I can make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence. I can make a C-plus feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor and an A feel like a slap in the face if the student didn't do his or her very best.' Susan continued, 'I can make parents tremble when I call home or feel almost like they won the lottery when I tell them how well their child is progressing.'

Gaining speed, she went on: 'You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder, I make them question, I make them criticize, I make them apologize and mean it, I make them write and I make them read, read, read. I make them show all their work in math and hide it all on their final drafts in English.' Susan then stopped and cleared her throat. 'I make them understand that if you have the brains, then follow your heart. And if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make in money, you pay them no attention.'

Susan then paused. 'You want to know what I make?' she said. 'I make a difference. What about you?'"

Crash

England has crashed out of the World Cup.

stupid boy that is Wayne Rooney got himself sent off for pushing Christiano Ronaldo.

funny thing is that England played really well after that. despite having only 10 men, they had very good chances of scoring. alas, they just could not score. they did a good job denying the Portugese. match then went on to extra time, where England did a marvellous job defending.

so penalty it was. and Lampard still did not manage to score. neither did any of the English players except for Hargreaves. so when Christiano Ronaldo scored, it was all over for Eriksson, Beckham and England.

how sad... now i wonder how Brazil will do... another hour to go till kick off for that match...