Having Fun...

so V was sitting on J, as girls do... then i commented to KO and R that when girls do it, it's perfectly acceptable. but if guys do it, then you will have to wonder whether the guy being sat on is hard at play.

at which point, KO started singing, "You raise me up..."

Civil Society

i think that the recent Highnotes Minibonds debacle has demonstrated that Singaporeans do have the ability to spontaneously organise themselves for a cause that they care passionately about. just that this cause has nothing to do with freedom of speech, freedom of expression, human rights, etc.

this however, doesn't mean that civil society in Singapore is dead. it just reflects the priorities of the people, that Singaporeans, in general, is very pragmatic. i think the government would do well to recognise 2 things:

1. safeguard our livelihoods. ensure that people's wealth is well taken care off.
2. if not, Singaporeans can very quickly organise themselves to show their displeasure and take action.

Horror...

just watched this show on Okto's Sunday FilmArt called Pulau Hantu. i must admit... that the did give me the creeps. but i put it down mainly to the music and a few eerie scenes. other than that... the show was rubbish. theme was shallow, acting was bad, no character development. it's a far cry from the great horror shows of the Far East. i think that Japanese, Korea, Thai have a warped and perverse talent for shocking, scaring and traumatizing audiences with their film creations.

i think what makes their shows so successful is that these shows leave most things up to your own imagination. so you don't really see the thing that is supposed to scare you. and the most frightening things are usually just at the periphery of your senses and yet suggesting the most horrible terrors, such that as you strain to see/hear them, you actually end up forming scenes of your own and hence scaring yourself.

all these are taken to a whole new level because very often these shows very often make use of everyday objects, places, throw in masterfully chosen camera angles, mix it up with simple yet eerie sound effects, and what you get is a show that really toys with your mind. of course, there must be the mandatory little 'boo' effects (i.e. things dropping suddenly, abrupt changes of camera angles just to reveal freaky things combined with sudden loud music following relatively softer sound effects). and the worst part of these shows are that they leave a very deep impression in your mind (because you were the one who formed most of the scariest images).

Lowering Standards

in Singapore, teachers who are university graduates have to do a post-graduate diploma in education. the course name is very often shortened to "post-grad dip in education". and that's what the course is. after you come out of a degree course, for you to teach, you must lower your own standards. or more correctly, be able to bring yourself to the level of your target audience, i.e. the students. most of the time, this does indeed mean having to bring yourself down to their level.

this is not because the students are not intelligent. but more because students lack the training and experience to analyse problems in the context of the academic subjects. a teacher therefore has to be able to explain concepts in ideas which the students are able to relate to and therefore find easier to comprehend. unfortunately, there are teachers who teach as if they expect the students to be just like them, which more often than not means that teachers expect students to be studious and bookish and able to grasp abstract concepts quickly.

but that is not the case. especially with primary school children. which is why i think that demanding that all primary school teachers be graduates might not necessarily translate to a rise in education standards. i might be clever. i might know my stuff very well. but that might make me a horrible teacher because it is and has always been easy for me to do well academically. which therefore means that i might not be able to simplify concepts and to explain ideas in a manner that the students understand.

i'm sure you know what i mean. you must have had a teacher who, when you ask him/her a question, looks at you and says "aiyoh... liddat so easy you also don't know ah?" then rattles off at the speed of light. and at the end, you walk away learning nothing and perhaps even feeling a little discouraged.

it might make sense to have graduate teachers perhaps at a higher level, tertiary, JC or maybe even when dealing with high ability secondary school students. but for the majority of students, they need teachers who are amongst other things, patient, able to use various strategies and strict yet approachable. not all graduates have that. and many non-graduates have those qualities as well as sufficient academic knowledge and experience to teach at the primary school. what's more, many non-graduates are better placed, because of their personality, to shape the minds and behaviour of primary school children.

what determines whether a person would make a good teacher is not what degree he/she has from which university/institution. rather, it is his/her attitude, personality and ability to simplify to use different methods and most importantly, to relate, intellectually and emotionally, to the students under his/her charge.

Free Speech?

to the proponents of free speech. take a look at Thailand. that's what freedom of speech without due responsibility brings you. it makes a complete mockery of the idea of a democratically elected government and utterly disrupts economic development, leaving the poor to continue languishing in poverty.

no... i'm not saying that we shouldn't have freedom of speech and expression. but take it to its extreme and it becames a farce.

Dumb and Dumber

i was looking at some of my older entries. i.e. those written before i started work proper. i seemed to have a greater depth of analysis on a broader range of topics. it seems that i have lost much ground recently. i put it down to my having less time to sit down and ruminate about things, to hold flitting thoughts, delve deeper and expand on those ideas.

in short, because of a more packed life, i think i have less time to reflect about many of the issues that bubble up but i do not give priority to.

either that or i have become dumber.

Misplaced Trust

the current financial crisis is known, in Chinese as 信贷危机, which literally translates as: crisis of trustworthy debt. which i think sums up the cause of the mess we are in rather neatly.

we trusted the bank executives, the fat cats of Wall Street, to know what they were doing. they trusted the people they lent money to, trusting that doing so will make money for their organisations. and on that trust, we bought shares. on that trust, they paid themselves handsome salaries. alas... it has now turned out that all that trust were ill-placed.

on hindsight, it seems obvious that the banks shouldn't have made lent so much to people who clearly did not have the ability to service their loans. but at that moment, when the prospect of making money existed, which fat cat executive would turn away?

the one thing which i think we all feel strongly against is the fact that these executives who are responsible for the crisis have made insane amounts of money and yet most probably are not going to suffer any form of reprisals. instead, it is the middle income group, the ordinary citizens, the 小市民, who have to bear the burden of this error in judgement.

where in is the justice?

this is one of the problems of our economic system. money can be made, wealth can be built, not by hardwork, not by really being productive, but by being cunning, being devious, being able to fiddle with numbers. while there has and will always exist a class of looters, our modern economic system allows these looters to operate completely within the boundaries of the law and hence making them legally irreproachable. yet these are the people are said to be working smart and thus are held up as models who many a young college student aspire to be. in light of this... is our world enroute to becoming the dystopia that Rand described in Atlas Shrugged?