Another weekend to come and go...

I was called back to school this morning to conduct a remedial class in comprehension, and when I got there, I was told by my HOD that I am to observe a more senior teacher teach first before handling next saturday's session. That other teacher actually wanted me to teach instead because she always had confidence in my language teaching skills, having supervised me for a term. So anyway, I was sitting there for more than an hour in the room, wondering why the hell I need to be there.

The week came and went by in a flash. The last few days, I was so busy attending meetings etc after lessons that there was no time at all to settle down and get down to the 'important' task of planning lessons for next week. Really, providing good lessons is really down at the bottom of the to-do list of most teachers, what with all the silly paperwork one has to cope with. So I must use my weekend to plan something out, and the thought troubles me so much that I feel like skipping my badminton training and not turn up for a wedding dinner that I already promised to attend.

Also, there is much dissonance between the teaching style that NIE/PESS advocates and what school management wants out of PE teachers. I buy into the lecture-correct style of discipline but the school obviously prefer the disciplinarian approach. My VP said that during my lesson observation teaching wushu to the class lined up in rows, the non-participation of the kids behind could result in accidents and injuries and may lead to investigations if that happens, no joke. I'm so convinced they will start bashing each other on the head if they don't do their horse-stance diligently with me.


Just to end off on a positive note - on Friday I followed the normal technical group that went for this 'junior chef' enrichment course, and saw them in action baking pastries of all sorts. It was really refreshing to see them all engaging in something enthusiastically for once, and I wish I can make this happen in my English class. One of the girls wanted me to help her knead balls of grated coconut, and I could only produce a ball by the time she's done with everything; nice to see that they are able to teach me for a change. Don't take it the wrong way, but I felt so much love for the kids at that moment, seeing them so happy.

Now, when can I start planning wonderful activities such as these...

At least die playing!

Read this!

Brits 'dying not to do exercise'

Lack of exercise increases the risk of heart disease and cancer

Most UK adults are so unwilling to exercise that not even the threat of an early death is enough to get them off the sofa, a survey suggests.

Only 38% of people questioned by YouGov said they would do more exercise if their life depended on it.

And British Heart Foundation figures show only a third of people manage to do enough exercise to achieve the minimum recommended amount.

Experts warned inactivity is dangerous even in those who are a healthy weight.

Among the 2,100 people surveyed, brisk walking was found to be the favourite way of getting exercise - before dancing, swimming or going to the gym.

Physical activity and obesity are two different risk factors so even if you're lean, if you're inactive you increase your risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease Dr David Haslam, National Obesity Forum

However, only 4% said they found exercise fun.

A greater inspiration was exercising to change body shape, particularly among women and young adults.

Almost a third of 18 to 24-year-olds reported they would do more exercise if they saw an unflattering photo of themselves or were told they looked fat.

Other less predictable forms of motivation to work out included fancying someone at the gym.

But only 13% of men and 7% of women said keeping a healthy heart was their main motivator.

Excuses for not exercising were found to be always close at hand - from not having enough time to the one in seven who blame bad weather for not doing enough physical activity.

Deadly serious

The British Heart Foundation, which is launching a campaign to encourage people to up their heart rate for 30 minutes a day, says that someone dies every 15 minutes as a direct result of physical inactivity.

Dr Mike Knapton, director of prevention and care at the BHF, said it was a "deadly serious" problem.

"With our busy lifestyles and labour-saving devices we've stopped getting the exercise our bodies desperately need.

"For many people, exercise has become an ugly word, something to avoid at all costs - but you'd be amazed how easy it is to up the tempo of your heartbeat.

"Just 30 minutes a day will do you and your heart the world of good."

The government recommends a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity five times a week.

Dr David Haslam, clinical director of the National Obesity Forum, said it made for depressing reading but confirmed what had been shown in clinical trials, where even those who had a heart attack did not change their lifestyles.

"Children instinctively exercise when left to their own devices, but they don't because they're stopped from doing that by the school curriculum and parents scared of child abductors and murderers lurking on every corner.

"So, if it doesn't become a habit, you're not going to work hard to go against the tide and introduce it as an adult."

He added that exercise could be incorporated into everyday life.

"Physical activity and obesity are two different risk factors, so even if you're lean, if you're inactive you increase your risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease," he said.

Know most of the readers here are active people like myself, do keep it up! Saying that you lack time for exercise is super lame. Think of it as buying time for the future, because sports can help you take less MCs, save you trips to the psychiatrist from stress-related reasons, prevent you from getting fractures easily, and can potentially save you from the dialysis machine or the operation table. Women get osteoporosis easily without exercise, and men beer bellies which have a direct causal link to cardiovascular diseases (think it indicates fat around organs).

Go out and have fun!

Responsible parenting

My day was quite spoilt early in the morning when I tried to get this kid to take out the numerous earsticks on his earlobe and the lip stud out, the little rascal refused to listen to me, wouldn't talk or listen, and just dodged me all the way till he managed to worm back into class. There's nothing I can do if I don't want to start manhandling him, so I had to let him go, and I felt very irritated by my powerlessness.

Later in the day, I went in to take charge of my 3NT classes, who are taking courses in image consultancy or animation. The notorious few sprout nonsense in response to questions, made noise, then finally arranged a few chairs and went to sleep when no one paid any attention to them.

Parents (and all you would-be parents) really should make sure that they have loads of time to properly nurture their child everyday before deciding to have kids. Day in and out I am appalled by the character of these youths without guidance, loud and empty vassals without much useful knowledge, clueless about their direction in life, really feeling shy and inferior but faking bravery and confidence with those stupid antics everyday. It is not their fault that they did not have the proper guidance to do the right things in life. Why did their parents neglect to school them properly in moral lessons? Why did they bring their kids into the world?

Right now, I don't see myself going to have a kid for the next 5 years, and if I stretch that to the next 10 years, I'm probably going to stay that way after marriage. It's not that I am afraid my future kids will turn out this way. I just don't see why kids should come into the picture after marriage, seemingly only to satisfy the demands of a primitive natural impulse.

Winding down

Things are going slow right now, a good respite from my normal hectic routine. It's not that there's no work, but that I have the leeway to slow down in churning out stuff right now. My 3NT classes have this week long enrichment modules so I don't have to plan lessons for them this week. Got to produce something for them to work on next week though, in addition to silly things like writing a useless report, planning the year end activity for Odac, and working on my work target setting exercise.

I just got the schooling schedule for next year, and that has me looking forward to future holidays even though 2008 haven't started ha. I'll be going Bangkok for a week or so in December, and the rest of the time will be spent locally doing work most probably. Adults need lots of money to do a few things and I have become pretty thrifty; big holidays is equated with lots of money spent too, and so I haven't been thinking about them for a long while.

Been busy going for canoe polo after work religiously these few weeks, even though it is just for to train the new batch of players. The pathetic bronze medal did managed to make me more motivated than ever to improve on my personal skills. It's good to have something to distract me from the stress of work.

Work life is so boring. My blog is growing boring too.

Moods

Coming back from the school break this week, you hear of me complaining about being mentally unprepared and tired. Actually, the prospect of meeting my sian English class also puts me off somewhat, especially when I have to think of English work for them every other day in advance.\

But I told myself to try be cheerful and go into class with a happy-go-lucky mood, and well, it worked wonders. I didn't feel so bad about things when students don't do work, students seem more inclined to do my work, and I could even stem mischievous behaviour somewhat with my cheerful demeanour when talking to certain students about their behaviour. Things does become more pleasant when you have a healthy attitude.

Anyway, I went back to that infamous class to collect worksheets from some of them near the end of the day, and saw the entire class all seated and incredibly quiet in my English HOD/Discipline master's EOA class. I timidly went in to ask for the worksheets, and asked one of them softly if a test was on; Nope, it was just a normal lesson for them like any other day. Sigh. No point wondering why they don't behave like this in the class - your status as perceived by students makes all the difference.

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On a unrelated note, I was very disappointed when 3 of my malay ODAC kids were caught for possession of cigarettes today. I had always thought that the malay students in my school are all pretty angelic in behaviour. Well, it's not that they are 'bad' after today, but it just disappoints me that they turn out to be somewhat immature in thought to engage in smoking.

The boy I interviewed told me that they picked it up quite long ago, and when I said they shouldn't be smoking when they haven't even started earning their own keep, he replied that he does work after school. Apparently his family don't give him allowance during the weekends and holidays.

Ok. My guess is that maybe he picked up smoking from seeing people smoke at work. And he work partly to support his habit, partly because his family cannot satisfactorily provide for him. And probably like many others, the work will inevitably have a negative effect on his studies, and the lack of good qualifications in the future will hamper his ability to obtain good employment. It all sounds like a vicious cycle; that's probably the scenario of a typical lower-income class family.

Post - competition

The national champs for canoe polo was just over yesterday, and I still can't stop thinking of it every hour. I think it is rather strange really, that people spend so much time, money, and effort on sports like these, playing for a mere medal piece with no monetary value whatsoever. But somehow, the piece of metal I have with me now stirs up strong emotions in me still.

My team prepared for the competition as per usual - frequent absentees suddenly turned up for trainings, we got a few friendly games going, and training sessions focuses on game play and tactics rather than skills. During trainings, we couldn't beat the girls' team by more than 2 goals, and I thought we will get the same results as all other competitions, with nothing to show.

We got off to a slow start, losing our first match even when we rained so many shots on their goal frame. We eked out a win with some miraculous goals in the second match, and we told ourselves we must whack the last team, which we did with a 4-2 win. We went into the semis!

First match against Red Tide 2, and it was a glorious game. We defended so well that they had no chance to get a shot away, and gave them no turnover chances at all with superb passing and control of the offense. Again, we rained shots at them, and was unlucky to lost to 2 powerful long shots and a deflected shot. RT2 eventually won the gold, while we got the bronze in the 3rd-4th playoffs, making me a bitter man.

I still got lots more to improve - in the important matches, I was afraid of fumbling catches, and whenever I thought of shooting I cautioned myself with the consequences of a turnover attack should the shot get blocked. Every competition makes me feel the need to improve further.

But finally, I see a team worth playing with, and realistic goals worth striving for.

Streaming in Singapore Schools

Once and for all, I wish to put to rest the debate about the appropriateness of streaming students in Singapore schools. Perhaps the only thing that is questionable is when the streaming should be done, but there is no doubt to me that students need to be grouped according to abilities.

Fact: My sec 3Normal (Technical) students might even fail a sec 1 express stream English test paper.

I am tempted to let them try such a paper and see how well they fare, but I am not optimistic about the results. In the Normal technical stream, their writing component in test papers is guided - they can extract materials from a previous comprehension passage in the same paper, and simply rewrite in from another perspective. Even so, many fail this part, and some can't even be bothered to write. We give primary school vocabulary lists for them to work on, so far behind are they in terms of language abilities.

Fact: Even with students in the same class (for any stream), they often display varying competencies when comparing their results in single subjects.

In my sec 3NT classes again, there are the few who consistently get their A's, and others who regularly fail their English tests or get borderline passes. This shows that streaming is an inexact science, but a necessary one nonetheless. Imagine these kids tackling English papers designed in a different format - the weak students will have no chance at all with them. They will have to first show that they can handle papers customised to their ability level before attempting more difficult papers; which is the reason why promotion from one stream to another is difficult.

Students have a hard life in Singapore - from young they have to learn to swim or sink. If ever you readers out there have kids, make sure you teach your kids to have the proper attitudes with regards to studying, and help them learn their languages well. Somehow, I think that poor results in school can lead to social problems, as true as this statement is the other way round.

Movie Review: Ratatouille

So I was persuaded to watch this cartoon on Monday, though I didn't had much hope that it will turn out to be something irresistible - how interesting can a movie be when its whole plot can be summarised succinctly as 'sewer rat wanna be gourmet chef'...

Anyway, it was entertaining in some ways, though many things didn't make much sense at all. I didn't end up being convinced that 'Anyone can cook' in the sense of gourmet cooking and not just merely making raw ingredients palatable. Most people I know can hardly go beyond maggi mee and boiled eggs, which is not a fault onto them however; who have time for such things in this modern society of haste and waste?

But I do agree with the movie that it is much nobler to create than take. Animals can only take, and almost everything that they do create is for functional purposes. Only man can create (and apppreciate) 'useless' things such as art and cultural artifacts, and it is these things that elevates man to a higher level above the beasts, in certain aspects.

So when's the last time you created anything for purely aesthetic/altruistic reasons?

Teachers' Day

My first teachers' Day spent as a teacher - I didn't really feel happy. I am quite sheepish and embarrassed when my students wished me well about it, and I could only give them encouraging smiles of thanks that didn't really came out because my heart was overflowing with joy (or similar sorts of emotions).

I think it is all a little contrived for me, all the celebrations and stuff. The current situation as a teacher isn't exactly killing me, but in a short span of time it has definitely did much to lower my self-esteem, made me feel pathetic at times, and troubled me with the lesson planning and the miserable thought of seeing a certain class. I ain't even half cheerful in school everyday, and it makes me feel that I somehow let down my PE classes too. In short - I am still far away from the ideal teacher that I wanted to be. I probably haven't been an inspiration to anyone yet, haven't helped anyone much on anything, and have only been toiling like a slave for the school doing work that many don't want to bother themselves with.

I got a cup from my best English girl in the class, a bag of cookies from an Odac senior girl, a card from a sec 1 Odac girl, and yah, that's it. I wasn't bothered that I didn't more stuff, and actually I sort of didn't know what to do with the gifts (except for the cookies of course, which were quite good). I was very surprised a lot of you guys out there reading this sms-ed me your well wishes for the day though; really didn't know what made you guys remember this day, and me, when most of you ain't teachers. But nonetheless, I appreciate it, even though my reply to you might have been a bit sourish.

The start of term break

Yup, I got a week's break from work from tomorrow. That doesn't mean that I don't do work of course; anyone who think teachers enjoy all their holidays is very ill-informed. My Odac kids are doing their first aid course tom and tuesday, and I will be there, albeit doing work of my own while the listen to the instructors. Time is not to be wasted frivolously in school. Karen has suggested that I not organise events during the term break in the future so that both students and teachers have the break to themselves, and now I rightly concur with her on this.

I have been playing in the canoe polo national champs competition for 2 weekends now. It is always during time like these that the team really gets fired up and enthusiastic. During this period, juniors acquire their own paddles, we explored new tactics, made new commitments to train harder and better. The juniors were great, 2 out of 3 scored in their debut, and the crowd almost thought an upset was coming when they led the game 2-0 against NP. I am hoping that, having tasted success, they will eager to train hard and eventual win games as a team. And I hope that we will not forget our individual commitments to brush up on our individual skills.

So. Despite feeling dead and drained, I still hope that eventually, my team can commit themselves to more training each week. I always believe in the all-or-none principle, to some extent. One thing I realised: Having an active sports life makes me feel better, to be a committed sportsman rather than a tired teacher.

22nd ODAC AGM

Well well...it has been 4 years since I last participated in the AGM as an exco member, and since then I still went back religiously every year to support the event, both to meet up with the old people and also to show the new committee people that NUS ODAC have a history, and have seniors who are still concerned with the success of the club throughout the years.

Attendance for AGM has always been poor; more so with this year. It is important then, that people like myself attend to ask the candidates for the committee good questions, to let them understand the importance of the responsibilities that they will shoulder in the club. I hope that eventually, I will have a chance to go outdoors with them, inspire and show them that the club's unofficial alumni is always willing to go the extra mile to help them in their education to develop themselves into good leaders.

And of course we all enjoy the oldies' supper after that, to reminiscence about the old times, catch up, and dream of opportunities to meet up again in the future. Though it is shameful that I hardly have time to join the regular acitivites some of the oldies suggested, I hope that's not the always the case.

Though I feel old being at the AGM, it makes me feel young again.

Term break

I have slogged hard and spent sleepless nights working this week, and finally it is coming - after tomorrow's Teachers' Day celebrations, school will be off for a week.

But oh, Monday and Tuesday I will be in school because my ODAC kids are doing a first aid course. I need to set exam papers too. Plan the lessons for next term. Write rubbish for the CHERISH report. Key in height/weight data for the level. Update my record book. Do a store inventory check. Plan for the end of year ODAC activity.

And I am sure I left out some things from this to-do list.

Happy holidays, all teachers!

---

Today my VP and my English HOD came in to observe my favourite English class. I think the lesson went well, I managed to entertaine all of them pretty well, and I was busy running around answering questions from the students.

I took the same lesson to another class, and only 2-3 person actually looked at me as I talked. And I just went on rambling while mentally making myself oblivious to the actions of 30 recalcitrant students, stopped after I am done, hand the worksheet to them, and get them to do. A handful will attempt it by themselves, another handful needed lots of help to understand the task, and more than half just sleep or talk.

I sinned a lot these days - I coerced these people to do their work, and only succeeded in making them write one or two sentence of nonsense. So many pristine sheets of paper were defaced because I harassed them to write something, and this wasn't the first time that happened. Imagine how much harm I did to the environment!

OJT lessons...

I just got some on the job training from a student in my new NT class yesterday. Giving them a break from me and the last common test, I played a movie for them to watch for the lesson. The class chairperson took the chance to come up to me then to tell me about how I should manage the class!

Apparently my English HOD who took them previously always revised specific parts of the common test paper with them before the actual test, and that is why there was a small uproar when I gave them the test on Monday without any sort of revision. I didn't realised that they needed this routine before they can feel confident about taking tests; without it, some of them felt outraged and simply refused to try the paper I think.

And he also wants me to tone down my voice when I speak to the class (I am awake of my loud voice but am still working at trying to make it softer), give them a period to do work and then another to slack and talk, etc. All very good advices, and I received them humbly and told him how I am still not comfortable with his class at this moment, and will probably need time to adjust myself.

---

I learnt in a meeting later that day that the NT kids can fail every subject and will still get through to ITE for some courses. That knowledge does put everything into perspective huh? Maybe that's why many of them do not feel the need to do better. I'll still carry on and work at it nonetheless, because my conscience does not allow me to do otherwise.

I have test markings and lesson plans and emails to reply to et cetera this week, but am still trying to maintain my sporting lifestyle. After an English workshop on Tuesday, I simply cannot go for polo session on Tuesday and felt quite bad about it. I'll probably have to bring down my laptop and do marking while watching my juniors play games there.

Invigilation

Just watching my NT class take a common test makes me vomit blood. Many just flipped through the pages and then proceeded to put their head on the table and slumber. Some just say "dunno how to do so difficult" and waste the time staring at the paper. I wonder where they adopted this attitude from; in any case these people will probably not make anything of themselves in this school.

And I'm too stressed to think of fun creative student-centered activities for them to do in class. Any lessons have to depend on them staying awake too.

And a stupid kid from another class provoked another student this morning and when I helped to push him away from the other guy he challenged me to a fight. Man I was really hoping then that I can get my hands bloody. That will be a good way to vent my frustration.

Yet another school comparison

Let me comment about this letter in the ST forum today, the writer comparing Singapore schools with a UK school that she taught in -

• "The United Kingdom education system inspires and enables the child to learn, builds confidence and nurtures creative thinkers. 'Teaching to test' seems to be the objective of Singapore schools."

This is very true! So what can we all do about it? Nothing at all, unless a change of mindset, along with a change of syllabus etc comes from the top. All schools want to do well so that they will be higher ranked, all teachers want good results to get promoted; therefore there is no way things will change.

• "The class teacher spends considerable time planning and preparing lessons to meet the different needs of the children. No designated textbooks are used.

Not possible. As I explained in a previous post, the time teachers spend on planning lessons is negligible. Again, if we are to put more effort into lesson planning, our work for all other things should be reduced. But then again, schools all want to be higher ranked, teachers all want to excel in their CCAs and committee work etc for better performance grading. Again, things will not be changed.

• "One has to look into how confident, articulate and expressive Singapore pupils are and who does most of the talking in class, the teacher or the pupils?"

Is this a school's problem? I think it is more of a societal problem as a whole. How many of our citizens dare to speak up against injustice, ill-manners, discourteous acts, and wrong-doings? How many of us believe that by speaking out, we can make a difference? The child simply follows what the adults do, which is nothing. School can help to encourage children to speak up, but it will be useless if the rest of society doesn't believe in it.

I like this statement the best -

"I respect the teachers of Singapore who try their very best to deliver the Government's expectations. But it appears that, collectively, society has created a nation that is obsessed with rankings and success."

Patience

It is as I feared - my new normal tech class refused to do work today and got me freaking pissed.

Ok, not all of course. And their refusal may be due to the fact that the paper has quite a lot of questions on one passage, or that it is the last period of the day, or that they are simply not in the mood at that time. Many just say they don't know how to do it when I bugged them, and I shot back at them asking if they even tried. I wanted it to be a CA assignment, but in the end, because half the class copied from each other, I dropped the idea and got the few idiots left to forget about copying the answers to pass to me after the rest of the class was dismissed.

Maybe I got fed up because my imagined scenario really played itself out, because I actually accepted CA work from my other normal tech class even though a lot of them copied from each other too. Or maybe I was just finally fed up with not being able to stop that from happening. It's not as if they will learn anything from copying, so the whole exercise is futile.

Patience. I must remember that these mentally immature kids usually do better with the soft approach; no use scolding and alienating them permanently. Some really do try hard, and I should carry on doing things for them. They are the product of years of mismanagment by their environment, and it will be arrogant for me to think that I can change their behaviour after knowing them for a few days. Just carry on, help those who seek help, in between say a few encouraging words to the recalcitrant few and see whether miracles happen.

I am in school for 12 working hours for the past 3-4 days. But I wouldn't complain working even longer hours if I only had to sit in an office and do paperwork; that is nothing compared to having a bad lesson which makes you feel depressed and useless for the entire freaking day.

Good writing

I chanced upon this entry in A Pedagogue's Progress on my first visit there, and am pleasantly surprised by the read. Learning to read critically, to get past useless words and discern the real meaning and intention behind writings is the most important thing that I acquired from my studies in NUS, and I often sought to practice this skill when reading the Straits Times. It is an entertaining exercise because so much of the writing inside about local events carry hidden significances behind the superficial meanings; noticing what's conspicuously absent is interesting too.

Things that make me angry

Browsing the Straits Times can be unbearable at times. I'm one of maybe ten people on this island who considers the state of prose -- no pun intended -- to be an important barometer of the nation's health and who gets upset by bad writing. Consider this latest egregious specimen, culled from today's Forum page:

As global uncertainties are now greater than ever, I contend that the long-term security and prosperity of Singapore require a shift in paradigm to one in which we cultivate a broad-based pool of highly critical and creative thinkers from multiple disciplines [italics mine].

The author isn't a government official, but he sure does his clichés like our ministries' finest press secretaries. There are six of them in the small sentence above, each a sin against the English language and clear thought. Since I'm in a particularly vicious mood right now -- it is Imagined Community and Manufactured Enthusiasm Day, after all -- I'm actually going to explain what any avid reader of good literature will tell you is self-evident: I'm going to devote time and space to analysing that sentence.

So, "global uncertainties are now greater than ever." Than ever? Ever? Even greater than during the Great Depression, Second World War, Cuban Missile Crisis, 1970s oil crisis, Asian Financial Crisis, general crisis of the 14th century? Every generation takes perverse comfort in reassuring itself that the world is going to hell in a handbasket (a uniquely American term, apparently; I first heard it from Bill Spengemann), but is never able to demonstrate even the slightest ounce of historical judgement required to validate such sweeping, inelegant claims.

Why always talk about "long-term security and prosperity"? Why not just say "future"? More matter with less art.

No no no no no no. Do not ever use paradigm shift unless you have read Thomas Kuhn (I haven't) and know precisely what it means. Even then, it's intellectual pretentious. All that the author is saying is that we ought to think differently. Which is ironic, since he's not doing that at all.

"[B]road-based pool" just doesn't make sense at all. It's an awful metaphor.

Ah, "critical and creative thinkers." And not ordinary ones, but "highly" to boot! (Maybe it's just me, but "highly critical" brings to mind crabby Chinese teachers.) We've abused this catchphrase so much that we no longer have any clear idea what it means, except that it is a Very Good Thing (rather like Democracy in some other places). Seriously now. You can neither legislate morality nor marshal intelligence and intellect to serve the ends of nation-building.

What does the author mean by"multiple disciplines"? Are we talking about scholarly disciplines like Anthropology, Physics, History, Art, and Music here, or pseudo-subjects like Hotel Administration, Event Planning, and Motivational Speaking? Because you aren't going to find very many "highly critical and creative" artists, physicists, musicians, and anthropologists who are willing to hang around in this place. Certainly not when they are only supposed to be contributing to "long-term security and [material] prosperity."

The ideas underpinning the sentence aren't only bad and lacking in analytical rigour; they're also markedly unoriginal: we need more intelligent people to ensure our nation's future. It's common sense (which, as one begins increasingly to realise, isn't very common at all), and the government has been saying it for years. Why has our author cottoned on to this only now?

Sadly, what limited experience (which, "though noon auctoritee / Were in this world, is right ynogh for me") I do have of Singaporean prose suggests that sentences like the above are the norm rather than the exception. I've no way of proving this, of course, to any satisfactory degree, except to say that I don't recall ever reading anything in the local print media that's struck me as really well-written. The best Singaporean prose stylist, as far as I can tell, is Xenoboy, but while the quality of online writing is on the whole much higher, we still have a long way to go before we can match up to the likes of this guy.

Just a sobering thought, this Imagined Community and Manufactured Enthusiasm Day.

Bourne Ultimatum!

I just caught The Bourne Ultimatum on the big screen! It's a great movie, fast-paced and thrilling right to the end. Excuse the shaky camera effect during the fighting and chasing scenes, and you'll have the movie of the year. Go catch it!

A short break...

...that I couldn't really enjoy, that describe these few days past. The thought that I will be teaching another class of English bothered me so much that I never really enjoyed myself these few days. I can only give a turn up the corners of my mouth and give a wan smile when people remarked about this long break.

On Thursday, the Odac people got invited to Skee's place to have steamboat dinner, and I got Emily out early to Kinokuniya to get books at 20% discount. Kundera's The Curtain was the only one I really wanted, since I have got so much stuff at home waiting for my time. It was good for us to meet up and talk again after such a long while, about things in the classrooms and out in the wilderness. I felt much more at ease with myself after relating my plight at having to teach 2 normal tech classes, and realised that my apprehension about it might stem from the fact that teaching these people gets me really depressed. The school gives up on these kids (that's probably why I ended up teaching them), and they probably give up on themselves too; no one can exactly pinpoint the reason why they ended up so weak academically, and to all it seems that hopes on them to do better have already dried up.

On Wednesday, I witnessed 4 of the kids from the 2 classes arguing with the DM, who threatened to sack them for their insolence. They threw up their arms and went "sack sack lah!" and cycled off angrily. The DM had seriously hope that a punch came his way so that he could get them expelled immediately, and the kids probably find no reason to want to stay in school (or do anything while he is in) either. Angry and upset about their attitude towards school and life, how can I change things around? If only I can shout at them to seriously consider their reality and effect a transformation via an revelatory moment - if only it was that easy.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the glorious view of the city from Skee's balcony. I'll take things as they come, in any case. A week at a time.

Fatigue

Tired. Very tired. There are days when events takes up so much time that there's none left to do any work at all, and other days when time is spent chasing after various miscellaneous details at work that nothing really productive gets done. Someone better had the next English unit plan done for me man, cos I ain't have no clue about it at all. This Wednesday I foresee myself staying back at school till late to do work while I can, and I think the break from Thursday to Sunday will be equally hectic for me because there's nothing planned for English yet for the next three weeks. I also have to mentally prep myself with taking over the worst class in school for English from next week on.

Practiced throwing balls at the wall on Wednesday last week, was at the gym on Thursday, polo training on Friday, climbed with Roland (and did an extreme route, still uncompleted) on Saturday, and Sunday had my usual badminton practice and polo training. Today I practiced wushu in school in preparation for ACES day, and my arms ache just to hold them up. Mental fatigue setting in too, feel like I'm not gonna be good for the coming competition cos my mind just isn't that strong and alert to cope.