Best Years Of Our Lives

The Day After - GE 2011 and Beyond

2011-05-09T01:30:00.002+08:00

Many people asked if I am pro-PAP or pro-Oppo. Afterall, I have always professed my admiration of MM as one of the greatest thinkers of our times, of the uselessness of many of the opposition parties, and yet I am also greatly appreciative of Chiam See Tong. I speak highly of PAP's economic policies, disparage some of the scatter-brain policies suggested by the opposition, and yet I also speak about the need to consider the needs of the lower middle classes more sensitively. What am I? Thinking about it after the elections, I think my answer will shock many - I am neither. I don't support either party per say, because that would be too irrational and blind with love.

I belong to what is termed, in political science terms, the 'middle ground'. And many people are like that, in all democratic societies. In Singapore, this 'watershed' elections, so to speak, is indicative of that same pattern. There are the die-hard fans of course: the purest Whites (纯白）, the darkest Blues （深蓝）, and in my coined term - the Colours （任何颜色）. The Colours is an interesting group - they will support any opposition team, regardless of the team's colour. But the Colours is very likely a small percentage of all Singaporeans, perhaps 15-20% at most. I don't think I belong to any, being more pragmatic and commentative than that - I don't think I could be comfortable to fully support any party. I suppose the middle ground voters could be considered the Transparents, just to continue the colours analogy of Singaporean political landscape. The Transparents take on colours of the day - depending on the changing situations and needs, reflecting the respective colours or issues.

In most societies that get to vote regularly, the middle ground is a highly crucial set of people, almost 40%, and they owe no long-term die-hard allegiance to any party. Rather, they will support the party that they either think is good for the nation or is able to raise their concerns in Parliament with a stronger voice. In a socio-political sense, the middle ground is also a very necessary group of voters. Parties that are entrenched in power for a long time could meander or wander off at times, and the middle ground will shift to try to bring the ruling party or the opposition part(ies) back to the middle. I like to perceive it as a democratic ground movement of 中庸 in the pure Confucian sense - the Confucian Golden Mean. (中庸 , 不偏不倚 .) It prevents parties from going too far into the extremes, which could not only divide a nation, but destroy one half in the process. Thus, in a mature democratic society, the middle ground provides a natural fulcrum of balance.

This 2011 elections is one in which the middle ground seemed to have sent a signal. They want to be heard, heeded and hosted with greater sense and sensitivity. More importantly, they want a more compassionate Singapore with a soul. Yet, they are also mindful of the quality of opposition candidates and parties. If we were to examine the results, it is an interesting but very clear picture. Of the vote swing to the opposition parties, does it mean that all the opposition parties have gained die-hard supporters? Not so. Only the WP seems to have gained more darkest blues supporters, and thereafter perhaps the NSP of the Nicole Seah effect. SPP is on the decline; it has never really stepped out of Mr Chiam See Tong's personal star effect. As for SDP, SDA and RP, they would be deluded if they think the 30 odd percent of votes that they are garnering this time (up from the previous election's 20%) implies voters supporting their respective parties.

That 10% increment is merely the general protest vote swing nationwide. it is, if we strip off the details of sound and fury, I would see the general baseline opposition support to be at about 20%, which is then augmented by another 10% because of the general unhappiness with the ruling PAP's brisk style and approach to costs of living, transport, foreign worker, the freak incident of Mas Selamat and floods. That sets it to a general 30% of opposition support in general, which is what most of the opposition parties garnered this time. This analysis also fits the reduction of about 8% on the part of PAP's national vote percentage from the last elections. The WP, in particular, is the only opposition party that has made clear inroads in picking up more supporters. It probably won over another 8-10% of die-hard deep blues, evidenced in its average vote percentage and its rallies' attendance figures in comparison to the others. Most significant would be the outcome of the one three-cornered fight this time, with WP winning 42% of the votes there, in comparison to the 4% votes won by the other opposition contestant. When there is a choice between opposition candidates, quality obliterates. What more need to be said?

I would propose, with the best of intentions, that RP, SDA and SDP simply dissolve themselves and the good candidates to join the other main opposition parties. The current RP, SDA and SDP are just languishing in a different league altogether, and their rambling and many a time disjoint and under-developed policies suggestions are just a waste of constituency places and voters' time. They devalue the opposition, the cause of the opposition, and the votes of the electorate. This is not to discredit the usefulness of these opposition parties this GE, because they do provide that critical mass and momentum - the whole of Singapore is involved in voting, accelerating a national awareness and support. However, how sustainable is it to have six opposition parties, all vying for candidates with slightly different nuanced views, which then erupts into a messing confusion of party platforms? In a non-unhappy year, when the PAP is held in higher regard, these opposition parties' votes could very well be reduced to the 20% band again.

The SPP is a different story. My deepest respect and admiration goes to Mr Chiam See Tong, who gave 27 years of good dedicated public service to provide that balance in our Parliament. However, my general gut feel is that the SPP has reached its end-point, because it simply does not seem to be able to attract new younger members who are capable, or to sustain and keep them. Neither did it seem to have a strong party organ structure. I am very appreciative of what I sense to be a family-oriented 'my kind of town' style in the SPP, from the vibes I get at their rallies, but that will not bring SPP into the new age of Singaporean politics. Unless it changes its style, it would have served its purpose.

The WP has won the praise and support of Singaporeans in this 2011 Elections, but I do hope they take caution too. I am most exhilarated at the WP win of Aljunied, because that means a breakthrough, and Parliament will see a good 2-party system in the making. Yet, the greatest moment of achievement could also be the most precarious moment. For when one reaches a peak, one could very well slide or drop all the way down. On the positive side, the WP, in my observations, is most credible and viable. It is well organised, with clear vision, and it seems to be the most similar in structure, party rules, party discipline and style as the PAP. I have attended the rallies of the blues, and indeed, I came away inspired about a better Singapore. To some extent it reminds one of the early PAP, of those times of worries, dreams and battles for a young nation. This GE, they are wise, real and practical too. That augurs well for Singapore. In many policies, I think they do recognise the wisdom of the PAP's general policies, and they just want tweaking so that the concerns of the common man is better heard. The main difference is in the extremes. PAP tends to be more business-oriented, while the WP tends to be more social/under-class oriented. In a sense, it's like being on both sides of a swinging pendulum, and one provides the necessary check on the other, and that is perhaps what Singapore's future political landscape would turn out to be. Yet, I do hope that over time, if and when WP does make more in-roads, they do not become complacent, take voters and party members for granted, for that is a typical route taken merrily and unconsciously by organisations which reach a certain state of stability and achievement.

On the other hand, though PAP seemed to have lost quite a bit of votes this time round, dropping all the way to a mere 60%, it could benefit from it. It could be perceived as a winner in the long run. It is indeed a shocking loss of George Yeo and the others - 5 good men and women, and this could only force the party reflect on the necessary changes seriously. Many organisations went through such crisis before - the Catholic Church during the Reformation, and Japan when it was forced to open its ports. And they changed - the Catholic Church underwent its own Counter-Reformation, and Japan underwent the Meiji Restoration, and they emerged stronger than before. Similarly, the British lost the American colonies, but they learnt from it and thereafter created an even greater empire, one on which the sun, supposedly, never sets.

The changes and analysis reflections that PM has said the PAP will undertake is thus a necessary and highly beneficial stage it has to undergo. In my opinion, it can only come out of this stronger, if it takes heed of the messages sent by the electorate in this election. The voters have not abandoned PAP. In fact, the dismal results of the RP, and the not too illustrious results of the SDA and SDP, indicate that quality of party still matters. Even the vote difference in Aljunied is only about 10%. PM's AMK GRC gave him a good 69%, which is more indicative of the trust that the people have in PAP without the distractions of minsters in charge of ministries with unpopular policies. If PAP as a party could change and adapt to the new electorate profile and needs, it could very well emerge a stronger party than before. On hindsight, I wonder if this sense of connectedness, which PM spoke about in his apologies, had been adopted earlier, especially after the famous episode of Catherine Lim's 'The Affective Divide' in 1994, perhaps the PAP would not have lost the affection and trust of that 10% of the electorate in this 2011 Elections. But, hindsight is always cheap, so I shall not explore that further.

There are some points that many argue over this elections. The mind versus the heart. Many people say that they vote 'with the mind'. But frankly, I do not know what that means, because it could mean different things to different people. Voting with the mind could mean voting for more alternative voices in Parliament, because that voter sees the need for it, even as it could mean voting for the ruling incumbent party, because the voter sees stability and economic success as more important for the overall good of the nation. The same argument could be used in voting 'with the heart' too. So I am most amused to hear people tell each other to 'vote wisely', because that is the most vague expression ever. Another point raised is whether one is being ungrateful in not voting for the incumbent, or one is not thinking of nation and rather just concerned with self interest. Again, that's a matter of perceptions - one might be grateful, but yet believe in the need for change for the good of the nation. One might also think that having more voices in parliament is for the greater good of the nation as compared to estate upgrading, or short term foreign affairs. Similarly, others might accuse those who vote for more voices in parliament to be myopic and selfish because they simply want their complaints to be heard, that they are not thinking about the dent it would create on Singapore's national interest in foreign affairs. Yet others further assert that voting for a more 'caring society, for the heart' and compassion is to betray the elderly and underprivileged who need upgrading and tangible help. The list goes on. I think this is probably healthy debate, because there is no clear answer, and such civic discussion in the rallies, coffeeshops and online will crystallise for all the Singapore we want, and the Singaporean values we hold dear. It will take a few elections for this to emerge, and that will be when we truly know what we mean by our great Singaporean dream and identity. It connects Singaporeans together, whichever parties they may support, regardless of new or old citizens, because there is public discourse and consensus thereafter.

So, now that the dust has settled, and the shock and euphoria and sadness have subsided, can we say that certain political parties have won and certain parties have lost? That would be too simplistic an interpretation of it all. Perhaps, in a short term view, parties can proclaim their own victory or failure, but the true effects and impact of GE2011 on the respective parties will only be fully understood in the long term. But one thing is clear - the true great winners of this General Election 2011 are Singaporeans and Singapore.

For once in many years, all Singaporeans are exercising their responsibilities to discuss, to assess, to reflect, to think, to dream, so as to decide on their individual votes. And for once in many years, all Singaporeans are exercising their privilege and right to vote - that single paper that represents each person's voice on the matter of discussion. And that, truly, is what binds Singaporeans together for a common purpose, a common destiny, for our great country Singapore.

Still Sharp and Witty

2011-05-01T02:28:00.001+08:00

He's still sharp and witty. A strong heart he has.

A First Prize Speech

2011-05-01T02:12:00.003+08:00

Rise and Fall of Nations and Organisations

2011-05-01T02:07:00.010+08:00

Special trees and wild mushrooms reminds me of Lord of the Rings and the hobbits - they love mushrooms in the shire. Makes me think about the rise and fall of nations, and the rise and fall of companies. (lots of Tolkien and Jim Collins there.)

A thought - when other companies and countries are researching and breeding new species of mushrooms and trees, and exporting these highly prized unique new varieties around the world, and we hold on only to one species, we end up being irrelevant. One day, our forest of special trees might not be as unique and prized anymore if there's only inbreeding. We might one day be like China during the mid-Qing Dynasty - so strong was its belief in its self-reliance and superiority, it rejected all things from outside or any criticism, and look at the humiliation China suffered for 150 years because of that pride. Incidentally, that rejection of new technology etc happened during the so-called golden age of Emperor Qianlong, when China thought it was invincible and so rejected the British ambassador and advanced western new technology. Qianlong said, "Great Qing is a great and vast nation. We have everything here, and there is nothing we have to learn or acquire from the barbaric primitive west." And look where that led China. Then, tradition-bound inertia and preservation politics of the Qing court thereafter blocked and stopped any hopes of renewal and rejuvenation of that country. And on hindsight today, it was group-think by the mandarins of the court, all selected from the same eons of Confucian-based Imperial Exams, and their ostrich mentality towards the west (in contrast to the Japanese Meiji Restoration) that sunk China in the Late Qing era, not just Empress Dowager Cixi.

That is but one example of the fall of great nations. Look at Rome, at Venice, at Spain, at Portugal, at the UK. All rendered obsolete because they became entrenched and all-too-blind in believing in the invincibility of their own factors of success. They stopped evolving. Or perhaps that's the natural rhythm of the rise and fall of nations, communities, organisations, companies when people become entrenched in the ways of yesteryears. That's how IBM failed to microsoft, and how microsoft is failing to apple/andriod-goggle etc. They try to make rectifications and innovate from within, but frankly, engineers and managers who have been in these companies for years, and their recruited cohorts, how different can they be? A leopard is too old to change its spots, even if it wants to. So what do companies do? They do re-orgs, they import people from outside, they try to shake up the company. Some manage to reinvent themselves, others are simply replaced by new nimble ones. Some take a bruise and languish for a while after being dislodged from top market position, begin to explore new fields, and suddenly emerge again a new leading force - just like Apple.

Even as we are so confident in our trial and tested systems, should we not avoid being over complacent about our invincibility? Evolution shows what prevails - selection and adaption, not 'shut the door and make our own cars'.

I do worry about that complacency.

Over-reaction to Maths PSLE Gets Flake from Forumers

2009-10-10T21:06:00.001+08:00

Brilliant forum responses here to one father's online gripe about the PSLE Maths being too difficult for his son - resulting in his son's loss of confidence. Seems like Singaporeans do have tenacity and most Singaporean parents are enlightened afterall.

Read the forum here - classic!
http://forums.asiaone.com/showthread.php?t=23479

Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize? WTF?!??!?!?!?!

2009-10-10T00:50:00.000+08:00

Have the Nobel Peace Prize committee members taken leave of their sensibilities??? Seriously?!?!

Absolute crap. Simply ridiculous. An insult to all the previous awardees, and an absolute absurdity! The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has truly made a mockery out of themselves. How
is Obama any better than some of the other world leaders working to
reduce nuclear weapons and bring world peace? Except that he seems
better than his predecessor. And ...there
has been no concrete sustained results as yet! This Prize is awarded
based on HOPE, as much as Obama was elected based on the Promise of
Change! And he has yet to deliver! My goodness. I think our LKY or S. Rajaratnam, who penned our Singaporean Pledge - regardless of race, language or religion - should get
the Nobel Peace Prize then, and all the more qualified for it, for
shaping and moulding a working national model of racial-ethnic harmony
that has lasted for some 40 years. Now, that is real change, and real
promise, and real hope, for the rest of the world as to Peace.

SIGNS

2009-10-08T21:07:00.001+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy0HNWto0UY

The State of Singlish

2009-09-29T21:40:00.001+08:00

Oh well, I have been ranting about this for quite a while...

Frankly, the key reasons for the State of Singlish, and the pidgin Mandarin we speak, are:

1) Jack Neo's GaoXiaoXingDong - contaminating two decades worth of children who grew up with the numerous Singlish expressions from his iconic characters. We applauded his genious and observational powers at that time. On hindsight, that was the beginning of the rot. Imagine the impact and linguistic influence upon the children who grew up with the 5 consecutive nights of his GXXD over the stretch of many years. (Perhaps, Jack Neo and co. did a great disservice to our nation, notwithstanding his Public Service Medal.)

2) Gurmit Singh, Andrian Pang, Mark Lee and the many other emcees and comperes on the mediacorp TV channels and Radio stations, who perpetuated Singlish and mangled English these many years. (In fact, I should be directing all the fault-finding towards Mediacorp instead, rather than these minions of the company.)

3) We the people. We the English speaking people. We the Mandarin speaking people. We the supposedly educated and informed people, who argued once upon a time that Singlish, being our de facto lingua franca (and I am damn proud of Singlish too), should be embraced by all, because we can code-switch afterall. We have forgotten that young children are not as capable of code switching as adults, and they need constant GOOD models of language in action. And we the people - parents, maids, passers-by in the market and NTUC, interviewees in national news programmes etc - are all guilty of being TOO LAZY to speak good standard English (or Mandarin as well).

So, our generation, and our subsequent generations, will not be able to out-talk the very effective and persuasive/loud speakers (people) from the West (U.S., U.K.) and the East (China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan.) If we cannot persuade, if we cannot communicate effectively (not to even consider our utter lack of general knowledge and perspectives), we would have failed as individuals and as a society.

National Day Rally 2009 - Shaping Our Future Together

2009-08-24T10:53:00.001+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IPVJafpzow

Happy Shakespearean Birthday! Onscreen!

2009-04-23T21:40:00.001+08:00

Sketching Shakespeare on film and TV

Scholars continue to argue over the Cobbe portrait, but what have the small and big screens taught us about the Bard?

So it's happy birthday, William Shakespeare! (And happy death-day too.) The RSC's annual birthday procession is underway in Stratford and Cobbegate rumbles on, with Stanley Wells admitting he feels "a bit isolated" in his belief that a recently discovered painting is the only lifetime portrait of the Bard. (Plenty more about that here.)

From The Guardian 23 April 2009. Full Article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/apr/23/shakespeare-film-tv

My List of Shakespearean Greatest:

Henry V ... Hamlet ... King Lear ... Macbeth

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Why Henry VIII matters - David Starkey tells School Gate

Times Online article http://timesonline.typepad.com/schoolgate/2009/04/why-henry-viii-matters-david-starkey-tells-school-gate.html#more

It's 500 years since Henry VIII acceded to the English throne, and a major exhibition opens today at the British Library. It is also St George's Day - a fine time to think about England and to ask if it was Henry who first created a sense of English identity.

But back to the exhibition. It is, as Rachel Campbell-Johnston writes, a stunning, wonderful show, full of the most remarkable exhibits. And most marvellous of all are all the documents annotated by Henry himself, either in his inimitable scrawl, or with a pointed finger, his version of an arrow or highlighter.

For example, one cabinet contains a Bible. Here Henry's pointed finger is aimed at the section of Leviticus which says that "no man marry his brother's wife." This, the King felt, made his case when he demanded a divorce: marriage to Katherine of Aragon (who was first married to Henry's older brother, Arthur) was against the Bible. It was against religion and immoral.

But another cabinet reveals more. It displays love letters from Henry to Anne Boleyn. These letters are owned by the Vatican and were probably smuggled there to prove, during Henry's bitter attempts to divorce Katherine, that lust, not religion was the main reason.

Most of us have some knowledge of Henry VIII, even if we know only that he had six wives, or that he was Elizabeth I's father. But he is so much more than that. This exhibition shows the young, chivalrous, well-educated, Renaissance, but conventional prince, and also the reformist, revolutionary King, who, in David Starkey's words, "tore apart the fabric of England." After all, it was he who broke from Rome, setting himself up as the Supreme head of a new, English, Church.

But Dr Starkey has more than that to say about this fiery Tudor monarch, much more, because he feels that Henry VIII is the central figure in English history. "Henry carries out a revolution," he told School Gate.

Dr Starkey points out that it's Henry, not his daughter, Elizabeth, who began to see England in terms of an empire, and says that it was this 16h century monarch who really developed a sense of English national identity.

"He develops this conception of the realm of England as an empire - self-governing," he says. "Yes, this feeds into Elizabeth's reign, but it's Henry who creates the navy which enables her to turn the notion of empire into reality.

"He also carries out a revolution culturally. This is the beginning of the invention of English as a great language, and English literature as a great literature. The key text is the [translation of the] Bible into English, and that takes place under Henry. It's also the first time that a collected edition of Chaucer was published - and he was to be seen as the English Homer or Virgil."

Dr Starkey feels that it was under Henry's rule that England also developed its euro-sceptic tone. "No other country has the debate that we still have, about our position in Europe," he says. "England sees the continent as Henry did, as something exotic and exciting, but also strange and incomprehensible. He was the original Euro-sceptic."

And all this even though of course, none of it was planned. "It all happened by the accident of him falling out of love with his first wife and in love with another woman," agrees Dr Starkey.

Andrea Clarke, the curator of the British Library, has spent two years putting the new exhibitition together. She agrees with Dr Starkey that Henry is "our most important monarch."

"Just look at all of the changes that take place under his reign," she says. "It's the beginning of the England we know today. There's that sense of national identity following the break from Rome, and a true revolutionary period in British history."

So now you know. Henry was not just the huge, scary, gluttonous King we know from popular lore. He was hugely important for England - and for the rest of the UK too. His daughter's heir, after all, was James VI of Scotland.

(The picture above is a detail from King Henry VIII's psalter, which is currently on show in the British Library exhibition. It dates from 1540 and links Henry to King David, and perhaps even to Jesus himself. It was used by Henry for his private prayers - you can see him in the illustration reading the Bible).

Henry VIII: man and monarch is on at the British Library until 6th September.

From School Gate - Times Online article.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

Which are the significant events and who are the significant people in forging Singapore's national identity. What is the Singaporean Identity? Did it begin in 1819? 1945? 1959? 1963? 1965? Thereafter? What constitutes the Singaporean Identity?

Is the Singaporean Identity a constant? Ought it be a constant? If it is still evolving today, will there be, one day, a divide between the old Singaporeans and the new Singaporeans? What do we value and treasure most in what we term the Singaporean Identity, the Singaporean Psyche? We Are Singapore - that age old National Song - indeed invokes and evokes strong chest-thumping feelings.

Her Dream - Susan Boyle, Britain's Got Talent 2009

2009-04-16T22:37:00.001+08:00

Britain's Got Talent:
Scottish Singing Sensation - Susan Boyle

47 years old, Never Been Kissed

She came, and would sing Les Miserables - I Dreamed A Dream.
They laughed at her, judges and audience.
And she sang.
And boy, did she sing!

You have got to watch this:

@ Yahoo! Video

Watch CBS Videos Online

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Susan Boyle 1999 Recording of Cry Me A River Uncovered

Great Articles:
http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92464?fp=1

Great CBS interview of Susan Boyle here

A Moment of Truth in an Appearance-besotted Age (London Times Article)

I Have Got Bills To Pay, A House To Keep

Watch CBS Videos Online

(London) The Times Articles:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6069597.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6094355.ece

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6097705.ece

(London) Daily Mirror Article:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2009/04/13/britain-s-got-talent-star-susan-boyle-worried-she-looked-fat-on-tv-115875-21274796/

Fantastic Singing! A Victory for the Underdog!
A Most Thrilling Moment of Hope, a Complete Privilege!

Why Does He Have To Shout?

2009-04-03T21:55:00.001+08:00

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's flamboyant Prime Minister, found himself on Italian front pages today – but more for his gaffe in offending the Queen at the G20 "family photograph" than his performance at the summit itself.

At the end of the G20 photo call yesterday Mr Berlusconi shouted out to the US President: “Mr Obamaaaa! This is Mister Berlusconi!”. The Queen then turned to the gathered leaders and said: “What is it? Why does he have to shout?”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6027841.ece

EARTH HOUR

2009-03-28T21:35:00.001+08:00

JK Rowling's Speech at Harvard Commencement

2009-02-06T22:56:00.000+08:00

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination
J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book
series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of
Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of
the Harvard Alumni Association.

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of
Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all,
graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has
Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and
nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement
address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have
to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself
into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter
convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I
thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The
commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher
Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me
enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t
remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me
to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to
abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy
delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’
joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable
goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say
to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own
graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years
that has expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are
gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to
talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the
threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the
crucial importance of imagination.

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a
slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has
become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between
the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of
me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to
write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished
backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that
my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could
never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to
study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect
satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had
my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I
ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;
they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of
all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to
name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the
keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame
my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming
your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you
are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is
more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never
experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since
been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling
experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression;
it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of
poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride
yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at
university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing
stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing
examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in
my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted
and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent
and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the
Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed
an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that
you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a
fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your
conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s
idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes
failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if
you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure,
a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic
scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was
jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern
Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me,
and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every
usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.
That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was
going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy
tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a
long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because
failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending
to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to
direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.
Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the
determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.
I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and
I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had
an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid
foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is
inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something,
unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at
all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by
passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I
could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will,
and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had
friends whose value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks
means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You
will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships,
until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true
gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to
me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old
self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a
check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV,
are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older
who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond
anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you
to survive its vicissitudes.

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of
imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but
that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime
stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much
broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to
envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention
and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory
capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans
whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry
Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those
books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs.
Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid
the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at
Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled
out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking
imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them.
I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to
Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony
of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened
handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of
kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had
been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had
the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to
our office included those who had come to give information, or to try
and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave
behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no
older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he
had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke
into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a
foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given
the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and
this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with
exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty
corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of
pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and
the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot
drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the
news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his
country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how
incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically
elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were
the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will
inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to
have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw,
heard and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured
or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The
power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and
frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and
security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they
do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that
process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my
life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and
understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into
other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that
is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or
control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They
choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience,
never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other
than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages;
they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not
touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that
I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to
live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and
that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see
more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real
monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil
ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics
corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something
I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author
Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times
every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable
connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other
people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to
touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard
work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique
status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you
apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining
superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest,
the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way
beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice
on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not
only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the
ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have
your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who
celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose
reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic
to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves
already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is
something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on
graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s
godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of
trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used
their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by
enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never
come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain
photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us
ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships.
And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of
mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met
when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders,
in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives.

Thank you very much.

(Text as prepared for delivery)

Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008

Kobe Illuminare

2008-12-09T00:50:00.001+08:00

Kobe Illuminare
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Entrance Arch to Kobe Illuminare 2008
- An annual commemoration of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake - A procession of lights, warmth, love and hope.

1 km of walking in the crowd, under the arches of hope and light, with moving music that warms u in the winter chill, seeing the endless arches in front, moving, and moving, till u suddenly reach this final cathedral-like structure - and everyone enters it in homage and uplifted spirits.

Kobe Illuminare 2

2008-12-09T00:47:00.003+08:00

Kobe Illuminare 2
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Kobe Illuminare 3

2008-12-09T00:47:00.001+08:00

Kobe Illuminare 3
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Kobe Illuminare 4

2008-12-09T00:45:00.005+08:00

Kobe Illuminare 4
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Kobe Illuminare 5

2008-12-09T00:45:00.003+08:00

Kobe Illuminare 5
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Kobe Illuminare 6

2008-12-09T00:45:00.001+08:00

Kobe Illuminare 6
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Kobe Illuminare 7

2008-12-09T00:44:00.003+08:00

Kobe Illuminare 7
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Himeji Castle, UNESCO World Heritage

2008-12-09T00:44:00.001+08:00

Himeji Castle, UNESCO World Heritage
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Caught this photo just at sunset, beautiful glow of the castle walls ...

Arashiyama 4

2008-12-09T00:39:00.003+08:00

Arashiyama 4
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Arashiyama 3

2008-12-09T00:39:00.001+08:00

Arashiyama 3
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Through the Arashiyama valley

Arashiyama 2

2008-12-09T00:38:00.001+08:00

Arashiyama 2
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Views captured on the Rail Tram ride

Arashiyama 1

2008-12-09T00:37:00.001+08:00

Arashiyama 1
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Arashimaya in Kyoto

Kiyomizu Temple, UNESCO World Heritage

2008-12-09T00:35:00.003+08:00

Kiyomizu Temple, UNESCO World Heritage
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

In Kyoto, perched on a mountain, great climb, great view...
Lots of people, including an entire high school's graduating classes - all posing for class photos on what seems to be their traditional graduating outing.

Kiyomizu Temple, UNESCO World Heritage

2008-12-09T00:35:00.001+08:00

Kiyomizu Temple, UNESCO World Heritage
Originally uploaded by edwinheng

Labour Against Tories - Advertising Wit

2008-11-25T00:42:00.001+08:00

Brilliant Advertising Campaign by Gordon Brown's Labour Against Tories

Labour Against Tories - Advertising Wit

2008-11-25T00:40:00.001+08:00

Brilliant Advertising Campaign by Gordon Brown's Labour Against Tories

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Genius, Opportunity AND Hardwork - The Full Equation

2008-11-15T22:06:00.001+08:00

From the London Newspapers ...

GUARDIAN.CO.UK

A gift or hard graft?

We look at outrageously talented and successful people - the Beatles, Mozart, Rockefeller, Bill Gates - and assume there is such a thing as pure genius. No necessarily, argues Malcolm Gladwell...

Malcolm Gladwell, The Guardian,

Saturday November 15 2008

Full Text Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/15/malcolm-gladwell-outliers-extract

The University of Michigan opened its new computer centre in 1971, in a low-slung building on Beal Avenue in Ann Arbor. The university's enormous mainframe computers stood in the middle of a vast, white-tiled room, looking, as one
faculty member remembers, "like one of the last scenes in 2001: A Space
Odyssey". Off to the side were dozens of key-punch machines - what
passed in those days for computer terminals. Over the years, thousands
of students would pass through that white-tiled room - the most famous
of whom was a gawky teenager named Bill Joy.

Joy came to the University of Michigan the year the computer centre opened, at the age of 16. He had been voted "most studious student" by his graduating
class at North Framingham high school, outside Detroit, which, as he
puts it, meant he was a "no-date nerd". He had thought he might end up
as a biologist or a mathematician, but late in his freshman year he
stumbled across the computing centre - and he was hooked.

From then on, the computer centre was his life. He programmed whenever he
could. He got a job with a computer science professor, so he could
program over the summer. In 1975, Joy enrolled in graduate school at
the University of California, Berkeley. There, he buried himself even
deeper in the world of computer software. During the oral exams for his
PhD, he made up a particularly complicated algorithm on the fly that -
as one of his many admirers has written - "so stunned his examiners
[that] one of them later compared the experience to 'Jesus confounding
his elders' ".

Working in collaboration with a small group of programmers, Joy took on the task of rewriting Unix, a software system developed by AT&T for mainframe computers. Joy's version was so good that it became - and remains - the operating system on which millions of computers around the world run. "If you put your Mac in
that funny mode where you can see the code," Joy says, "I see things
that I remember typing in 25 years ago." And when you go online, do you
know who wrote the software that allows you to access the internet?
Bill Joy.

After Berkeley, Joy co-founded the Silicon Valley firm Sun Microsystems. There, he rewrote another computer language, Java, and his legend grew still further. Among Silicon Valley insiders, Joy is spoken of with as much awe as Bill Gates. He is sometimes called the Edison of the internet.

The story of Joy's genius has been told many times, and the lesson is always the same. Here was a world that was the purest of meritocracies. Computer programming didn't operate as an old-boy network, where you got ahead because of money or connections. It was a wide-open field, in which all participants were
judged solely by their talent and accomplishments. It was a world where
the best men won, and Joy was clearly one of those best men.

Sport, too, is supposed to be just such a pure meritocracy. But is it? Take
ice hockey in Canada: look at any team and you will find that a
disproportionate number of players will have been born in the first
three months of the year. This, it turns out, is because the cut-off
date for children eligible for the nine-year-old, 10-year-old,
11-year-old league and so on is January 1. Boys who are oldest and
biggest at the beginning of the hockey season are inevitably the best.
And so they get the most coaching and practice, and they get chosen for
the all-star team, and so their advantage increases - on into the
professional game. A similar pattern applies to other sports. What we
think of as talent is actually a complicated combination of ability,
opportunity and utterly arbitrary advantage.

Does something similar apply to outliers in other fields, such as Bill Joy? Do they
benefit from special opportunities, and do those opportunities follow
any kind of pattern? The evidence suggests they do.

In the early 90s, the psychologist K Anders Ericsson and two colleagues set up shop
at Berlin's elite Academy of Music. With the help of the academy's
professors, they divided the school's violinists into three groups. The
first group were the stars, the students with the potential to become
world-class soloists. The second were those judged to be merely "good".
The third were students who were unlikely ever to play professionally,
and intended to be music teachers in the school system. All the
violinists were then asked the same question. Over the course of your
career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have
you practised?

Everyone, from all three groups, started playing at roughly the same time - around the age of five. In those first few years, everyone practised roughly the same amount - about two or three hours a week. But around the age of eight real differences started to emerge. The students who would end up as the best in their class began to practise more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine,
eight by age 12, 16 a week by age 14, and up and up, until by the age
of 20 they were practising well over 30 hours a week. By the age of 20,
the elite performers had all totalled 10,000 hours of practice over the
course of their lives. The merely good students had totalled, by
contrast, 8,000 hours, and the future music teachers just over 4,000
hours.

The curious thing about Ericsson's study is that he and his colleagues couldn't find any "naturals" - musicians who could float effortlessly to the top while practising a fraction of the time that their peers did. Nor could they find "grinds", people who worked harder than everyone else and yet just didn't have what it takes to break into the top ranks. Their research suggested that once you have enough
ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes
one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it.
What's more, the people at the very top don't just work much harder
than everyone else. They work much, much harder.

This idea - that excellence at a complex task requires a critical, minimum level of
practice - surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact,
researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for
true expertise: 10,000 hours.

"In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice-skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals," writes the neurologist
Daniel Levitin, "this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand
hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week,
of practice over 10 years... No one has yet found a case in which true
world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it
takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to
achieve true mastery."

This is true even of people we think of as prodigies. Mozart, for example, famously started writing music at six. But, the psychologist Michael Howe writes in his book Genius Explained, by the standards of mature composers Mozart's early works are not outstanding. The earliest pieces were all probably written down by his
father, and perhaps improved in the process. Many of Wolfgang's
childhood compositions, such as the first seven of his concertos for
piano and orchestra, are largely arrangements of works by other
composers. Of those concertos that contain only music original to
Mozart, the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No9 K271)
was not composed until he was 21: by that time Mozart had already been
composing concertos for 10 years.

To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about 10 years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that time: it took him nine
years.) And what's 10 years? Well, it's roughly how long it takes to
put in 10,000 hours of hard practice.

Ten thousand hours is, of course, an enormous amount of time. It's all but impossible to reach that number, by the time you're a young adult, all by yourself. You
have to have parents who are encouraging and supportive. You can't be
poor, because if you have to hold down a part-time job on the side to
help make ends meet, there won't be enough time left over in the day.
In fact, most people can really only reach that number if they get into
some kind of special programme - like a hockey all-star squad - or get
some kind of extraordinary opportunity that gives them a chance to put
in that kind of work.

So, back to Bill Joy. It's 1971 and he's 16. He's the maths wiz, the kind of student that schools like MIT, Caltech or the University of Waterloo attract by the hundreds. "When Bill was a little kid, he wanted to know everything about everything
way before he should've even known he wanted to know," his father
William says. "We answered him when we could. And when we couldn't, we
would just give him a book." When he applied to college, Joy got a
perfect score on the maths portion of the scholastic aptitude test. "It
wasn't particularly hard," he says, matter-of-factly. "There was plenty
of time to check it twice." He could have gone in any number of
directions. He could have done a PhD in biology. He could have gone to
medical school. He could easily have had a "typical" college career:
lots of schoolwork, football games, drunken fraternity parties, awkward
encounters with girls, long discussions with roommates about the
meaning of life. But he didn't, because he stumbled across that
nondescript building on Beal Avenue.

In the 70s, when Joy was learning about programming, computers were the size of rooms. A single machine - which might have less power and memory than your microwave - could cost upwards of a million dollars. Computers were hard to get
access to, and renting time on them cost a fortune. This was the era
when computer programs were created using cardboard "punch" cards. A
complex program might include hundreds, if not thousands, of these
cards, in tall stacks. Since computers could handle only one task at a
time, the operator made an appointment for your program and, depending
on how many other people were ahead of you in line, you might not get
your cards back for several hours. And if you made even a single error
in your program, then you had to take the cards back, track down the
error and begin the whole process again. Under those circumstances, it
was exceedingly difficult for anyone to become a programming expert.
Certainly becoming an expert by your early 20s was all but impossible.
"Programming with cards," one computer scientist from the era
remembers, "did not teach you programming. It taught you patience and
proofreading."

That's where the University of Michigan came in. It was one of the first universities in the world to abandon computer cards for the brand-new system called "time-sharing". Computer scientists realised you could train a computer to handle hundreds of tasks at the same time. No more punch cards. You could build dozens of
terminals, link them all to the mainframe by a telephone line, and have
everyone programming - online - all at once.

This was the opportunity that greeted Bill Joy when he arrived on the Ann Arbor
campus in the autumn of 1971. "Do you know what the difference is
between the computing cards and time-sharing?" Joy says. "It's the
difference between playing chess by mail and speed chess." Programming
wasn't an exercise in frustration any more. It was fun.

According to Joy, he spent a phenomenal amount of time at the computer centre.
"It was open 24 hours. I would stay there all night, and just walk home
in the morning. In an average week in those years I was spending more
time in the computer centre than on my classes. All of us down there
had this recurring nightmare of forgetting to show up for class at all,
of not even realising we were enrolled."

Just look at the stream of opportunities that came Joy's way. Because he happened to go to a far-sighted school, he was able to practise on a time-sharing
system, instead of punch cards; because the university was willing to
spend the money to keep the computer centre open 24 hours, he could
stay up all night; and because he was able to put in so many hours, by
the time he was presented with the opportunity to rewrite Unix, he was
up to the task. Bill Joy was brilliant. He wanted to learn - that was a
big part of it - but before he could become an expert, someone had to
give him the opportunity to learn how to be expert.

"At Michigan, I was probably programming eight or 10 hours a day," he says. "By the
time I was at Berkeley, I was doing it day and night... " He pauses for
a moment, to do the maths in his head which, for him, doesn't take
long. "It's five years," he says, finally. "So, so, maybe... 10,000
hours? That's about right."

Is this a general rule of success? If you scratch below the surface of every great achiever, do you always find the equivalent of the Michigan Computer Centre or the hockey all-star team - some sort of special opportunity for practice? Let's
test the idea with two examples: the Beatles, one of the most famous
rock bands ever, and Bill Gates, one of the world's richest men.

The Beatles - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr
- came to the US in February 1964, starting the so-called "British
Invasion" of the American music scene. The interesting thing is how
long they had already been playing together. Lennon and McCartney began
in 1957. (Incidentally, the time that elapsed between their founding
and their greatest artistic achievements - arguably Sgt Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band and the White Album - is 10 years.) In 1960, while
they were still a struggling school rock band, they were invited to
play in Hamburg, Germany.

"Hamburg in those days did not have rock'n'roll music clubs. It had strip clubs," says Philip Norman, who wrote the Beatles' biography, Shout! "There was one particular club owner called Bruno, who was originally a fairground showman. He had the
idea of bringing in rock groups to play in various clubs. They had this
formula. It was a huge nonstop show, hour after hour, with a lot of
people lurching in and the other lot lurching out. And the bands would
play all the time to catch the passing traffic. In an American
red-light district, they would call it nonstop striptease.

"Many of the bands that played in Hamburg were from Liverpool," Norman
continues. "It was an accident. Bruno went to London to look for bands.
But he happened to meet a Liverpool entrepreneur in Soho, who was down
in London by pure chance. And he arranged to send some bands over.
That's how the connection was established. And eventually the Beatles
made a connection not just with Bruno, but with other club owners as
well. They kept going back, because they got a lot of alcohol and a lot
of sex."

And what was so special about Hamburg? It wasn't that it paid well. (It didn't.) Or that the acoustics were fantastic. (They weren't.) Or that the audiences were savvy and appreciative. (They were anything but.) It was the sheer amount of time the band was forced to play. Here is John Lennon, in an interview after the Beatles disbanded, talking about the band's performances at a Hamburg strip club called
the Indra: "We got better and got more confidence. We couldn't help it
with all the experience playing all night long. It was handy them being
foreign. We had to try even harder, put our heart and soul into it, to
get ourselves over. In Liverpool, we'd only ever done one-hour
sessions, and we just used to do our best numbers, the same ones, at
every one. In Hamburg we had to play for eight hours, so we really had
to find a new way of playing."

The Beatles ended up travelling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962. On the first trip, they played 106 nights, of five or more hours a night. Their second trip they played 92 times. Their third trip they played 48 times, for a
total of 172 hours on stage. The last two Hamburg stints, in November
and December 1962, involved another 90 hours of performing. All told,
they performed for 270 nights in just over a year and a half. By the
time they had their first burst of success in 1964, they had performed
live an estimated 1,200 times, which is extraordinary. Most bands today
don't perform 1,200 times in their entire careers. The Hamburg crucible
is what set the Beatles apart.

"They were no good on stage when they went there and they were very good when they came back," Norman says. "They learned not only stamina, they had to learn an enormous amount of numbers - cover versions of everything you can think of, not
just rock'n'roll, a bit of jazz, too. They weren't disciplined on stage
at all before that. But when they came back they sounded like no one
else. It was the making of them."

Let's now turn to the history of Bill Gates. His story is almost as well-known as the Beatles'. Brilliant young maths wiz discovers computer programming. Drops out of
Harvard. Starts a little computer company called Microsoft with his
friends. Through sheer brilliance, ambition and guts builds it into the
giant of the software world.

Now let's dig a bit deeper. Gates' father was a wealthy lawyer in Seattle, and his mother was the daughter of a well-to-do banker. As a child Gates was precocious, and easily bored by his studies. So his parents took him out of public school, and
at the beginning of seventh grade sent him to Lakeside, a private
school that catered to Seattle's elite families. Midway through Gates'
second year, the school started a computer club. "The Mothers' Club at
school did a rummage sale every year, and there was always the question
of what the money would go to," Gates remembers. "That year, they put
$3,000 into buying a computer terminal down in this funny little room
that we subsequently took control of. It was kind of an amazing thing."

Even more remarkable was the kind of computer Lakeside bought:
it was an ASR-33 Teletype, a time-sharing terminal with a direct link
to a mainframe computer in downtown Seattle. "The whole idea of
time-sharing only got invented in 1965," Gates says. "Someone was
pretty forward looking."

From that moment on, Gates lived in the computer room. He and a number of others began to teach themselves how to use this strange new device. The parents raised more money to buy time on the mainframe computer. The students spent it. As luck
would have it, Monique Rona, one of the founders of C-Cubed - a company
that leased computer time - had a son at Lakeside, a class ahead of
Gates. Would the Lakeside computer club, Rona wondered, like to test
out the company's software programs on the weekends in exchange for
free programming time? Absolutely!

Before long, Gates and his friends latched on to another outfit called ISI, which agreed to let them have free computer time in exchange for working on a piece of
software that could be used to automate company payrolls. In one
seven-month period in 1971, Gates and his cohorts ran up 1,575 hours of
computer time on the ISI mainframe, which averages out at eight hours a
day, seven days a week.

"It was my obsession," Gates says of his early high school years. "I skipped athletics. I went up there at night. We were programming on weekends. It would be a rare week that we wouldn't get 20 or 30 hours in. There was a period where Paul Allen and I got in trouble for stealing a bunch of passwords and crashing the
system. We got kicked out. I didn't get to use the computer the whole
summer. This is when I was 15 and 16. Then I found out Paul had found a
computer that was free at the University of Washington. They had these
machines in the medical centre and the physics department. They were on
a 24-hour schedule, but with this big slack period so between three and
six in the morning they never scheduled anything." Gates laughed.
"That's why I'm always so generous to the University of Washington,
because they let me steal so much computer time. I'd leave at night,
after my bedtime. I could walk up to the university from my house. Or
I'd take the bus." Years later, Gates' mother said, "We always wondered
why it was so hard for him to get up in the morning."

Through one of the founders of ISI, Gates landed a secondment programming a
computer system at the Bonneville Power station in southern Washington
State. There, he spent the spring of his senior year writing code.

Those five years, from eighth grade to the end of high school, were Bill
Gates' Hamburg, and by any measure he was presented with an even more
extraordinary series of opportunities than Bill Joy. And virtually
every one of those opportunities gave Gates extra time to practise. By
the time he dropped out of Harvard, he'd been programming nonstop for
seven consecutive years. He was way past 10,000 hours. How many
teenagers had the kind of experience Gates had? "If there were 50 in
the world, I'd be stunned," he says.

If you put together the stories of hockey players and the Beatles and Bill Joy and Bill Gates, I think we get a more complete picture of the path to success. Joy,
Gates and the Beatles are all undeniably talented. Lennon and McCartney
had a musical gift, of the sort that comes along once in a generation,
and Joy, let us not forget, had a mind so quick that he could make up a
complicated algorithm on the fly that left his professors in awe. A
good part of that "talent", however, was something other than an innate
aptitude for music or maths. It was desire. The Beatles were willing to
play for eight hours straight, seven days a week. Joy was willing to
stay up all night programming. In either case, most of us would have
gone home to bed. In other words, a key part of what it means to be
talented is being able to practise for hours and hours - to the point
where it is really hard to know where "natural ability" stops and the
simple willingness to work hard begins.

What is so striking about these success stories is that the outliers were the beneficiaries of some kind of unusual opportunity. Lucky breaks don't seem like the
exception with software billionaires, rock bands and star athletes;
they seem like the rule.

Recently Forbes Magazine compiled a list of the 75 richest people in history. It includes queens and kings and pharaohs from centuries past, as well as contemporary billionaires such as Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim. However, an astonishing 14 on the list are Americans born within nine years of each other in the mid-19th century. In other words, almost 20% of the names come from a single
generation - born between 1831 and 1840 in a single country. The list
includes industrialists and financiers who are still household names
today: John Rockefeller, born in 1839 (the richest of the lot); Andrew
Carnegie, 1835; Jay Gould, 1836; and JP Morgan, 1837.

What's going on here is obvious, if you think about it. In the 1860s and
1870s, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest
transformation in its history. This was when the railways were built,
and when Wall Street emerged. It was when industrial manufacturing
started in earnest. It was when all the rules by which the traditional
economy functioned were broken and remade. What that list says is that
it was absolutely critical, if you were going to take advantage of
those opportunities, to be in your 20s when that transformation was
happening.

If you were born in the late 1840s, you missed it - you were too young to take advantage of that moment. If you were born in the 1820s, you were too old - your mindset was shaped by the old, pre-civil war ways. But there is a particular, narrow nine-year window that was just perfect. All of the 14 men and women on that list had
vision and talent. But they also were given an extraordinary
opportunity, in the same way that hockey players born in January,
February and March were given an extraordinary opportunity.

Let's do the same kind of analysis for software tycoons such as Bill Joy and Bill Gates.

Veterans of Silicon Valley will tell you that the most important date in the
history of the personal computer revolution was January 1975. That was
when the magazine Popular Electronics ran a cover story on a machine
called the Altair 8800. The Altair cost $397. It was a do-it-yourself
contraption that you could assemble at home. The headline on the story
read: Project Breakthrough! World's First Minicomputer Kit To Rival
Commercial Models. To readers of Popular Electronics, then the bible of
the fledgling software and computer world, that headline was a
revelation. Computers up to that point were the massive, expensive
mainframes of the sort sitting in the white-tiled expanse of the
Michigan computing centre. For years, every hacker and electronics wiz
had dreamed of the day when a computer would come along that was small
and inexpensive enough for an ordinary person to use and own. That day
had finally arrived.

If January 1975 was the dawn of the personal computer age, then who would be in the best position to take advantage of it? If you're a few years out of college in 1975, and if you have had any experience with programming at all, you would have
already been hired by IBM or one of the other traditional, old-line
computer firms of that era. You belonged to the old paradigm. You have
just bought a house. You're married. A baby is on the way. You're in no
position to give up a good job and pension for some pie-in-the-sky $397
computer kit. So let's also rule out all those born before, say, 1952.

At the same time, though, you don't want to be too young. You can't seize
the moment if you're still in high school. So let's also rule out
anyone born after, say, 1958. The perfect age to be in 1975, in other
words, is young enough to see the coming revolution but not so old as
to have missed it. You want to be 20 or 21, born in 1954 or 1955.

Let's start with Gates, the richest and most famous of all Silicon Valley
tycoons. When was he born? Bill Gates: October 28 1955. The perfect
birthdate. Gates is the hockey player born on January 1.

Gates's best friend at Lakeside was Paul Allen. He also hung out in the
computer room with Gates, and shared those long evenings at ISI and
C-Cubed. Allen went on to found Microsoft with Gates. Paul Allen:
January 21 1953.

The third richest man at Microsoft is the one who has been running the company on a day-to-day basis since 2000 - one of the most respected executives in the software world, Steve Ballmer. Steve Ballmer: March 24 1956.

And let's not forget a man every bit as famous as Gates, Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer. He wasn't from a rich family, like Gates, and he didn't go to Michigan, like Joy. But it doesn't take much investigation of his upbringing to
realise that he had his Hamburg, too. He grew up in Mountain View
California, just south of San Francisco, which is the absolute
epicentre of Silicon Valley. His neighbourhood was filled with
engineers from Hewlett-Packard, then, as now, one of the most important
electronics firms in the world. As a teenager he prowled the flea
markets of Mountain View, where electronics hobbyists and tinkerers
sold spare parts. Jobs came of age breathing the air of the very
business he would later dominate. He picked the brains of
Hewlett-Packard engineers and once even called Bill Hewlett, one of the
company's founders, to request parts. Jobs not only received the parts
he wanted, he managed to wangle a summer job. He worked on an assembly
line to build computers and was so fascinated that he tried to design
his own... Steve Jobs was born on February 24 1955.

Another of the pioneers of the software revolution was Eric Schmidt. He ran
Novell, one of Silicon Valley's most important software firms, and in
2001 became the chief executive officer of Google. He was born on April
27 1955.

I don't mean to suggest, of course, that every software tycoon in Silicon Valley was born in 1955. But there are very clearly patterns here, and what's striking is how little we seem to want to talk about them. We pretend that success is a matter of individual merit. That is not the whole story. These are stories about people who
were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it, and
who happened to come of age at a time when that extraordinary effort
was rewarded by the rest of society. Their success was not of their own
making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up. Their
success, in other words, wasn't due to some mysterious process known
only to themselves. It had a logic, and if we can understand that
logic, think of all the tantalising possibilities that opens up.

By the way, let's not forget Bill Joy. Had he been just a little bit older
and had to face the drudgery of programming with computer cards, he
says he would have studied science. Bill Joy the computer legend would
have been Bill Joy the biologist. In fact, he was born on November 8
1954. And his three fellow founders of Sun Microsystems - one of the
oldest and most important of Silicon Valley's software companies? Scott
McNealy: born November 13 1954. Vinod Khosla: born January 28 1955.
Andy Bechtolsheim: born June 1955. ·

• This is an edited extract from Outliers: The Story Of Success, by
Malcolm Gladwell, to be published on November 27 by Allen Lane at
£16.99. Malcolm Gladwell: Live In London is on November 24 at 5.45pm
and 8.30pm at the Lyceum Theatre, London. Tickets from £13.50 to
£26.50. To book, call 0844 412 1742 or go to malcolmgladwell-live.com. There will be an interview with Malcolm Gladwell in tomorrow's Observer.

Guardian Page: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/15/malcolm-gladwell-outliers-extract

Are schools focusing too much on feelings? from the London Times Online School Gate Page.

2008-11-07T23:26:00.001+08:00

From ... School Gate - Times Online - WBLG
November 07, 2008

Are schools focusing too much on feelings?

By Nicola Woolcock Education Correspondent

How would you respond if your child refused to eat her vegetables with the words: “Mummy, I feel very uncomfortable having to eat all these peas”. ?

This is a question that Dennis Hayes, visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University is trying to grapple with. He is concerned that schools are focusing too much on social education rather than the old fashioned business of teaching children facts.

Lessons in “happiness” or Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL), that teach children to explore their emotions, now run in three fifths of primary schools. And they are now being rolled out to secondary schools.

SEAL has the enthusiastic support of ministers, who are currently exploring
whether pupils should be assessed at school on their personal development as well as their academic achievements.

As a mark in how far this approach to learning has gone already, schools in
Birmingham were told earlier this year that happiness in the classroom
should be treated with the same importance as academic achievement.

But Professor Hayes does not approve. Indeed, he believes that teaching
emotional lessons in school, gets in the way of learning and represents
a form of child abuse that manipulates pupils into being victims.

He told a recent gathering of educationalists in London organised by the
Westminster Education Forum that schools are in danger of becoming
“social work centres staffed by psychiatrists brainwashing pupils”.

Millions of pounds, he says, are being spent on protecting children from
bullying, teaching them to respect others and coaching them in “proper
emotions”, such as empathy not anger.

“This is a heartless denial of a real education for children,” he says. “Also it’s manipulative - a form of child abuse: getting children to feel the right emotions and learn the emotional scripts.

“One mother told me that her son had learnt the ‘dealing with potentially
abusive situation’ scripts so well that at dinner he said, ‘Mummy, I
feel very uncomfortable having to eat all these peas’.”

Professor Hayes, who is co-author of a book called The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, believes that such tactics exacerbate problems by making children oversensitive.

“It makes matters worse,” he says. “Take bullying as an example. The
more you talk about bullying, the more it sensitises people to every
social slight, and the more it becomes a problem - but one created by
adult intervention.

“Training pupils to be happy is a self-destructive policy and a self-defeating concern. Happiness is a by-product of other achievements.

“We need to get back to what education means, giving young people a grounding in disciplines that structure human knowledge and understanding, rather than patronising them and letting them talk about what they want.”

Ministers are convinced that teaching children to express their emotions boosts
concentration and motivation. But my guess is that some parents might
have a sneaking suspicion that the Prof is on to something.

From... the (London) Times Online School Gate Page: Helping you through the maze of Britain's education system ...

from the best of New York Times Blogs ... blogpost by Judith Warner

2008-11-07T21:27:00.001+08:00

from the best of The NEW YORK TIMES BLOGS

November 6, 2008, 9:03 pm by Judith Warnerhttp://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/title/

Tears to Remember
On Wednesday, Nov. 5, 1980, my 10th-grade American history teacher started class by unfurling The New York Times. She pointed to its triple bannerheadline: “Reagan Easily Beats Carter; Republicans Gain in Congress;D’Amato and Dodd are Victors.”

“Save this paper,” she told us. “This is the start of a whole new era.”
And it was. An era of unbridled deregulation, wealth-enhancing perks for the already well-off, and miserly indifference to the poor and middle class; of the recasting of greed as goodness, the equation of bellicose provincialism with patriotism, the reframing of bigotry as small-town decency.
In short, it was the start of our current era. The Reagan Revolution was the formative political experience of my generation’s lifetime,like the Great Depression, the Second World War or Vietnam for those before us. And in its intellectual and moral paucity, in its eventual hegemony, these years shut down, for some of us, the ability to fully imagine another way.
I will admit that back in January, when Barack Obama, in his post-Iowa victory speech, spoke about the “cynics,” the “they” who said “this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose,” he was talking about me.
I will admit that the call of “change” did not speak to me as an achievable goal.
Until it actually came.
On Wednesday, there was a run on newspapers, as voters rushed to grab a tangible piece of the history they’d made. My husband Max and I,unable to find extra copies, brought our own worn papers home to 8- and 11-year-old Emilie and Julia.
Sept. 11, the seismic event that we’d feared would forever form their political consciousness, shaping their world and constricting the boundaries of the possible, had actually been eclipsed, light blotting out darkness, the best of America at long last driving away the demons of fear. We wanted them to see that it was the end of an era.
“Look,” we said, pointing to the headline “Racial Barrier Falls.” “This is huge.”
We labored to make them understand that their world – art that day,
and orchestra, and Baked Potato Bar at lunch – had irrevocably changed.
But how can you understand change when you’ve only known one way of being?
They were happy because we were happy. They rose to the occasion in that bemused way children do when adults tell them what they should feel. They were glad to be rid of George W. Bush and to be saved – for now – from the specter of Sarah Palin. (“It is not O.K. to say she’s an ‘idiot,’” I had snapped when they came home from school stoked by the mob. “Prove your case. Show, don’t tell.”)
They’d had, like many D.C. children, more than their share of politics. After first following the country into battle against the all-purpose boogeyman Saddam Hussein, they’d become antiwar. They had opinions on tax policy and spoke angrily about the “wealth gap.” In the past election year, they’d been fired up about the woman thing, in all its pretty girl versus smart girl iterations; in fact, they and their friends had remained hard-core Hillaryites long after their moms had moved on.
But the race thing? The groundbreaking enormity of the election of our country’s first African-American president?
“You’re being racist,” Emilie had said when I made a comment about how particularly earth-moving this election was for black voters. “Why should it matter if people are black or white?”
Theirs has often looked to me like a world drained of meaning. Girl power put to the service of selling Hannah Montana. Feel-good inclusiveness that occulted the very real conflicts, crimes and hatreds of history.
It isn’t easy to let go of the past to embrace something new, to risk heartbreak on the chance of the world’s actually having changed.
Or at least, it hasn’t been easy for me. But it comes naturally to some. Like the hundreds of George Washington University students who gathered in front of the White House on Tuesday night, cheering and screaming and shouting their goodbyes to the political era of their youth.

“Bliss it was to be alive, but to be young was very heaven,” Max emailed me, paraphrasing William Wordsworth on the French Revolution, at 11:30 p.m. on election night, after leaving his desk to walk among the revelers downtown. I, home with the kids, was in bed, sleeping the drugged sleep of an alcohol-abstaining migraineuse after drinking half a glass of celebratory champagne.
Colin Powell did not dance for joy over Obama’s victory; he wept.
“Look what we did. Look what we did,” he said, puffy-faced, red-eyed, fighting back more tears on CNN. “He’s won. It’s over.”
David Dinkins was similarly solemn. “Things do change. There is a God. They do get better,” said the mayor who presided over New York City at a time of toxic racial tensions.
Obama, too, resisted giddy gladness on Tuesday night. But he did proclaim an end to the world as we’ve known it for far too long.
“To those who would tear the world down: we will defeat you,” he promised. “This is our moment. This is our time.”
The glory of Barack Obama is that there are so many different kinds of us who can claim a piece of that “our.” African-Americans, Democrats, post-boomers, progressives, people who rose from essentially nowhere and through hard work and determination succeeded beyond their parents’ wildest dreams are the most obvious.
But there are also people who respect intelligence and good grammar. People who see their spouse as their “best friend,” as Barack called Michelle on Tuesday night. People whose children have the same knowing look as Sasha and Malia, who are probably more excited about their puppy than about their father’s presidency.
Two images will forever stay in my mind to mark this epoch-breaking election day. One is that of Jesse Jackson’s face, drenched in tears, in Chicago’s Grant Park on Tuesday evening.
And the other is a photo that ran in The Times on Wednesday. In it, a black mother and daughter sit on the floor of a church in Harlem. The mother, Latrice Barnes, having heard of Obama’s victory, is doubled up in tears; her daughter, Jasmine, is reaching a tentative hand up to soothe her. To me, she looks like the future, reaching out to heal the past.

At the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008,
Latrice Barnes, right, is comforted by her daughter Jasmine Redd, 5.
(David Goldman for The New York Times)

It is, I suppose, in part a matter of temperament, whether one shouts or weeps at happy transformative moments. But I also think it’s a matter of what has come before. The young people joyfully frolicking in front of the Bush White House never knew the universe whose passing was marked by Obama’s victory and Jackson’s tears.
This moment of triumph marks the end of such a long period of pain, of indignity and injustice for African-Americans. And for so many others of us, of the trampling and debasing of our most basic ideals, beliefs that we cherished every bit as deeply and passionately as those of the “values voters” around whose sensibilities we’ve had to tiptoe for the past 28 years.
The election brought the return of a country we’d lost for so long that it was almost forgotten under the accumulated scar tissue of accommodation and acceptance.
For me, this will be the enduring memory of election night 2008: One generation released its grief. The next looked up confusedly, eager to please and yet unable to comprehend just what the tears were about.
By Judith Warner, in The New York Times Blogs
http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/title/

45 Years Later, the First Afro-American President. Martin Luther King Jr ... Jesse Jackson ... Obama

2008-11-05T20:26:00.001+08:00

Martin Luther King Jr's Civil Rights Movement I Have A Dream Speech

Obama's Victory Speech You Tube Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiERG72bH8Q

News Articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05elect.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/05/obama-wins-presidency/

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5085835.ece

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Barack-Obama-Chicago-Party-Grant-Park-Celebration-After-Illinois-Senators-US-Election-Victory/Article/200811115142759?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15142759_Barack_Obama_Chicago_Party%3A_Grant_Park_Celebration_After_Illinois_Senators_US_Election_Victory

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45800,features,in-pictures-the-long-journey-of-black-americans,15

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5085854.ece

Palin Power

2008-09-04T22:04:00.005+08:00
No Euphemism ... Real Talk

Palin's Acceptance Speech at the Republican National Convention

More videos and news from the 2008 Republican National Convention
http://www.gopconvention2008.com/videos/

Introducing Palin as VP Nominee

Campaign Ad on Palin: Maverick

Superficial China Gets Pretty Face To Mime While Not-So-Pretty Girl Sings At Olympics

2008-08-13T23:10:00.003+08:00
I am utterly disgusted. It's not bout bashing China or whatever. I am proud to be an ethnic Chinese, BUT this entire farce just befuddles me! It's like... what stoneage caveman mentality that senior politburo has, and what racial argument reasoning is that 'national interest'? Why can't we accept imperfections in humanity? Why can't we see the beauty in the crooked teeth, the innocence and purity in the undoctored and unpainted genuine face? If I were Hu Jintao, I will DEMOTE that senior politburo who made this most unfair and unsportsmanlike suggestion.

Link to Articles:
Sky News Article
Times Article

A Nation In Mourning

2008-05-23T19:10:00.001+08:00

Do Schools Kill Creativity? Lecture by Sir Ken Robinson

2008-05-13T21:39:00.003+08:00
Sir Ken Robinson, Creativity Expert and Consultant to the British Government on educational reforms, speaks about how we have to rethink and reshape our education systems for the 21st Century.

University degrees are no longer prized treasures, which then means that their worth towards a person's success is no longer of value. Instead, a person's self-creativity and independence of ability will be the determining factors.

Yet, schools are precisely conditioning and repressing a child's natural talents, forcing conformity to an educational norm of discipline, regurgitation of facts, and drilled responses. Under such a system, there will be no Shakespeare, no Einstein, no Andrew Llyod Webber. They would have been deemed too different, ill-disciplined, and abnormal.

Enjoy the lecture by Sir Ken. Full of insights and wit.

Olympics 2008 Video

2008-03-11T20:04:00.003+08:00
The Olympic Motto:
Citius Altius Fortius ... Faster Higher Stronger

The Olympic Creed:
"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Song

Beijing Video:

Woohoo! Alive Again! 2008!

2008-02-16T19:42:00.002+08:00
Ok.. I m out of hibernation...

2008, Year of the Rat ... it's going to be an intense and exhilirating year, because we are all going to live life to the fullest!

To start off, here's a poem one of our former band members placed on the band blog. Beautiful verses, and most heartfelt; indeed, life can be, and will be, beautiful!

How Do You Live Your Dash

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came her date of birth
And spoke the following date with tears,
But said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth…
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own;
The cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard…
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
That can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough
To consider what’s true and real,
And always try to understand
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,
And show more appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect,
And more often wear a smile…
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a while.

So when your eulogy’s being read
With your life’s actions to rehash…
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

-Author unknown

My life? My Dash? I am going to fill it in with all the most fantastic moments. Life is Beautiful!

Pavarotti...

2007-09-09T03:30:00.000+08:00
Pavarotti is dead.

The 3 Tenors... never again...

We Are The World ... Pavarotti and Friends Concert

The signature Nesse Dorma aria by Pavarotti... the bel canto golden voice of an era.

Flowers of Yorkshire

2007-09-06T13:33:00.000+08:00
Evocative bit of poetry from classic film 'Calendar Girls'.
By character John, written in the last stage of his life, before his death, to be read for the Women's Institute. Beautifully written, and beautifully delivered by Helen Mirren's role in the film.

The flowers of Yorkshire
Are like the women of Yorkshire.
Every stage of their growth has its own beauty,
But the last phase is always the most glorious.
Then very quickly they all go to seed.
Which makes it ironic my favourite flower
Isn’t even indigenous to the British Isles, let alone Yorkshire.
I don’t think there’s anything on this planet
That more trumpets life than the sunflower.
For me, that’s because of the reason behind its name.
Not because it looks like the sun
But because it follows the sun.
During the course of the day,
The head tracks the journey of the sun across the sky.
A satellite dish for sunshine.
Wherever light is, No matter how weak,
These flowers will find it.
And that’s such an admirable thing.
And such a lesson in life.

2007-09-02T11:40:00.000+08:00

Singapore Day 2007 in New York City and What Makes Us Singaporean

2007-08-26T20:29:00.000+08:00
Was looking at the vids on utube on Singapore Day 2007.
Musing - if one were to be a Singapore student studying overseas there, and hears of Singapore Day, and make the special effort to take the subway to Central Park, and then at the finale hear all the familiar songs, rounded by Kit Chan and all on 'Home', how can one not feel for one's friends, family and roots back in Singapore?

What makes us Singaporeans?
Our shared common memories, our shared ties, our shared experiences.
That's what makes us Signaporeans.

BTW Sec 4 Students: PM Lee's National Day Rally Speech available at http://www.gov.sg

What Makes Us Singaporean?
OK This is another most hilarious vid... Dick Lee's 30th Anniversary Concert.. with some tongue-in-cheek take on our national language(s), expressions, social issues, and even political satires... what makes us Singaporean? Our ability to identify with, laugh with, understand, and feel proud of all of that - all the best and the worst aspects of our lives, and we still proudly call this place home.. That's being Singaporean!

For the next, just simply funny.. ROTFL... but you got to ignore the expressions that hint at vulgarities.. the ending parody on 'Count On Me Singapore' is simply funny... just for laughs.

881 - Getai - Our National Heritage

2007-08-26T20:00:00.000+08:00
Broadway, West End, Sydney, Shanghai, L.A. ...
Getai Singapore

Latest Film by Royston Tan

881 in New York City - Singapore Day 2007 (Central Park, New York City)

Other Movie Teasers:

Final Clip - Royston Tan (Director) on a real Getai

There's No Place I'd Rather Be

2007-08-15T23:32:00.000+08:00

CH Events July August 2007 Return for the annual Get-togethers!

2007-06-28T22:12:00.000+08:00
Time to do some publicity....
July and August - the traditional CH Get-together Months for old boys and current students.
The series of events and concerts/performances all of you guys can come back for are:

30 June Saturday Homecoming CH Campus @ Bishan Coupons available onsite
7 July Saturday CH Music Awards CH School Hall Tickets from iMedia
28 July Saturday CH Young Performers Showcase Victoria Concert Hall Tics $5 from me, or current/past music or performing arts groups students
3-4 Aug Fri/Sat CH Drama Festival Victoria Theatre Tickets from School General Office or me
7 Aug Tue (National Day Eve's Eve) Esplanade 'Limelite Series': CH Symphony Band Tickets at $15 (Student Concession) +$1 Ticket Charge available at http://www.sistic.com.sg/ or from me.

Right then, Come for ALL the performances and have an INTENSE, PACKED, VARIED and ROARING GOODTIME with your CH Brothers.

Life is fragile

2007-06-26T22:31:00.000+08:00
Our former student passed away.
So swift, so sudden.
So young.
Rest in the Lord

Shocked.
Sad.

Seek comfort in the Lord.
God has his plans.

Life is fragile.
Live fully, with such sheer drive.
Live well, with that broad smile.

Leave behind a tale,
Leave behind an inspiration.
No regrets.

... to thaddeus ... from your teachers in cath high ... we will miss you dearly... and we keep faith, knowing that you are now with the Lord in his blessings...

China Immersion Trip: A Great Adventure - Photos I

2007-06-02T20:31:00.000+08:00
Just back from China - a whirlwind 12 days' immersion trip, covering lessons in the Chinese classrooms of Changchun's Dong Bei Shi Fan Da Xue Fu Shu Shi Yan Zhong Xue, meetings with their different teachers and heads, with lots of visits to places of interest and museums packed in too. Then, off on a train to Chang Bai San and the Korean Tribe Autonomous Region at the border between China and Northern Korea, and then coming down to Shanghai for a transit night before returning to Singapore. Great trip, great experience, great reflections, great insights, great students and company, great adventure!

Just a few photos here for today; other photos and thoughts later. PLUS, I don't have photos for Changbai Shan and many of the other places -handphone cam ran out of battery .. whoever has, please leave a link here to your photosite for us to access. Thanks.

2007-05-02T21:19:00.000+08:00

300 ... Prepare for Glory! Tell of Victory!

2007-03-15T22:23:00.000+08:00

Caught 300. Great film, not because it's the best adapted screenplay, or that it's the best film of the year, for these it certainly is not. But because of its classic historical tale itself. Well, some film connoisseurs would like to believe that it could be told with more stylistic poetry and pacing. Yet, this is about a real story of a brutal battle in a brutal age by a brutal people against another brutal people. In that context, the simplicity and starkness of its brutality and directness of its killing stands as a clear image of that age.

The tale of the 300 Spartans in their last stand against the full might of the Persian Empire at the Hot Gates of Greece is a classic one, one in which a few prevailed over many, holding out for an impossible stretch of time, till the bitter end. The Battle of Thermopylae is still studied in all military academies the world over.

It was a battle doomed to failure, but the heroic Spartans still persisted, because they saw the larger victory it would accord Greece, for it forestalled the progress of the Persian army, and allowed the Athenians, Spartans and other Greek nation-states to prepare themselves for the final onslaught. It was not the battle to end all battles, but it was the critical battle that allowed for final victory thereafter.

And the Spartans in their full heroic glory stood the test of time.

Classic quotes from the annals on the Battle:
So much the better, we shall fight in the shade
Prepare for Glory
Tell of Victory

It's heroic and tragic pathos at its very best.
The Last Stand.
300.

-------------------------
Military Lessons from the Spartans:
... There can be no weak link in the rank and file of the entire formation when one goes into battle. All must be equal in every aspect. All shields must be held at the same height, with no gap possible. All in one and one in all. It's not merely individuals, but a brotherhood. Otherwise, one would fail. The quality of the army is only as good as its weakest link. There can be no weakest link.
... The whole formation must be United As One. All must move with deadly swiftness and precision. The success of the attack will only be as good as how sharp and together one and all executes the thrusts and moves. Attack together, attack fast, be clean and swift, and then move on again.
... Plan well ahead, and plan well. One wrong decision or move can very well cost the entire battle.
... Think not of personal glory alone, but of the ideals and glory of the nation.

-------------------------
Lessons from Britain, Churchill, WWII:
Winston Churchill: We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the seas, we shall fight in the skies ... we shall never surrender! (WWII)
Britain all alone against the entire might of Nazi Germany, and standing firm, the lone fortress in the sea.... Their Finest Hour.

-------------------------
Our Battles 2007: SYF, Prelims and 'O' Levels.

And It Was To Be A Manageable Paper.

2007-03-07T21:39:00.000+08:00
Hmm ... still marking prelims 1 compre....

It was to be a manageable paper.
It was to be a paper that simulates the 'O' Level standards.
It was to be a paper which people could at least pass.

But it was not to be.

And it's not because you could not comprehend the passage.
And it's not because you could not comprehend the question.
It was merely that the you did not bother to go that little more extra mile to give a quality answer.
And all your answers came to naught.

It's HIGHLY irritating to see that lack of extra effort to THINK beyond and THINK further.
It's HIGHLY disappointing to place the zeros in the right margin.

It's frankly a case of having the intelligence, but not having the mental stamina and mental demand.
SO THERE'S STILL HOPE
Only if you really want to do that.

And it's not just wanting.
It's not just knowing that you want.
It's not just feeling that you want.
It's not just saying that you want.
It's about doing it - really putting the effort to get what you want.
It's about finally achieving what you want.

The final DOING and ACHIEVEING is what you have to do now.

SO JUST DO IT. DON'T SLACK.
You may think you have been working very hard, but it's not enough - you have to inject it into the actual answering too - you have to give quality answers. You must do more.

Heard that you guys have started letting your guard down; you have not been as focused these few days as the first English paper day. Shame on you then.
Like I said that day:
This is not a time to celebrate a good start and then get complacent.
This is a time to celebrate a focused start and then to push further.
And you have failed to keep up the momentum.
That will be the beginning of your downfall.
And this is your main weakness: easily distracted and easily complacent.

So again, MOVE IT, DO IT.

No time for complacency and vegetation in the hols. Continue with the practices.
More Quizzes and Mock Papers for EL when school reopens.
And you need it.

PRESS ON.
It will be EXCITING and FULFILLING.
THAT I WILL PROMISE.

And your FINAL DISTINCTION will be sweet!
L1R5 = 6.
English A1

Renaissance. Rebirth.

2007-03-06T21:29:00.000+08:00
Renaissance - The Rebirth.

After some 3 months, I am finally emerging from my own dark ages and middle ages, to relaunch and rediscover.

I have been declaring to all and sundry that I am bored, that there's just a sense of emptiness that I am floating in. Day in day out, it's the same routine. What's the point? Indeed, I have been walking the same underpass every morning for some 9 years, rushing early in the morning. How more predictable can it get? Even the Ritz-Carlton does not excite me at all. Everything feels the same, though everything is different. So, I guess Mary is right - it's all a matter of my self-decreed state of inertia, in other words my own perspective. So thanks to all, especially these few days; I am now officially in my new cycle.
So there, 2 things this year, officially. 'O' Levels and SYF.

The other day, Daryl of 4-4/2006 was just telling me that I should blog bout their 'O' Level Results, just to start my blog going again. So I am taking up his suggestion, and will just give my two cents worth. Indeed, we have all worked extremely hard for his batch. As I have said to many, I have never worked so hard before - bl__dy hard. And all our hard work, as a school, has paid off. They have done extremely well. It is not easy, frankly, especially with all the diversions throughout last year. But the batch has risen to the occasion, and the results say it all: L1r5 of 9.5, topping the nation in Maths, History, Social Studies, Biology, and coming in 6th for English and Physics. 57% Distinction and MSG of 2.3 for English. 100% Distinction for MEP Higher Music, and 75% Distinction for Music. It's a Band 1 for Catholic High! Finally we are back again! That sense of a comeback is tremendous. And it's not merely a comeback, but a roaring surge! Kudos to the Class of 2006, and to the entire team of teachers who worked and slogged.

I think the current 2007 batch of Sec 4s are feeling the motivation, the stress, and the fear. And this is good. You know you have got to maintain, if not better, the performance that you seniors have attained for our alma mater. And from the lead-up to Prelims One, I think MOST have shaped up, and settled down. Well, only for MOST. There are still a handful still in self-denial. But for all, let's keep telling ourselves: THERE'S NO MORE TIME. WE JUST GOT TO KEEP PRESSING AHEAD. NO TURNING BACK. NO STOPPING. JUST KEEP GOING. MOMENTUM! And after Prelims 1, DON'T SLACK in the holidays. Results 2006 was not built by slacking, but by sheer grit and hardwork. So there, Class of 2007, you lead us now. SHOW US THE LIGHT.

Then there's SYF. This is it. Four mere weeks before SYF. How many SYFs have I gone through since back in Cath High? 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, and now 2007. From a Silver, to our first Gold, to the next Gold, then the Gold With Honours. This year, we must get our Gold With Honours, and more! It's a long journey, and NOTHING IS FOR GRANTED, NOTHING IS EASY. Like I told the band the other day, this is the time for sheer grit, determination, tenacity and will. We just got to keep forging ahead. We should be confident, but not over-confident. In fact, we should not be at this point confident of a GWH, because that is certainly the sign of complacency and a sure path towards disappointment. We must practise like there is no tomorrow, and we must be simply brimming with desire and exertion towards the GWH. Only then can we be certain that there is hope of that. So, CHSSB: faster, further, higher.

And for me, on a personal note, this is gona be my last year of association with the Band. In fact, last year's 2006 CHSSB Sec 4 was my last full-time batch, and they all knew it. That's why I practically gave my all, for Aesthetique, for everything, last year. And indeed, this year, I just cannot come down to the Band as often as I like anymore, because of commitments. My appearances in the band have been sparse and at odd hours, usually right at the very end. But in a sense, 2007 CHSSB Sec 4 is the final batch which I have had since Sec 1, and I owe it to you, and you expect it of me, to complete the SYF together. So this will be our last SYF, and we MUST give our everything for it. We cannot have regrets. There will be no 'What Ifs'. There will only be a sense of Mission Accomplished and Sweet Victory. We CAN, MUST, and WILL Soar!

Then, that's it. Period.

I M A Workaholic

2007-02-21T22:14:00.000+08:00
I am now convinced that I am a workaholic. I can declare that with utmost confidence and certainty. I thrive on work, and I wither in rest. The energetic drive one experiences in constant decisions and actions just moves one along. And I feel alive. Period.

Rest is good, but work is better.

Silence and Music

2007-01-28T01:23:00.000+08:00

"After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
- Aldous Huxley

A Photo To Remember

2006-12-30T21:32:00.000+08:00
My sis just discovered this site. She had gone for a gathering with her primary classmates (imagine that... she's already working now), and in their exchange of information, one of the classmates mentioned encountering this photo once, yet not knowing who it was... and hey, it was actually my sis and her friends who had written those words on the blackboard of her old primary classroom when they went back to visit. So she came back, and started searching for the photo on the website... and even more coincidental were the comments made by the photographer ... read on at the site...
http://www.pbase.com/blurified/image/993275

Talk bout the workings of Chance ... good film material...

Curse of the Golden Flower

2006-12-25T09:35:00.000+08:00
Looks good.

Sweet Nothings

2006-12-16T23:59:00.000+08:00
Not been blogging much recently. Not very inspired.
Anyway, this is a most silly yet instructive video.
Idiotic yet enlightening... damn funny.

Flag Of Our Fathers

2006-12-10T00:38:00.000+08:00
FLAG OF OUR FATHERS

... the PRIZE of war

... the PRICE of war

WAR - glory, sacrifice, fate, futility, waste, sham ...

simply gotta watch. period.

2006-12-04T00:03:00.000+08:00
LIFE ... no regrets.

Was discussing bout life, and I remember what I once said when I graduated from Cath High. I could distinctly recall I was on SBS Bus 157, a double decker, nearing Toa Payoh Bus Interchange that morning, just passing by that Chinese hospital, before making the turn near Toa Payoh stadium. I had been reflecting on the closure of a chapter of my life, and was not prepared to move on. I was reluctant. But as I was pondering, at that point, I said to myself that moment that I would want to really experience every aspect of life, to give and do my very best in each job i undertake and reach the pinnacle of that, then to move on to the next, and again give the utmost best and reach the peak as well, and then to move on again. That was the freedom and daring of my youth then. I said that I will earnestly and fervently live, such that when I die, I will look back in satisfaction on a life well-lived, a good life. And that is then truly... LIFE... no regrets.

2006-11-24T17:28:00.000+08:00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
公教中学学弟共勉之。。。

青山依旧绿水长流

。。。。。。记二零零六年十一月二十三日毕业晚会
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's Been A Good Year

2006-11-22T22:37:00.000+08:00
Listening to John Petrucci now ... soulful 'Wishful Thinking', sets one in the reflective mood; it's the time of the year again...

O Levels completed
Sending another batch off
Annual band alumni chalet the last 2 nights
Welcoming the sec 4s into the band alumni family
Final band chalet for those going into NS next year
Great time, heartwarming, to quote one old boy, seeing the many batches back together yearly and still as bonded
Grad Night tomorrow, the final closure
All The Best, the Class of 2006
It's been an honour and pleasure
It's been a good year
No regrets

他日再相逢

Hello 2007

If ... My Ode to The Class of 2006 Preparing for the O Levels...

2006-11-06T21:57:00.000+08:00
If you can still the heart and stay the course,
Or keep ur sanity and hold the sight;
If both grit and toil will challenge and try;
If all knowledge and quests baffle you, but none too hard or dry;
If you can grin and grind this final lap
With mind afire and eyes aglow-
Your 'morrow is the passion, word and deed,
And - without a doubt certain we are- yours will be success indeed!

That's my clumsy adaptation of 'If'... for the O levels... for the students who may feel faint at heart or over-stressed. Take heart in my not too polished words and FORGE ON... STAY THE COURSE, Firmly, Stoically, Steadily.. and You Will Be Fine.. You Will Shine!

The original poem 'If' by Kipling is one which I much admire, and which I have shared with my graduating students of 2005, and 2006. This is a poem that really anchors one to one's values, beliefs and ideals, and to never lose sight of that sincerity and trust even as one encounters wave after wave of conflicting demands from the fast-paced success-obssessed world. So, even as you move on to the next phase of your lives, this can serve as your anchoring creed.

The original...

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Die, Survive or Thrive

2006-10-31T21:55:00.000+08:00
I m dead tired, hungry ...

Been a whirlwind week past and another whirlwind week ahead. Drowning and dying.

Madness schedule ... yesterday, recruitment talk in the morning at 8am, rushed back to sch at 9am for meeting till 1pm, then rushed for another moe meeting at 2pm, which lasted till 5pm... then rushed for dinner appointment at 6 plus.. finally managed to catch a movie, the departed...quite draining and heavy.. not exactly suitable for that jaded frame of mind at that point of time, but it's a good break nonetheless.

Then this morning, had to go to fajar road, somewhere in the west, for another recruitment talk at 8, then on to rosyth at 10, then back to school in the afternoon, and spent the whole afternoon and evening hunting around and preparing for a presentation i have to do tomorrow for this cluster seminar thing... gona be out for 2 whole days for the cluster seminar. And my music paper is on friday, with another recruitment talk on friday morning, which also clashes with an additional lesson i had previously arranged. Then another mock for EL on saturday morning.. Next week's gona be a typhoon week... recruitment talks ahead, music main paper, followed by the el papers.... WOW.... that's it....

And all those essays i forced them to write.. and still waiting for me, piling up. Very jaded and mentally exhausted, but got to do it. Papers next week.

K... shan't complain... forge ahead... and i shall survive. No, I shall thrive.

Farewell Assembly 2006 and CH Alumni Founder's Day Dinner

2006-10-13T23:59:00.000+08:00
13 October. Most significant date.

It's farewell assembly day for the sec 4s today. Went up to 4-4 and 4-8 to give them the bookmarks that I made. Wrote some parting words and placed my favourite poem 'If' in the bookmark. Tried to con 4-4 and 4-8 that I had EL assignments for them, and I could see their jaws drop, literally. Of course, could not keep up the pretence for long, and started to give them the book marks. But I am really bad at saying goodbye, and this was no exception. I mumbled and rambled incoherently my goodbye thoughts, and told them to read the bookmark instead. They all stood up and clapped anc clapped at the end, which was moving. I fled swiftly.

The farewell assembly itself was the official closure. The highlights were the videos/slides presentation and the teachers' item at the end. The songs accompanying the videos were from our era, and the photos and clips and words ... all touched different parts of our hearts. Then, the teachers' item. It was unrehearsed and spontaneous. Took the song sheet from Endang and we all proceeded up to the stage while singing. Of course, we went wild, all of us, as we gamely hollered and sang into the mic, in key and off key, and tried the pass the microphones around. The Greatest Love Of All, and I Believe I Can Fly. The boys were happily shouting out the names of teachers whom they wish to sing into the mic, while we poor teaching souls were trying to read the lyrics as we sang. Towards the end, our free and soaring spirits took over... we sang with more and more gusto, and I know I did some ridiculously sounding sustain notes at the end ... for the fun of it lah ... And the boys went further .. they all, as a cohort, decided to stand on the chairs, and waved their arms in syn, as we sang together. It was really ... one word ... moving. So, it was a good farewell assembly. We had a charged closure.

For the sec 4s, I am certain they will remember this day, and the cheers they had at the end. And the school song was never sung so lustily and heartily by them before. They will all keep this close to their hearts, their feelings and thoughts of this day. For me ... I hate farewell assembly day, really, because it's sending another batch off, I don't look forward to saying goodbye, I know they will move on from here, it's like they are leaving home and embarking on their journeys, but for me, closing a chapter of life is always difficult. It's really emotionally very exhausting. Imagine experiencing that every year...

Then, it was the annual Cath High Alumni Founder's Day Dinner, at Neptune again this year. It was the most enjoyable FD Dinner I have had.. all the old boys teachers sat together, and we had a jolly good time - a truly enjoyable time filled with sincere laughter and thoughts. We were really boys again, relieving out past, talking bout the present, jibbing and suaning one another, talking and exchanging information. It was great fun, and it's like we were back in our schooling days. Especially, when we went round to say hi and talk to our former teachers, many of them retired and old, as well as sit at the same table as some of our teachers still teaching here. Saw our own classmates from yesteryears too. Good chat. Saw all the ancient, old, middling, younger batches of old boys all running around talking and catching up. As as all cath high students go, we never listened to the speeches given at all. Everyone were busy talking away at the top of our voices, ignoring the happenings on the stage. The only complete silence was during the prayers, as expected. Typical of all of us cath high boys, haha. So, it was a great gathering. Indeed, it was good.

And all the sec 4s should try to arrange and come for this annual dinner from next year onwards. Nothing beats coming together in a school community. The school song was sung at the beginning and the end, with the prayers, and with the familiar faces of old teachers, and the familiar family traits of a cath high boy all around ... it's like back in school again. If you want to see what a cath high boy is, just look around at the dinner, and you will see it in all of us.

Yup, this is a good day. 13 October 2006.

Mad Rush .. EL .. Music ... EL .. Music ... EL .. Music ...... Exciting!

2006-10-13T23:46:00.000+08:00
It has been a hectic 2 weeks. Rushing everywhere everyday. Sec 4 Music Practicals the priority now. Spent most afternoons and saturdays doing the sec 4 music practicals, and the other day was spent at MGS trying out their piano for the pract. Much of the English marking was put on hold, because all energy and mental focus spent on the music practicals. Next week is gona be another mad week ... out for the real 'O' Level music practicals from wednesday to friday, from 8am till 6pm everyday. Yes, it's that tedious, examining and writing comments for every candidate throughout the week.

English is THE king subject these days. Last few weeks of 7-8am took a toll on all of us, till i couldn't wake up on time on the last 3 days... so much for my blasting my students for being late... i ended up being late by 5 odd minutes those days... so tired... and having disturbed sleep. But must press on .... L1 is the most important... and the students CAN definitely do well if we all continue with this rigorous regime of English compre compo. Passed out this brilliant EL revision schedule that I came out with ... the push for distinctions, haha. Now it means I have to print out all the additonal reading materials and worksheets, as well as answers. Need to catch up on marking again too.

Yesterday was really crazy .... Did my 7-8am sec 4 EL compre review, then had sec 3 music final exams paper 1 and paper 2, which lasted 2 hours 40min, halfway during which i had to rush up to 4-8 and 4-4 to have my final official EL lesson for them. Then rushed down to collect the papers and arrange the practical schedule for Saturday for the Sec 3 music boys. It was by then 3:15pm, afterwhich I had to attend a meeting, till I had to run at 4:30pm, to catch a cab to Plaza Sing to listen to Ivan and Andrew test out the exams studio electone for the O levels. I only managed to reach PS at about 5, which left us with only half an hour to fine tune their balance etc. Came back to school after that, to finish work.

It was a mad rush, AND I LOVE EVERY BIT OF IT.

Forbidden City: The Musical - A Hundred Days of Changes, To Change The Way We ...

2006-10-03T23:06:00.000+08:00
I caught the final day performance of local musical 'Forbidden City', music by local composer Dick Lee, story and lyrics with West End award-winning Stephen Clark and idea collaboration with Steven Dexter, Presented by the Singapore Repertory Theatre.

It was a most fascinating presentation on an important epoch and character of pre-modern China History. Told through the reminiscence of the elderly Empress Dowager Cixi, it tells of a woman, an empire, and a people fighting for what they believe to be for the good of their nation. It tells of a nation fighting against foreign imperialists, in a doomed effort, to retain their way of life which had always been for 5000 years. In essence, that historical period - the Opium Wars, the Hundred Days Reformation, the Boxer Rebellion, the Allied Invasion - all shaped and crafted Chinese political psyche and mentality for the 100 years since, and its scars and impact still echo in the halls of Chinese politics and diplomacy today.

[LAND OF OUR FATHERS: ... One more defeat, one more retreat ... the world that we know that we're fighting to save ... one more to lose, one more to choose ... the world that we know for five thousand years ... the world that we make through the shedding of tears ... is becoming a world that everyone fears... the land of our fathers, the stories we told ... the land of our fathers, the glories of old ... ]

Charged and moving, moments abound when the air seemed to hang in suspense, as none dared breath but hung onto every word and note of the characters. I suppose it being the final day had its effects too. It was a full house, and after a month-long run.

[ MY ONLY CHANCE: ... They've painted my face ... they've chosen my path ... they've nurtured my pride ... in the role that they cast... but inside there's a place... a place that nobody knows ... This is my only chance ... Love, open my heart ... heals the broken dreams all in the past .. This is my only chance ... Love ... make me a part ... of someone ... who shows me ...]

This 2006 run is a magnificent spectacle; the revisions since the 2002/2003 runs (which I too had attended and had not appreciated) created a tighter narrative, more dichotomy and emotional tussles, greater sense of history and occasion. The costumes bespeak a rich tapestry of traditional designs and modern interpretations. The stage design flows poetic and symbolic - an electrifying visual feast of colours and depth.

[BLOOD IN THE STREETS: The very heart of China is sullied by its laws, its soul is choked with bitterness, with every breath it draws ... the earth is steeped in bloodshed, the walls are closing in ... corruption flows within our veins, now truth become a sin ...... A hundred days of changes, to change the way we learn, to change the way we see ourselves, for then the tide will turn ..... will make our world a stronger world that will not be run on bribes...... A country torn to pieces, by a hundred years of greed ... by the foreign devil's opium, just see the nation bleed ... a country torn to pieces, by a long and bloody war ... as the allies fought to rule a land, that is rotten to the core ......This is not the time for cowardice ... for if a single man retreats ... if a child is weak, if a woman cheats, we will suffer the first of a thousand defeats ... for an empire die, like a heart that never beats ... we will see our blood in the streets ... Blood In The Streets ...]

And the music and lyrics. The chic fusion of traditional eastern instruments and modern western ones creates a lush orchestration. The soaring yearning of My Only Chance, the hope and optimism of A Hundred Days Reformation, the turmoil and angst of Blood in the Streets, and the despair thereafter, and the same lyrics and melodic motifs presented by opposing characters in simultaneous contrasting contexts - the ironic parallels. The many turns, lifts and lines ofthe tunes and the poignant words just continued floating and etching their imprints in my mind even two days after. It will probably be a most successful world tour, esp in China. I look forward to its next run, and I will definitely be in attendance.

Official Website at www.srt.com.sg All photos taken from the SRT website.

2006-09-27T21:54:00.000+08:00

ESSAY PRACTICE: One-word Question (I)

2006-09-27T21:08:00.000+08:00
Right, here is the first set of one-word questions:

Farewell
Bored
Anger
Blues
Moods
Alone
Soul
Compassion
Dance
Greed
Desires
Pets
Obstacles

Be creative and inspired, and engage the reader. Bring the character and his/her world to life.

台湾感动。。。当人民站起来时

2006-09-16T15:20:00.000+08:00

百万人反贪污倒扁 ... ...阿扁下台!
围城之夜台湾感动

当千百万人民自发的站起来时那是发自内心的怒喊
当建中北一等中学生站出来时那是发自年轻的真挚
当豪雨与心身汗水泪滴交集时那是发自无声的忍耐
那一夜的真理与公义
那一夜的勇敢与执著
我听到了我感动了
你听到了吗你也感动了吗

真的，当到了忍无可忍的时候，当到了大是大非的时候，就是到了站起来的时候了。当人民站起时，当青年站起时，那就是最真实伟大无阻的力量了！

Note：看到台北所有名校，如建国中学，北一女中，師大附中，松山高中，台中一中的学生在昨晚的倒扁围城中走上了前线，我又想起了年轻人的希望。从五四运动，到抗日，到钓鱼台，到天安门学潮，都是年轻人学生出于对真理公正的述求与憧憬而付出的行动。
曾经，我们都年轻过。

青年学生永远都是走在时代与革命的前端的。以前是，现在是，以后也是。
Above are my thoughts upon watching the Protest March against P. Bian in Taipei last night. Decided to write that in Mandarin, because I feel more expressing in Mandarin for this issue.

I have been following the Taiwan 'Down with the President' campaign, and it's most fascinating, or rather, most thought-provoking. I have never had much liking for that Bian, and I just cannot stand his ineffectiveness, his lack of judgement, his lack of consideration for others, his lack of compassion, his lack of conscience and justice, and his lack of class. I guess his own Taiwanese people have finally decided that enough is enough, hence this current final outpour of public anger and action. Yesterday's Protest Encircling March, joined in by some 800000 people stretching some 5.5 km (from the front line to last line of protestors), self-initiated and not rallied by the political parties, was a most inspiring and moving sight. Note the massive crowd in the photo. The entire crowd of some 800000 protesters took about 6 hours to encircle and march around the Presidential Palace area. That's real People's Power.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next. Below are 2 articles I culled from sina.com. One article highlights the active participation by the youths and students of Taipei's top schools in this campaign, which is interesting, because when the young intelligensia takes to the streets like that, it is always an indication of the extent of disgruntle and problems that society has, and thus, they finally stand out, and become a catalyst of change.

An article from an online news site.
五千學生軍穿制服打頭陣
聯合新聞網 (2006/09/16 05:49)
http://news.sina.com.tw/politics/

【記者楊德宜、王宏舜∕台北報導】

圍城遊行的隊伍昨天下午出發後，由超過五千名高中生、大學生打頭陣，大多數學生沒穿雨衣，走在雨中嘶吼「阿扁下台」；一群考完模擬考相約上街遊行的高中生說，「你倒扁了沒有？」已經是校園的招呼語了。

來自建中、北一女、師大附中、松山高中、台中一中等上百所學校學生，昨天下午成群湧入凱道，大多數學生穿著制服、背著書包，頭上或手臂綁紅布條。隊伍中的學生不停開心尖叫，大吼「我終於能來倒扁！」

成功高中曹同學說，許多同學的白色制服下穿的就是紅Ｔ恤，顏色藏都藏不住。雖然校方告誡不要穿制服上街，以免外界對學校產生誤解，不過學生們說，身上只穿著一件制服上衣，「不穿制服遊行，難道要脫掉？」

南港高中三年級尤欣和兩名同學一起走在人群中。她說，「阿扁害教育經費都沒有了，我們連冷氣、水電費都要省」，加上看到校長周三在報紙民意論壇發表倒扁言論，「超感動的，所以我們來，表示力挺校長！」

大同高中的劉姓女同學和班上十個同學「組團」前進凱道。劉女表示，她們特地穿制服來倒扁，就是要讓大家看到年輕人也來了。她說，班上也有民進黨支持者，但也希望阿扁下台，別拖垮民進黨。其他學生也搶著說，教育部長杜正勝希望學生不要穿制服上街，但是每個人都有自己的思想，「他管不到」；而且高三生都快有投票權了。

建中三年級鄭可灝與隔壁班同學來，三人頭綁紅巾，吼得賣力。他說，因為昨天才結束連續兩天的北區模擬考，考完立刻趕來凱道，他痛恨阿扁貪腐，「現在能吼出來，很爽！」

育成高中二年級江孟軒一開始就走在隊伍最前頭，他說，第一次參加群眾運動，「很有榮譽感」，全校至少一百名學生參加，「看阿扁不爽，我一定要看到他下台」。

南強工商一年級李文豪、何元凱、潘奕維共同扛起個子小的林坦蔚，四人以騎馬打仗姿態往前衝。林坦蔚說，他的父母都挺綠，他沒讓父母知道他來圍城，回家一定會被罵，「管他的，我一定要阿扁下台」。

An article from an online site.
員警悄悄比了倒扁手勢
聯合新聞網 (2006/09/16 05:49)
http://news.sina.com.tw/politics/

記者林新輝
你從未看過這樣的景象，五點五公里長的紅色人龍前進，只發出一種聲音，「阿扁下台」。

你不會見過這樣的畫面，遊行隊伍經過接近總統官邸的重慶南路口，全副武裝的員警，在暮色中，悄悄的向高喊阿扁下台的隊伍比出倒扁手勢，跟背後冰冷的拒馬、蛇籠形成強烈對比。

你從未看過這樣的景象，建中、北一女、成功、景美、中山、松山、新店、光仁女中、中正、延平、復興、南港高工、大安高工的高中生，毫不忸怩作態，穿著校服，帶著繡有校名的書包，下課後直奔凱道，手牽手、肩搭肩，十人一排的領頭，站在遊行隊伍前面帶領呼喊「阿扁下台」口號。

你也沒有看過，中華路上三輛急駛的公車，公車上十幾名乘客，遇上遊行隊伍，要求駕駛停車讓他們下車，加入倒扁的遊行隊伍。

寧波西街、衡陽路左右兩旁做生意的老闆，看見遊行隊伍經過，放下店裡的生意，站在騎樓高喊「阿扁下台」。你也不會看到，一位男子站在二樓，將家裡的窗戶拆掉，穿著紅衣，整個人趴在外面喊著「阿扁下台」。位在公園路上的遠東國際銀行大樓的四樓，一群人貼著玻璃帷幕，喊阿扁下台。星巴客的阿媽，拉麵店的小姐，全身通紅，靠著透明窗比出倒扁手勢。

當然你也不會遇見這樣的事，五個男女正在寧波西街的一家海鮮餐廳吃飯划拳，看見紅潮隊伍，酒拳不划，改比畫倒扁手勢。數十位民眾租下凱撒飯店，打開窗戶拉出紅布條，閃著房裡的燈光，喊著阿扁下台。

遊行隊伍經過南海路建國中學，一位建中的學生跳上指揮車，拿著麥克風用ＲＡＰ的音調喊「建中畢業的十萬校友，十萬校友十萬軍，統統站出來」。

红潮滾滾的群眾，沒有動員，沒有走路工，沒有訓練，只發一種聲音，一個動作。這樣的景象，你鐵定沒有看過。這樣的場面，吳淑珍、陳水扁及主政的綠營，應該看一看。

My Singlish Dreaming

2006-09-09T22:14:00.000+08:00
Right... getting a bit bored and going bonkers, so I am going to do something radical. I am going to post in Singlish (haha). I am gona write some comments about Singapore Dreaming, in Singlish, then maybe the students can do a translation into proper standard English. Give your very best in crafting your expressions (make it as sophisticated and evocative as you can), and print out your translation and pass it to me (with your name and class written clearly on the entry), and I will give a prize for the best translation. Haha...

MY SINGLISH POST (and you have to read it aloud with the up-and-down of intonation that we usually have for Singlish. Btw, this is Chinese-Singlish. There are other forms of Singlish, such as Hokkien-Singlish, English-Singlish and others.) :

Wa.. that singapore dreaming ah.. really so cannot believe it u know... i thought go there see laugh laugh comedy gao xiao xing dao liang zhi qiang kind, but wa who knows turn out to be bei qing drama. really cannot breathe for don't know how long. the renwu really very berchek at times, and all the xiao ren wu so sad, kena stepped on by all the you qian ren.

but ah, i damn like the old uncle character, the one by.. who ah .. richard lim, i think.. that grassroot actor of xinchuanmei. he really solid ah.. and his dream of ji ba ban (yi bai wan) lottery come true. sometimes look at him and his lao po, they lao fu lao qi, still argue everyday, but very sweet leh. then their good for nothing son come back from some ulu amelican univasity, then still want to con money off his fu mu, really want to ba ta ti dao 18 hells. so not xiaoshun. and his sister, so capable but just no luck to make it big. her husband also ang mo gang dang potatoe, cannot speak mandarin at all.

best is still that useless son girlflan ... cannot remember name liao...but she really superwoman ... borrow money to give boyflan stardy, not married yet already give money.. really lucky best, then that boyflan reali just waste her money.. a lot u know... got money also cannot anyhow give pple .... too much money better give me, haha... so anyway, end of story is ah... they all jueding on waht yihou they want to zhuiqiu in life. so ok la. i never liu bak sai although it very sad throughout.

still, the ending vely feel good la. and got meaning u know. the moral of the storli is waht that china lady person in the movie say. ni yi wei ni de ming hen ku ma? then she say she work so hard earn money so she can go chase her dreams. so i think ya very right leh. i also think we must chase our dreams, then we work hard also worth it ah.

OK, that's about as much as I can handle for now, and I think I tried too hard... haha...
Happy Translating, for those interested.

A Beautiful Heart

2006-09-09T01:38:00.000+08:00
Came across this quote, by the great American novelist Henry Miller. It is a most uplifting and enlightening observation. Thought it will be good to share with all, especially for those who are troubled and have strayed off.

'Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.' .... Henry Miller

Indeed, we will only find and experience the beauty that we seek if we have it in us. The world is and will only be as beautiful as we permit our innerselves to be, and to see the world to be. An ugly heart will only perceive and create an ugly world, while a beautiful heart will transform all it sees and touches into beauty.

(Ok ... the punchline ... guess where I saw it? At a hip-looking hair salon at Marina Square, just near the GV Marina row. Haha ...)

Singapore Dreaming

2006-09-07T00:25:00.000+08:00

Just watched 'Singapore Dreaming', a film written by Colin Goh (of talkingcock.com fame) and Woon Yen Yen. It is indeed the best Singapore film I have ever watched. Not going to spoil it for you by telling you the story, so gona keep the plot development a suspense. The trailer's below, followed by my 2 cents worth, then reviews by President Nathan, Mr Brown, and others.

more short clips at www.singaporedreaming.com

All I wanna say is, it's the most beautifully crafted and well paced narrative, deftly integrating and subtly presenting the many layers and slices of Singaporean life - from the perspective of a family caught up (like many others) in their daily life of survival, and of their dreams of the 5Cs. And the ending is superbly subtle and moving, with a sense of a refreshing shower after suffocating humidity. It's a real Singaporean film that we can identify with, and that can go places. Fantastic team of scriptwriters, director, actors/actresses, music/sound, cinematography, etc. And all the actors and actresses, famed personalities of the Singapore stage, bring a full range of highly perceptive and intensely emotional shades to their acting.

If we are talking about Singaporean culture - THIS is Singaporean culture.

Go watch it.

Film's Reviews:

“It is life in its reality.” – President S.R. Nathan, President of the Republic of Singapore, in the Straits Times, 14 April 2006.

“One solid movie. I can tell you now… go and watch it.”- Mr. Brown, Sing
apore’s most influential blogger.

“a compelling flow of stories which you won’t just identify with. You’ll live them, you’ll dream them.”- Mr. Miyagi, One of Singapore’s most popular bloggers.

“A beautiful insight into what it is like being a Singaporean.”- Dr Robert Kamel, vice-dean of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical, School, in the Straits Times, 14 April 2006 .

"Just plain brilliant, and… has potential to appeal to almost every spectrum of local society, and cinema-goers. It's adult storytelling laced with well placed humour, tackling mature themes and providing a snapshot of your typical heartland family of four, their goals, dreams, desires and challenges. … in contention for my movie of the year.” – A Nutshell Review, Singapore’s top movie review website.

Did I actually spend time writing this? Yes. It's for the anon tagger's edification, if he ever appreciates it.

2006-09-02T01:15:00.000+08:00
Right. There has been another post by the famous anon tagger on my tagboard. I had thought of giving him the same cold treatment (i.e. ignoring him), but later, I thought that his tags reveal some ignorance on his part as to Singlish, Standard English (Singaporean) and English English (does it still exist today? researchers beg to differ, in fact.) Also, there are parts of his tag that smack of either malice or lack of good values. So, I have decided that for once, I will do that fellow a service, as well as clear some doubts for all interested others. I had initially tagged the below responses, but I find that a bit too long for a tagboard, so I have collated all of them here:

hmm ... this is interesting.. anon and the pretender, you need to be aware of the difference between English standard grammar, and Singlish grammar. These 2 forms of grammar refer to the way we construct our sentences, and is also different from the Singaporean way of speaking standard English, which we sometimes erroneously refer to as Singlish as well.

For your information, most of us adults can speak and like to speak Singaporean-accented Standard English (more intonation variants, as well as at staccato fast speed that foreigners find difficulty in understanding), international-accented Standard English (easier to be understood by foreigners), and Singlish (the localised form of English mixed with the grammar, vocab/slangs and intonation of other Singaporean languages/dialects). We enjoy using our own Singlish, in fact, but we also realise, especially in the work place (local and international), that we need to use Standard English to communicate effectively.

Therefore, in school, all of us have to speak to you students in Standard English, so that you will be able to effectively converse in all 3 forms of English in future. This is the most crucial time of your language acquisition. (And please don't hypothesis that Singlish will be understood by the rest of the world in the near future... we are still currently too small and insignificant for the rest of the world to learn our language.)

So, we would be doing you students a dis-service if we were to happily talk to you guys in Singlish or very Singlish-accented English. (By the way, in case you mistake my verbal English usage - it is pure Singapore-accented Standard English. I can't do the British or American way of speaking English.)

You also have to know that first, Singlish is not understood by other English-speaking countries (not even China, because they learn standard English there; their spoken English is of the American accent version, because that's American media and American teachers are the main exposure points for them). Second, Singlish is still very imprecise in its expressions, so in all major social and business events, functions and needs, Singlish can't fulfil the communicative task effectively/precisely. That's why we all have to learn and use standard English. We need to communicate with the rest of the world effectively.

Then you ask - but is this fair? Well, grow up.. life is never fair. We need to know that in your life, u have to adhere to different spelt AND unspelt rules of diff organisations, whether you like it or not. That is part of life in any country and any system. So it's the same for rules/expectations in the school. You just jolly well grow up. And so, in terms of rules, expectations and high demands, it's not about being 'closed minded' or old-fashioned .. i m most open-minded, if u know me well, but u just have to learn that there are decent and universal norms/values that you need to learn to have AND work with.

Finally, to the first 'anon' and the other fellow pretending to be from 3-4 (have I ever taught 3-4??), shame on you for writing such stuff on Teachers' Day. It speaks volume about your values and upbringing, or rather, the lack of it.

So anon and the pretender, please reflect and grow up. When we educate, motivate or discipline you, it might be at times torturous, but ultimately when u enter the working world, u reap the real benefits. So grow up. Our task as teachers is not to please you, but to educate you as well as prepare you for life. You may not see the purpose of it now, but you will many years down the road, and that's all we are concerned with.

Note: The vid is, probably, a response to recent education developments in Singapore as to which form of English or spoken English is preferred today. In fact, most are already quite annoyed with being told that native English speakers may make better English teachers than our own Singaporean English teachers. Seriously, are we less competent in language teaching than the supposed 'native' English speakers? So that's what the whole issue in the Ruby Pan vid is about - that we are as native speakers of English as those from UK or other places, and that last line of hers in the vid is a tongue-in-cheek highlighting of that - observing that in the world today there are many different English(es) (acknowledged by all researchers and professors of English linguistics), but sadly in Singapore, some English is more English than others. So does that mean that we have to kow-tow to the supposed 'native' English speakers from Britain (now, does that mean English English, or Scottish English, or London English, or Yorkshire English, or Manchester English or what? There are so many variants!)

Singlish and English(es) in Singapore - Laughs

2006-08-27T21:43:00.000+08:00
Came across a review in mrbrown's site of a performance held in The Arts House at the former Parliament House.
One of the most hilarious performance segment featured is that by Ruby Pan and her takes on the various accents we could hear for English and Singlish in Singapore. It's a MUST HEAR.

Singapore Idol Madness ... Traffic Obstruction

2006-08-26T21:40:00.000+08:00

I was swarmed today, literally. Came back to Toa Payoh at bout 4 plus in the afternoon, from school. Went up to the Post Office at the HDB Hub, and what do I see before me? Bodies and heads. Lots of them, all jostling for that inch of space to walk. And there was this not too soft continuous booming sound from the plaza centre where they usually hold events. It was a most ugly form of spoken English, loudly droning about something, which in its monotonous and rambling pace, I had no idea what it's all about. Must be some big event, since there were more bodies crowded just off Cake History. Alright, I decided to simply ignore that and went up the escalator, and made my way towards OCBC bank outlet.

Then I saw the crowd. All three sides of the 2nd level railings, facing the stage, were lined with people in their saturday best - t-shirts and berms. And the crowd was 2 to 3 people deep.I would consider myself quite tall, and even I could not really see above and beyong these people to find out what's going on at the stage. But now, I hear the term 'Idol, Singapore Idol' being tossed about carelessly and continuously, by the not too competent emcee, who obviously thought the best way to rouse up the crowd would be to keep reminding them about when they would next see Singapore Idol on TV, and who they would see next on the stage. Right, so it's a road show. From the noise, there's obviously a large crowd amassed in front of the stage.

I decided to seek refuge in the shops. So I whiled my time away in a DVD shop, before I finally made my way back again to the giant Watson store of HDB Hub. And I have to pass by the stage area this time.

It was terrible. Wrong timing. Going to Watson was bad, but coming back was worse, because it apparently was when one of the more popular contestants arrived. And the entire linkway between the Hub and the carpark, just by that Chinese Medical Hall and the Samuel and Kevin store, was suddenly jammed packed with fast moving screaming shouting young girl fans, some of them not too slim either, all rushing towards their idol. Could really feel the ground shaking from this stampede of bulls. And we couldn't breathe. We mere pedestrians had to wait while the herd stomped past. I gave up, and decided to just push forward. It worked. The rest also pushed forth. Great minds, I guess. And the fans herd stopped in its track, while we finally got to go about the real business of life.

I guess that was the last straw. I felt sick in the stomach. It was bad. I mean, this idol madness, of bringing it onto the road and letting it descend into this kopi-tiam kind of travelling road show, is definitely not in character with its original hollywood class. It was supposed to be a Dream, a classy dream, but it has now become more of a nightmare, for me today, at least. I have had enough of this idol thing. How shallow can we get, and how shallow are we descending ourselves into? Alright, I do not mean to offend, but seriously, when it starts affecting and obstructing the normal course of life, and when we have screaming fans yelling their heads off and their hearts out after would-be singers would can't really sing or act, generally .... I mean, if they are real good, I would definitely go running after them too, haha, but this ...?? Right,
I definitely have no patience for idol today, and I make no apologies for that.

Frankly, Mediacorp has never really gotten many things right. I mean, indirectly supporting the destruction of an entire generation's ability to speak standard Mandarin and English, instead perpetuating and popularising Singlish via the 10-odd years run of GaoXiaoXingDong by Jack Neo and company ... accompanied by all their baser and crude jokes. Frankly, I should not be too surprised by Mediacorp's ability to reduce the sophistication and class of the American Idol and Pop Idol (the original British version) productions to the spectacle I witnessed today. Or should I blame the fans only, those Singaporean youths I saw today, who have totally and completely lost sense of propriety and decorum. And we are perhaps the only country with the idol show that shamelessly and consistently votes the best singers off the show. Says much about the ability and desire of Singaporeans to recognise and value quality. So much for all the Singapore Quality Class hype. Perhaps, we should have a quality class education programme for our youths, haha...

Then again, on a more lighter note - Singapore Idol is the perfect vehicle for National Education! It will be the most effective, reaching and glamorous spiced up means for inculcating national identity and pride in the youths. All right, I might perhaps have been a trifle too enthusiastic. But, with Minister announcing the revamp to a more hands-on National Education in school, perhaps Singapore Idol can be a subtle yet truly hands-on medium of National Education. Afterall, the main supporters are youths. Then, there's the local element in it, and it's about seeking the Singapore Dream, and about competition and survival, about polularity votes and branding, and finally, it's about chest-thumping and idol-chasing... It will be the definitive shared common experience and memory of many of this youth generation, and invoke in them a shared bond in their lives in this nation, a shared commonality.

But before that, we just need to bring more class and sophistication into the show.

EL Narrative Writing Reminders and Examples

2006-08-26T21:20:00.000+08:00
Alright .. the Prelims EL will be on Monday.

Some random final reminders bout narrative writing:

1) Let there be ONE main character. Let this main character face conflicting emotions and challenges, and let his voice and actions speak. Do not speak on his behalf. In other words, show this character's intentions through the little detailed things that he would do, that he would sense, that he would observe, and that he would think and say.

2) In developing the plot, make sure that the relevancy to the topic is clear. Keep the main narrative plot period to perhaps 20min of the character's life/time. All other background developments could be integrated as flashbacks. Short flashbacks, and thoughts.

3) Use a variety of sentence lengths, and paragraph lengths, confidently, to pace the development and tension. Pacing is most important. Paragraphing is important.

4) Use vocabulary imaginatively and confidently. Add flavour to your characterisation. Have figuration and metaphors etc in your original expressions. Let your character's 5 senses be conveyed in an engaging mix of expressions and words.

5) Write with fire and inspiration. Share the character's story.

PRACTICE ONE ESSAY TONIGHT (SAT) AND ONE ESSAY TOMORROW (SUN)
1) Wall
2) The Moment
3) Crime
4) Travelling
5) Ignoring an important message
6) White
(550 to 600 words)

Let The Character Speak ... Do Not Speak On His Behalf

Right... was helping some students edit and improve their essays which they sent me. Here's 2 good examples of how to change a paragraph in which the writer merely tells the reader about the character, to the character speaking, thinking and feeling on his own. Also, based on the topic given, we have tried to make the paragraphs integral and central to the topic. I have put in bold the changes made.

AND, if you are able to pull it off, try not to set your story in a school context. It reduces the possibilities of development. Set your story in some historical episodes, or for modern reality, in some hospital, or some other realistic situations where characters experience great emotional tussles and realisations.

AN EXAMPLE, on the title of 'Crime'.

BEFORE:

The wailing of sirens could be heard from a far away. John knew he did not have much time left to ponder and he must not panic at a moment like this. He irked at the sight of dirty rats crossing his path as he made his way deeper into the alley, anxiously trying to find a spot to hide the fruit knife with dirty livid blood stained on it now. His attempts were fruitless and came to no avail. The sound of wailing sirens could now be heard only from a distance away.

John spotted a drain from afar and an idea struck him. In just a matter of seconds, he came into contact with the drain. He mustered up all his strength, strained, and lifted the lid of the drain. Tossing the fruit knife into it, John had just enough time to replace the lid to its original position before he could hear fast footsteps of doom approaching him. He attempted for a sprint out of the alley.

AFTER:

The distant wailing of sirens interrupted his thoughts. John knew he did not have much time left to ponder and he must not panic at a moment like this. He irked at the sight of dirty rats crossing his path as he made his way deeper into the alley, anxiously trying to find a spot to hide the fruit knife with dirty livid blood stained on it now. (ADD IN some direct observations he would have at that moment) There seemed to be a dark cavity in the ground over there. No, it was not; it was merely his imagination. Could he chuck that knife over here instead, delving deep into the spoilt vegetables, strands of pig intestines and other rotting flesh instead? Might be too conspicuous too. But there would soon not be time anymore for disposing the knife. He must decide swiftly. Still, his attempts were fruitless and came to no avail. The sound of wailing sirens could now be heard only from a distance away.

In despair, John turned ready to face his nemesis. Just as he stood there, rooted and awaiting his fate, a wave of relief washed over him. There was a drain, covered by some heavy stone slabs, just some steps away! In just a matter of seconds, he was by the edge of the drain. He mustered up all his strength, strained, and lifted the lid of the drain. Tossing the fruit knife into it, John had just enough time to replace the lid to its original position before he could hear fast footsteps of doom approaching him. He attempted for a sprint out of the alley.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE, this time on the title of 'Wall':

BEFORE:

In the dressing room, the clanking of metal pervaded the air. The smell of leather and male perspiration stung his nostrils. Ramus randomly picked out a set of body armour for himself. He had grown used to bearing the odour of fellow gladiators; everyone had, and they did not seem to mind it at all.

.... (Other paragraphs)...

He began to muse about life, about his purpose. Each day, he entertained a crowd of blood-thirsty Romans, who found violence and bloodshed so amusing. Ramus wished he would die today, but he knew out of his human nature he would fight to survive. It was the most torturous paradox. His fate loomed behind the grey walls and as the monstrous wooden gates swung open, the audience unified voices rose to a vehement clamor… ….

AFTER:

In the dressing room, the clanking of metal pervaded the air. The smell of leather and male perspiration stung his nostrils. Ramus randomly picked out a set of body armour for himself. He stared at the wall on which now there was only an empty hook. It had the same contour as the wall earlier, he noted. The wall, it was a fortified block which he had to push against, to leap over, to break down, to tear apart. It stopped him from drawing on his inner strength and will, and he needed all of that now. No, it was now a wall in his mind, a mental wall blocking his path to victory, and survival. He breathed again, deeply, willing himself into composure. He had grown used to bearing the odour of other gladiators; everyone had, and they did not seem to mind it at all.

(OTHER PARGRAPHS ....)

He began to muse about life, about his purpose. Each day, he entertained a crowd of blood-thirsty Romans, who found violence and bloodshed so amusing. Ramus wished he would die today, but he knew out of his human nature he would fight to survive. Indeed, he would not merely survive, but soar. He would win the Victor’s Wreath, from the hands of the Emperor himself one day. And on that day, he would no longer face a bleak stoic wall of confinement. It would be a wall of humans, a wall of adoration.

It was the most torturous paradox. His fate loomed behind the grey walls and as the monstrous wooden gates swung open, the audience unified voices rose to a vehement clamor… ….

Climb Every Mountain

2006-08-11T21:01:00.000+08:00
I have not been blogging for quite a while - in fact, I been very busy with work, what with reports to rush, proposals to write and put into action, EL morning lessons and of course the sec 4 EL oral prep, which is a most draining process. coming up, the music practical sessions...

Been feeling extremely tired. Some days I finish at 10plus at night, and by the time I reach home and unwind, eat, and then relax, it's almost 1am. Then the whole cycle goes on again the next morning, for English lessons start at 7am now. Very thankful for the breather of the 2-day national day break. Yet, these 7am sessions in the morning are most precious, for they are additional time we could have to really give more EL pract and prep for the students. I would never give my morning sessions away, haha...

My mind has been getting more and more active. O levels... English ... Music .... and then, syf2007 .... and our state of readiness .... Well yes, I have said I m gona take a back seat for the band .... but looking at the priorities and necessary urgencies, I just can't run away from a sense of duty and purpose to uphold and help the band soar even higher - so having spent many moments thinking through and mapping out the needed route ahead, I just have to really give more than my 2 cents worth and really push and push. I know that our boys are definitely capable, and they just need the proper guidance and motivation to really develop to their full potential. It will also mean to really stretch them to the maximum in terms of studies, CCA passion, and leadership. And truly, I do not wish us to have that regret next year and start wondering about 'what if' or 'if only' .... Do all, can all, see that?

Frankly, life is hard at times, and projects can pile on one.. I can truly understand the reservations or reluctance some might have. But if one really plans way ahead, and manages one's time properly, then it will turn out fine, or even better - for self-motivation and pressure can at times spark greater genius and results. At the end of it all, there is only one truth - that if we believe we can, we definitely will ... if there's a will, there will be a way...

We need to climb the mountains, to climb every mountain, to climb our mountain, till we find our dream. Those who give up will never see the summit, while those who believe and press on will definitely see not just the summit, but all majesty of the surrounding vast vistage.

First They Came For The Communists

2006-07-15T22:11:00.000+08:00
Came across this poem in a friend's blog. Really struck by it. Thought it would be good to share with all.

What does one do when one perceives injustice, or witnesses unjust turn of events? Sit around, discuss and wait? Or should not one take the further step to voice it out, to point it out, to even go to the source of the injustice? At least, one would have tried. Speak Out.

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Thank You For The Music - CHMA 06

2006-07-15T21:52:00.000+08:00
Great CHMA last night. Was standing at the back of the hall after settling the judges, and believe me, I was practically rocking while standing the whole night. The beatboxing and the rappers really set the mood for the evening. So it was a most electrically charged CHMA, showcasing the entire spectrum of our CH music talents. Ranges from East to West, from yang qin to guzheng to piano to electone, with both Mandopop and Englishpop, as well as instrumental rock, chinese rock and western rock, with both creative espressions of other sorts - beatboxing and original composition. In other words, CHMA 06 is a whole tour de force of what our CH students are capable of. And thinking back to 2003, when we first started the CH Music Awards, I remember we said we wanted to 'Create Stars of Tomorrow'. CHMA is a platform, and a first step, for many of our students.

And then, it's the music that's really important, and the improvement witnessed in all the performers, and the confidence exuded by all. I especially loved how the chinese rock band has come together over this period and really moved and touched us with their jay chou's 'qing tian' in the evening. They have come a long way, and they have truly found their own style and confidence last night. Then, the western rock band really rocked. All the solos were really not mere virtuostic displays alone, but each solo was really responding to the audience, teasing and connecting with them. And the final drumset closure of umpteen times repeated cadences really was the most spontaneous musical outpouring, with all the musicians having fun.

Most important of all would be how to me, CHMA is really a coming together of the best musical talents of catholic high, and how it is about music simply and only about music. During the final show, all the musicians on stage were no longer competiting, but were playing real music and interacting with the audience through their music. That is the greatest of all - music brings people together, and not to divide people. Competition is an ugly word in music, and CHMA has soared beyond that each time. Each time, we would remind all the performers after the final rehearsal that CHMA is not a competition - it is a show, and all are performers, and may the best performance that connects best with the audience be given the award. Well, it is the 'best performance' award, right?

It's been a great CHMA - kudos to all musicians, and especially kudos to the unsung heroes of IMedia - the hard work to put on such a sophisticated production is worth every bit of respect from all. All the late nights that the IMedia guys put in really paid off, and without them, there would be no CHMA, no platform for our students' musical outpouring.

So there - THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC!

Some Fleeting Thoughts

2006-07-06T22:47:00.000+08:00
Hectic marking this week ... all the prelims 2 compre scripts for the whole level, some 360 scripts in total, to finish asap.

Yes, the compre i set is challenging, but it's a most lovely passage, and our sec 4 guys do need to be stretched further in language inference and expression skills. You need to get that A1, so as to get a good L1R5 to get into your JC of choice.

Some silly spammer at his game again ... and with all the busy hectic runs of tasks these 2 weeks, I just want to laugh at his foolish vacant mind - seriously, is he living in his own lala land, so free that he needs to get attention?

But the positive thing that came out of this - the warm responses from many. Thanks! It's nice to know that I have done good for you guys.

Thoughts on Mr Brown and flameblogs etc - never create an accidental martyr just simply due to a clumsy response. But seriously, i believe in the judgement and valuation of an educated people/citizenship. People are sensible, and people can discern between real endeavours for ideals and mere childish malice or outbursts. Yup, I have faith in that.

Great Homecoming and Next Up CH Music Awards 2006!

2006-07-01T22:57:00.000+08:00
Alright, it's finally over, Homecoming 2006! And it's a good success, with a good crowd of old boys and parents/friends coming back to enjoy themselves. Saw old faces from the class of 2000 all the way to last year 2005, which was like a walk down memory lane for many of us teachers! On my part, even saw the guys from my batch (class of 1989) in the old boys basketball tournament held in the hall this morning! And everyone of us oldies have really grown old and put on weight after all these years.

Got dunked, for $800 (Thanks to Classes 4-4 and 4-8 2006, to Symphony Band, and to the old boys and teachers who contributed to this!) It was great fun, and the drop was most craftily orchestrated! After many futile tries by the dunkers, the sports boys finally reduced the plank difficulty level, and I was thus finally on my way to the Big Splash. Danny Tan, who was manning the dunking pool, was slyly getting me to put a silly looking flower onto my ear, which I finally managed after great effort, and just as I was giving that victory sign pose - they manually pushed the target board! I plunged into the water, of course. Anyway, THANKS to my EL classes and the Band, and all old boys who came, for all the money contributed to dunk me!

All in all, it was a great day for all. There were more stalls this time, some 60 odd stalls, spread over the Plaza and the Primary Canteen, with the Haunted House in the dance studio in the basement. To be honest, we were indeed very worried bout the turn-out for today, esp with memories of previous years' homecoming. And so it is GREAT that we have a large crowd finally. Of course, the crowd could be even larger, and next year, we will definitely be pushing coupons much much early. Most importantly, we have sort of gotten over the 'ghost-town' image associated with homecoming, and the success and excitement in all the sec 1 to 3 classes this year makes the job next year easier - all would be looking forward to a great time then! Homecoming today is a good celebration of youth ... the youths of today and the youths of yesteryears coming together in our alma mater on Youth Day 1 July each year.

NEXT UP - the long awaited CHMA (CH Music Awards) on 14 July 2006, Friday, CH School Hall. Categories include Vocals, Instrumental, Bands and Creative Expressions. It will be bigger and better than previous years, of course!
Tickets this year includes the premier $10 ones, with the normal $8 ones.
Mr Wang has said that all $10 have been sold out, so guys, you have to book the $8 now. They are running out fast as well! Many old boys have already gotten their tics, so for the rest, wait no more!

CH Homecoming Day Food Fun Fair

2006-06-25T18:45:00.000+08:00
OLD BOYS of CH, Come Back for the annual Homecoming Day Food & Fun Fair.
All sec1 to sec3 classes putting up food and games stalls. Among the numerous stalls, some highlights include gigantic big BBQ affair by Mr Bobby Yong's form class, Dunking Pool by Mr Danny Tan's tennis CCA and the sports class, LAN games by Ms Angelin Wong and Ms Leong Seyean's form classes, to name but a few.
Pool your money and come dunk your favourite teachers - we are asking for a respectably high price to be dunked though ... HAHA ...

VENUE: CH Campus - Sec Plaza and Pri Parade Square
DAY: 1 Jul 2006 Saturday
TIME: 9am - 3pm
Coupons available at booths on the day itself. Cash is accepted too.

So come visit, have fun, and say hi to your teachers and juniors. Come and support your juniors, and as the name suggests - it's Home Coming ....

Hi Tokyo! (Part One) updated 18 June

2006-06-17T22:12:00.000+08:00
Right, so I am back from Tokyo. Touched down Singapore just past midnight on 14 June, and have been getting back into momentum these few days. The trip itself was quite a rambling one. I had gone on a free and easy individual trip, just me and myself. So I started off without a fixed iteniarary. I just had a vague fuzzy idea that I would probably roam around the few main districts of Tokyo, particularly those I had not visited the last time. It would be a walking tour, and I would explore the nooks and corners of these districts. I had also vowed not to purchase unnecessarily, as the Yen is quite exorbitant. Well, I did walk, I did explore the districts, and I did used the subway (numerous Asakusa Line, Ginza Line etc) and train (JR line) extensively. Food was kept to minimal expenditure, adhering to the basic lunch and dinner fare that the typical tokyo worker would take.
(Note: The photos below are collages. To view in bigger size, click on the photo and it will be in a new webpage. You could view the enlarged version in the new webpage. )

Anyway, there was good western buffet or Japanese breakfast to choose from each morning, accompanied with good vantage views of the city skyline from the 24th storey restaurant of Royal Park Shiodome Tower Hotel. I had on the spur of the moment decided to upgrade my room to a larger one, with views of the city as well as the offices of the adjacent Nippon TV Building. They are really workaholics, for the offices and their smoking galleries were lit and buzzing with activities even at 11 pm. Yes, I shamelessly did observe their activities from my room.

(My Hotel and Room: Royal Park Shiodome Tower, just opposite the Nippon TV Tower Building. )

Day 1, I walked the district (or chome) of Ginza (my avowed destination for this trip), and then decided to go up to Asakusa, revisit the temple, and then make my way down the Sumida River and say hello to the bridges that I have always wanted to visit. And it was a walk, with some referring to a map I took at the airport, and trying to figure out the kanji (Chinese charaters) and Japnese words. Somehow, I managed to complete the length of Ginza main street, filled with a heavenly selection of stores and cafes.

(Ginza with its range of high tech, luxury fashion and quaint coffee tea stores. Note the Nissan presentator on the revolving platform introducing the merits of the latest car model. )

But it was simply too far to walk all the way up to Asakusa and Sensoji (one of the most ancient temples in Tokyo), so I finally made my way into Ginza East subway station, hoped onto the Asakusa Line, and emerged from Asakusa Station some 20 minutes later. It was a good day to visit, I should say. The first shock was the disappearance of the main Sensoji Gate, now shrouded under modernistic looking white coverage cloth - under conservation works. Then, there were so many school children on outing, and buying and praying there. I think it was the end of spring school term, and this would be their end of term outing - it included high school students as well as middle school students. Then on my way out, there were little kids as well. It was indeed good timing for me.
(Indeed, I should comment that this trip is filled with providential timing coincidents indeed. I happened to travel on the same plane as NJC chinese orchestra, and so saw some of my former students at the airport and on the plane. Also, at Changi Airport after check-in, I bumped into my former symphony orchestra friend whom i have not seen for years, and so we had a good coffee chat before we went our respective way - he to Spain while I to Japan.)
Anyway, the walk down Sumida River was a long one. I had chosen to walk in the evening, as that would best set off the colours of the lit bridges. I walked for about 2 odd hours, and with the cold spring temperature of some 20 degrees at night with the wind blowing right into my face, it was quite a task - not as enjoyable as I had envisage. And the riverside was nothing spectacular, not even to consider beautiful or nice. It was mainly either dingy muddy parks, or slumps. It was not at all like our vibrant al fresco riverside back home. I only managed to cover 3 bridges before calling it a day. I decided to leave the remaining bridges to my next trip.
Sumida River and the 3 bridges I visited.
Night scenes of my hotel, and the vicinity of Shiodome (Japenese of Lingering Sealand) and Shimbasi (Japanese for New Bridge).
I had not counted on my impulse to purchase. And that I did. So I bought, and bought - in Ginza, in Shiodome, in Ueno, in Odaiba. I devoured suits, clothes, pants, books, DVDs, CDs, souvenirs. I burst my budget in the process. So in the end, I lingered for hours in shopping districts, and in their shops with rows and rows of trendy working suits, and browsed the attractive magazines and books. I did eat too, and that was a highlight - trying out the respective little eateries frequented by the office executives, standing or sitting at the counters, and then for supper, choosing from the different bento sets all available at stores and superstores ... at a discount of course, esp late a night. They were mainly simple fare of some 450Yen per meal, and the bento sets were even going at discounted price of 350Yen after 9pm. All in all, I only spent some 200 odd Singapore Dollars on food this round, excluding the hotel breakfasts.In retrospect, I should be satisfied with this break, for I just simply gave way to my impulses and went by my instinct every moment of the day there.
The eateries and the meals/bento I had. Note the vending machines in the eateries - you purchase a ticket for the meal set that you want, and you hand it over to the chef at the counter. They will then prepare it for you immediately. That's Jap traditional food fast-food style. Lots of that all over Tokyo. )

Public Subway and Railway Stations and Lines.
Subway and rails are the basic mode of transport in Tokyo. Stations abound, and commuters walk everywhere - that's why most of them are so slim and lean. This time round, most of the stations I was at were not too crowded, I having avoided the peak hours in general. Also, I had not gone to Shinjuku this time, so there was no sign of the mess and mass of platforms serving the 16 odd train lines serving Shinjuku Station.
Note the ticketing machines, and the plush cushioned seats.

I had promised myself that I would visit Meiji Shrine. So the 3nd morning, I came down early to the lobby at 24th floor of the hotel tower to take the elevator down to ground floor. It was a surprise when I was accompanied by a couple all decked in Japanese wedding finery - kimono and all - with several retinues. I was so tempted to take a picture of them, but that would be simply rude. Imagine the greater surprise I had when I entered the sacred grounds of Meiji Shrine, after a long walk of some 1 hour on the route from the main Shrine Gate to the Shrine itself, and saw not one, but several wedding couples with all their long processions of relatives, all dressed in Japanese traditional costumes. I had a field day with my camera then.
(Meiji Shrine - Grounds and long walk to the main Shrine. Note the breathtaking architecture.)

Weddings at Meiji Shrine - I guess it must have been an auspicious day for nuptials. I witnessed no less than some 8 couples going through the traditional wedding procession. It is interesting, the procession - the family members of the bride and groom will be lined up behind them respectively, and then they would proceed from a palace hall on the right of the grounds into the main plaza in front of the Shrine, and then up to another palace hall on the left of the grounds towards the inner recess of the Shrine to pray. After that, the procession will retrace their route back to the original hall, with closing words by the Priest to the bride and groom, followed by numerous bowings from both families. Then, they move on to that their family portrait for the occasion. Each wedding procession takes about 15 minutes, and it is superbly timed to avoid any clashes of schedules between the different couples. Most quintessential too, the processions, almost like period dramas. (NOTE: zoom in and scrutinise the wedding couples - there is something of interest here.)

The Japanese really have a penchant for making earnest wishes for every aspect of their lives. I encountered that at the Asakusa Sensoji and also at Meiji Shrine. I was to encounter it later at Tokyo Tower itself too. Reading the wishes of those who prayed at Meiji Shrine reminds me of how focused and purposeful the Japanese are. They pray for success in studies, exams, marriage, and jobs. Many tourists added to the wish blocks too. One particularly caught my eye, 'I dream; for the dreams of those I love to be fulfilled...' That was really poetic.

One morning (the 4th, I believe), I decided to trek my way to this gigantic temple in the distance which I had seen from my 36th storey room. I had not any inkling what its name was, where it exactly was situation. So I simply set out in the vague direction of that temple. Along the way, I tarried along the little streets and chomes of Tokyo, and decided to create a photo portfolio of the vending machines I encountered along the way. Afterall, Tokyo is known as the land of vending machines. Indeed, one store which I termed the mother of all vending machines site had 7 vending machines of drinks for the consumer to choose from. Amazing.

(The vending machines... Which is the mother of all vending machines sites? & Typical Japanese side streets... )

I finally reached the temple (Zozo-j Temple) after some 2 hours, and discovered that it had once belonged to the Shogun clan which had ruled Edo (former name of Tokyo) for centuries before the Meiji Restoration. That day, the main hall was under preparations for some anniversary memorial for the Tokugawa Clan (Shogun's Clan). Today, the grounds have shrunk, part of it taken over by the Prince Hotel, but the grounds are still extensive, and there are 3 main palace areas. The old burial gounds of the clan lie behind the main palace hall, and are still well kept. Now isn't that simply satisfying, for a vague journey with a vague direction had yielded something concrete, indeed something valuable - an unplanned encounter with a main part of Japanese history. And Tokyo Tower is just some distance away from the temple, most visible here, towering over the main temple hall itself. It provides a most perceptive contrast of new and old, in particular reminding one of how the Shogun's demise and the Meiji Restoration were what made the industrial progress in Japan possible.

And so I faithfully trotted my way to the Tower. It was a rainy day, showers. I bought one of those characteristic plastic umbrellas that the Japanese convenience stores sell. Up the tower, it was all foggy, and I spent a large amount of time awaiting the fog to disperse. There was another discovery up there - a wish area for the success of the nippon soccer team for the world cup. Yes, I left my imprint there as well.

Nippon Samurai Blues craze in Tokyo. Japan soccer team members and stars were splashed all over TV programmes, magazines, banners, etc.

Wishing area for Nippon Soccer Team at Tokyo Tower ... I left a wish slip too...

(Nippon Samurai Soccer Stars Banners hanging inside TV Asahi Building Lobby. )

Then, the very next day was the match of Japan against Australia. That afternoon, companies were giving freebies of mineral water with the nippon soccer logo on the labels, and numerous office executives on their breaks were lining up to collect one each. That, I did too. The trains in the evening were really packed, quite early for the matter. The train pushers, those legendary uniformed guys with gloves, were out in full force pushing and shoving the passengers into the packed trains at 7 plus in the evening, all in an effect to get everybody back home to catch the Japan match. It did not end well, as we know by now, with the 3 goals scored by Australia within the last 10 minutes. I could not believe my eyes, neither could I believe how dejected and ill-spirited the Japanese players were at the upset goals. I mean, they should have continued with the fighting spirit instead of shaking their heads at every single additional Australian goal. I should have thought that the Japanese fighting spirit would prevail. But it seemed that once they met their first upset defeat, they crumbled. It was a bleak day the next morn for the Japanese.

TOKYO: A mosaic of contrasts. Modern versus traditional; cutting age versus aging population; individualism versus community spirit...

Ok.. that's bout it for part 1.. tired and gona continue another day.

DAY 1: Royal Park Shiodome Tower (my hotel), Ginza, Asakusa & Sumida River
DAY 2: Roppongi, TV Asahi, Shimbasi, Ueno
DAY3: Harajuku, Meiji Shrine, Ginza
DAY4: The Walk to Zozo-j Temple, Hibiya Park, Tokyo Tower, Akirabaha
DAY5: Odaiba, Fuji TV, Shimbasi, Ueno
DAY 6: Ginza, Imperial Palace Vicinity

Options - spoilt for choice - tokyo accom.

2006-06-06T00:47:00.000+08:00
I have been staring at pictures of hotel rooms on internet hotel sites for days in a row. Rather, I have been scrutinising the pictures, and reading travellers' reviews posted everywhere. So, finally I was down to the 2 choices below. And this afternoon, 2 days before I fly, I finally booked the hotel room... haha ... the wonders of technology ... allowing for my last minute habits.
Alright .. the multi-million dollar question: Which hotel do you think I have chosen?

Keio Plaza Hotel - One of Tokyo's oldest luxury hotels, with the following Premier Plaza Rooms - top floors. Very expensive. Good views of Shinjuku skyscrapers. Good luxury bath, it seems. Room size of 37 square metres. Shinjuku area, just beside Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. About 10-min walk from the station.

Royal Park Shiodome Tower - One of Tokyo's newest hotels, but very expensive too. The following option is the only affordable one - a Double Room, bout 26 square metres. High up on 33rd floor and above, with good views of Tokyo Tower / Ginza area, or the Tokyo Bay / Odaiba area. Just beside Shimbashi Station and Shiodome Station, and 1 stop away from Ginza, and just across from the new Odaiba development (Fuji TV Building etc).

Both hotel rooms are EQUALLY expensive - about S$1800 for 5 nights.
So, which room did I finally decide on?

Sec 4 EL Essay Choices:

2006-06-05T16:01:00.000+08:00
Ok then, here's my response to the question on the tag - what essay should the sec 4 student attempt for EL essay? I will not be able to advise you as to what you should do personally, unless I see your writing, and find out from you what your reading and writing habits are thus far. You must come to me or your EL teacher (if it's not me) for personal consultation as to this. That is the only meaningful way for good advice. However, there are some thoughts you should consider:

First and of utmost importance, I firmly believe that you should write in the style that you feel most comfortable in - that is, if you have always felt comfortable READING AND WRITING expositions/arguments, then you should do that; conversely, if you have always preferred to read and write descriptive/personal-reflective-descriptive, then do that. The basic premise is that you will be effective at a style and genre that you are CONSTANTLY exposed to and using.

Second, in order to do well in exposition/argument, you must be highly competent in 1) Logic, 2) Organisation, 3) Contents - having read widely 4) Language and relevant terminology/vocabulary. The Argument is the highest form of intellectual discourse, and attempted by the best brains in the nation. So, you must be in constant reading, thinking and writing in that area if you want to do well in it.
[For the Exposition, the simplest is the One-word Discussion. Then, the average difficulty form is the statement Discursive, and the most difficult is the Argumentative essay.]

Third, it would be a misconception to imply that the descriptive would be easier. To be competent and ENGAGING in your descriptive writing, you should have 1) an eye for details for things around you, 2)personal perceptions and comments in response to your observations, 3) good synthesis skill of the 5 senses, 4) be witty or emotive in your expressions and comments and 5) good command of vocabulary and original expressions. This would also apply to the Personal-reflective too.

Finally, the narrative, which is essentially the telling of a story, might still seem the most palatable for most students, simply because most of them are reading stories and novels regularly. Furthermore, the narrative is simple enough for an O level student who is not too creative in story-telling to still be able to include interesing vocabulary and expressions into a stylistic telling of a simple tale with a twist. Note the key ideas here: vocab/expression - style - simple tale - twist. You just need to be effective (through practice) in the painting of moods and atmosphere, in the characterisation and dialogue, and in the development of the cllimax and resolution. Chances are that you will not easily run astray in the telling of a story as compared to becoming irrelevant or illogical, or even becoming overly simplistic and immature, in writing an argumentative.

That's bout my many cents worth on the merits/demerits/points-to-note regarding the different essay styles. You should ask yourself first as to what you prefer to read and write all the time. Then, you should keep practising on that genre/style. Practice in reading and writing. That will help perfect it. Read other authors' articles in the commentary and analysis pages of different newspapers online (new york times, bbc, washington post, straits times etc), and be atuned to the expository style of discussion and argument if you need to. Otherwise, learn from the reflective or narrative styles of the articles in the Life and lifestyle pages, and from novels. Finally. Always show your writing to your teacher for a quick brief comment. This is the most important aspect, getting that quick comment from your teacher. Not necessary that it's fully marked, but just a few comments on the most pertinent aspects for you to improve on will do wonders.

So, do that. See me or your teacher if you need more help.

Band Camp and then ...

2006-06-05T15:49:00.000+08:00
Just finished Band Camp on saturday past. It was a short camp, basically a fun bonding camp for the band after the new sec 3 batch takes over the band. It was good, seeing how the sec 3 leaders and cohort develop their styles, and come into their leadership skills. One highlight, I should say, was showing the band this documentary on the Berlin Philharmonic. It is one of the world's greatest orchestra, and it is a musical group that we want to learn from and emulate. Indeed, from the reflections written by the boys after the viewing, I think they have learnt the success factors and lessons well. This augurs well for the future of our band.

It's also good to see the old boys and this year's sec 4s come back to have fun in the camp bbq and stay over. They were like strumming away on the guitars, playing away on the piano, and watching midnight movies in the music room, and surfing blogs and youtubes. Basically, it's like a nice night of pure lazing around and fun. It's a good form of stress release after 1 whole week of intensive hols lessons, i think, and a good get together for them again in the context of band friends, esp when all are so stressed in preparing for JC midyear and Sec 4 Prelims 2 after the hols. All had fun, i should say. It was a good band camp overnight - did not really sleep at all, just like in student days. But I must say that i m getting really old - I started nodding off to sleep in the midst of lunch the next day at Breeks.

Conged out immediately when I reached home, and slept for the whole of Sat, missing another friend's BBQ in the process. Angie and Seyean actually called at bout 9pm that night, asking when I was gona reach the BBQ. I think I mumbled something into the phone, and went off the slumberland again. Only woke up at bout noon on Sunday. So, that was seriously a feat - sleeping almost 1 entire day. It was a good sleep though, a real deep sleep, because I woke up finally feeling really refreshed and rested, not having felt like that for some days at length.

So there, now I am still having to decide on my Tokyo hotel ... whether to part with 2K and enjoy a luxury stay, or to part with 1.2K and have a run-of-the-mill stay.

Time to Sprint

2006-06-02T00:13:00.000+08:00
Oh well, I finally changed the look of this blog. (Thanks nicol, for the tips on uploading and creating the picture banner etc.) Changed the colours, the main banner, the tone, the feel. Changed the title too; there's a greater sense of the present in this new name.

It's all part, or rather a culmination, of the clearing and throwing mode I am in now. Needed to break out of the routine, to refocus. So the day before, booked myself a ticket to Tokyo. Yup, looking forward to it - anticipating it now. In the midst of deciding on a hotel; it's quite convenient booking a hotel room online. Then, I have been clearing my table in school today ... everyone who knows me would have witnessed the glorious mess that perpetually reigns on my table. The mess only gets larger and expands in greater multitude as the term goes by. So, at the end of term now, it's time to throw, clear and get organised again. Interesting though, because each time I clear and pack my table, I can never find my stuff after that. It's as if my modus operandi is that of an organised mess (ok, this is an oxymoron), but that's how it is all the time.

So today, I spent the whole morning clearing, or rather attempting to clear, my shelves. Threw away quite a bit of documents from 2004 and 2005 (yes, i have accumulated lots of docus which i have not browsed for ages), and it's tedious work. Hopefully I can finish more of the clearing these next few days. It's amazing though, looking through the docus and realising the mind-boggling range of projects and stuff I was doing these years. But in a way, it's good going through them, because it sort of activates my dulled psyche again. Then, met up with mark and brose in the afternoon. Good conversation - much good has come out of it, i should say. It crystallised my thoughts on my work: past, current and future. And then brose asked bout that famous saga. It was a good conversation, putting things in perspective. It was quite frankly the first full unload after these months. Mark and brose are quite wise indeed, I should say. Good counsel. Most sincere thanks, truly, to both mark and ambrose today.

So now, I m feeling quite alive at this moment, and looking ahead. There is a time to sprint, and there is a time to stroll. They serve their different but necessary purposes - there is a time for everything. It's now time to sprint ahead again. Yup, it is time to move on.

Old-to-New Band Leaders 2006-to-2007 and a Vid

2006-05-21T20:01:00.000+08:00
Our Symphony Band has just completed our leadership renewal process, and the new leaders of 2006/2007 are now in place.
A good friend sent me this vid to view. (Thanks WL. a most amazing vid)
This vid, interestingly, has lots of application lessons concerning teamwork and goals, and so I am going to combine it with my exhortations to the new leaders.

First, the vid. It is most fascinating, and quite therapeutic, just following the entire progress. And there are lessons to be learnt from this vid too...
By the way, it is a commercial. Yup.

Lessons of the Vid:
1) It takes a whole host of preparations to ensure that things do work.
2) Every detail, meticulously screened, prepared and adhered to, is important.
3) Each is an integral part of a team effort. That produces the sleekest successful result.
4) Each portion is but part of the whole process, towards the final goal.

TO THE OLD AND NEW LEADERS OF OUR BAND... some words...

Adieu to the Sec 4s and EXCO/Admin Comm/SLs of 2005/2006.
Thank you for a most dedicated and successful year of leadership of the band. I am sure you will look upon your past year's work with great pride and nostalgia.
It has been great working with you guys too, and thanks to you, the band is now in better shape to take on the future challenges. You have done well, and now it's up to the new leaders you have helped put in place.
So now, it's time to really focus on your prelims and O levels, for that is definitely your sole responsibility now. It's a responsibility to yourself, to your teachers/school, and to your parents.
To the new band leaders for 2006/2007, like we told you guys:
Every one of you is part of the whole team, and each of you have your different roles to play.
You are there for a purpose, each of you.
Always rely on each other. Trust each other.
And in times of dire needs, your roles will carry the band through.
So, now that the baton has been passed to you, do your teachers, your seniors and your band members proud.
What you do is part of a longer plan, towards a long-term goal of the band.
In all things, do it with confidence, daring and sincerity.
'For The Good Of The Band'. One Band, One Sound, One Brotherhood.

Construct your legacy, just like all your senior batches before you.
The Band's future is now yours.

Live Boo-Boo: BBC with the Wrong 'Guy'

2006-05-16T21:06:00.000+08:00
BBC had one of the most public and high profile boo-boo in broadcasting history when it had a 'Live' interview with the a Mr Guy Kewney, an IT expert of the industry, only to realise mid-way through the interview with the French accented guy that it's the wrong guy.

View the actual interview broadcasted.

Really funny, esp note his look of horror, and how he valiantly and quite coolly tried to answer the questions fired at him by BBC's consumer editor. His response is like .. OMG... what have I gotten myself in for .... die... ok, still, cannot die.. just have to do it and hope nothing goes wrong ...right, here goes .... wow...
Originally thought to be a cab driver, it seemed that this wrong guy called Guy Goma was a business graduate from Congo at the BBC waiting for a job interview instead. Talk bout a comedy of errors - all coincidental parallels.

View BBC's later damage-control broadcast clip.

BBC trying to spin a docu-story out of this boo-boo and retain some shred of credibility.

Article from BBC News website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4774429.stm

Article from the Daily Mail,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=386136&in_page_id=1770

将进酒 Tang Poem 'And I Toast'

2006-05-11T17:56:00.000+08:00
This is a Tang poem which I especially like. It's broad passionate and lyrical lyrics convey a sense of rugged sorrow twinned with an indomitable spirit. Most rousing and stirring poem.

[Chinese poems are quite easy to understand. Understand the individual vocabulary terms first, then link them together and you get the main verse. Imagine the 'yi4jing4', or the spirit and scene.]

将进酒
李白

君不见，黄河之水天上来，奔流到海不复回。
君不见，高堂明镜悲白发，朝如青丝暮成雪。
人生得意须尽欢，莫使金樽空对月。
天生我材必有用，千金散尽还复来。
烹羊宰牛且为乐，会须一饮三百杯。
岑夫子，丹丘生，将进酒，君莫停。
与君歌一曲，请君为我侧耳听。
钟鼓馔玉不足贵，但愿长醉不复醒。
古来圣贤皆寂寞，惟有饮者留其名。
陈王昔时宴平乐，斗酒十千恣欢谑。
主人何为言少钱，径须沽取对君酌。
五花马，千金裘，
呼儿将出换美酒，与尔同销万古愁。

Appreciation:

《将进酒》属古乐府旧题，内容多写宴饮放歌。这首诗作于李白离开长安以后。从诗的主要内容看似乎写的都是及时行乐，看透人生，只愿长醉不愿醒的情感，相当消极。但深入理解李白的内心深处，就会发现李白不是真正消极颓废，而是胸怀伟大的抱负却不能施展，便借酒发泄，以此来排解心中的苦闷，来表现对权贵和世俗的蔑视。但与此同时作者也流露出人生易老及时行乐的消极情绪。全诗气势奔放，语言豪迈，句法明快多变，充分反映了李白放纵不羁的性格与文风。

At Rallies II

2006-05-09T09:02:00.000+08:00

A picture of one of the famous rallies by wp which I found on the web. This one was at Ang Mo Kio, which PM Lee said his son attended too. The crowd was simply unbelieveable.
I attended that rally. Having heard so much about the sound and fury of election rallies by the opposition parties, and being so jaded with marking and work, I thought it would be good 'entertainment' of sorts to go for a rally. It was quite easy to find the place - just follow the crowd walking from AMK MRT, and we found ourselves at some blocks of flats (the blocks in the far end of the picture). There was a great sense of awe and occasion as I silently looked down upon the vast expanse of land below, filled with dots and dots of people stretching into the distance. My jaws literally dropped.
I had simply thought, intially, that it would be a great night of excitement and gawking. But it had turned out to be a most profound experience. And it was not just the crowd, but witnessing the passion of fellow Singaporeans, hearing how WP kept stressing on their being pro-Singapore and wanting to help shape the future of Singapore, and pondering about each individual citizen's role in moulding our future Singapore.
I decided to attend the next night's rally at Serangoon Stadium, for a stint of the 'last night rally' effect (never experienced that before), and I was not disappointed. When at the end of the Serangoon rally, the WP led the entire stadium (all filled- stands and field and beyond) in a recitation of the National Pledge, just like National Day itself, a lump came to my throat. This was especially poignant, I felt, as the words were penned by our founding father S. Rajaratname who had just passed away earlier this year, and it represented all the hopes and ideals that all of us Singaporeans strive towards. This must be what the entire election process is about - our common interest in our Nation's collective future. At the end of the day, we are all Singaporean citizens with a common past, common future and common destiny.
Postlude: The famous Hougang WP rally photo that first sparked everyone's curiosity (including mine).

The Wind In The Willows ... according and gaining respect ...

2006-05-08T21:33:00.000+08:00
This morning commenced with a most perceptive and insightful devotion by the representative from class 4-9 during flag-raising. He delivered a short but incisive devotion on the theme of 'respect'. I am in total agreement with what he said. In a nutshell, he expounded that respect is to be gained, that respect is a 2-way mutual process, that if you treat someone else with respect, the other person will accord you that same respect. Indeed, how frequent do we find ourselves overly high and mighty, overly confident, that we forget to be humble and sincere when we treat the people around us, whether be it our peers, our subordinates, or our students/children.

With regards to our peers and subordinates, mutual respect is of utmost importance, for that is the basis for a meaningful relationship. Furthermore, everyone would have some point of value or sincerity to contribute, and to simply brush another's opinion aside reeks of condescension and myopic thinking. It will in effect stifle discussion and exchanges that are necessary for better progress. Afterall, no one has the monopoly of wisdom and thought. For progress and development that is meaningful and beneficial, both sides must accord respect to each other.

Then, as for our students/children, we always remind ourselves to know how to strike a balance. For me personally, I set high expectations for my students with regards to values, morals, behaviour and attitude. Yet, it does not simply imply an unthinking and clumsy hollering at my students who err. Of course, when I used to have lower secondary music students, I would be the draconian disciplinarian. I am sure they all remember those afternoons when entire lines of sec 1 students would have to face the pillars and walls, or to sing to the flower pots, so as to instill a sense of propriety and self-discipline in them. But generally, I prefer to treat my upper secondary students as responsible thinking young adults, which they afterall are. I have found over the years that our students will be what we treat them to be. If we treat our upper secondary students as dignified individuals, they will respond accordingly as such. If we treat them as intelligent capable leaders, they will also strive to be such. But if we treat them as potential antagonists and problems, they will also self-deteriorate accordingly. This is frankly natural social behaviour and personal psychology.

I have always found it more effective, fulfilling and enjoyable treating my upper secondary students as dignified responsible young adults, and to hold intellectual discourse with them. And our students are intelligent and great individuals. They have always been respectful to us, friendly, and highly engaging. Of course, for the few recalcitrant ones, or for those who really need a good shelling that is necessary for their own life betterment, I would not hesitate to do so too. Afterall, that is what education is about - to mould our wards into dignified and highly capable young men with a true self-respect and confidence, tempered with the necessary humilty.

I do wish to see more of this sense of dignity and mutual respect in our nation today. The day our nation and those who are in position to manage and influence stop according respect to each other and to others, it will be the tearing-up of our social compact and our social fabric.

At Rallies

2006-05-06T02:01:00.000+08:00
I have an admission to make ...

Tons of scripts are awaiting me to mark
Prelims scripts
I could have spent these few evenings devouring the scripts...
Yet I did not
I was at the rallies

YES ... I was actually attending election rallies!

Well, I figured that the scripts can wait, for I can always catch up with them through my own management of hours. The rallies, however, are immediate, instant, and once missed will not return.

And the rallies this year are worth the time. Every bit of it. For I witnessed fiery passion in the speakers and the supporters and audience, I witnessed breathtaking persuasive rhetoric and incisive arguments, and I witnessed the beginnings of a next phase in our nation's electoral development.

The rallies were at times thought-provoking lectures, and at times carnival fiestas. Indeed, the crowds that descended upon the rally sites caused long massive jams, and the blaring cheering and flag-waving audience was a phenomenon to behold. And have you ever witnessed a studium fully packed with people on the field, on the tracks, on the stands, and then outside the stadium looking in from the fences or standing at the next buildings beyond? How many people would that be? Or trying to squeeze one's way into the never-ending sea of people, and then trying to tip-toe to see the stage and speaker, who looked just like a tiny speck in the distance. And all these while standing on muddy soggy grass and ground. Then, there were mobile network jams (and mainly for my network operator) - trying to call/sms unsuccessfully for the entire duration of the 3-hour rally (using so much power that my phone battery bar indicator went from green to orange in the process - a never-before phenomena), and thereafter having to keep walking to get to a decent transport place ... and people are willing to brave all that.

Frankly, the rallies this year are significant. There are now the faint inklings of the beginnings of a more mature and qualified candidature outside of the ruling party. The control and exercise of tone, language and rhetoric by the non-ruling party candidates are impressive this round. Wit, dignity, composure and intellect were all evident and well utilised in strongly passionate and persuasive speeches. Most thankfully, empty low-level rantings and ravings are generally absent in the more respectable parties - this augurs well for an hnourable and dignified electoral process.

Then, there was a large proportion of young working adults and, surprise of surprises, a sizeable turnout of JC students at the rallies. There is a clear awakening in interest in the nation's future amongst the next generation. They are the beginnings of a young intelligensia. Perhaps, social studies and national education have fulfilled their functions well afterall - getting the students interested and challenged in thinking about crucial themes in human societies/civilisations, and applying them to broad national and international issues and concerns.

I feel a re-awakening in the nation, and I feel a re-awakening in me.

It was indeed time well spent.

Other online takes on the NYTimes American Idol Article

2006-05-01T20:48:00.000+08:00
Came across this...

Apparently, many online readers of the NYTimes article on American Idol have written their own reviews and comments about it. Great to take a look at their views:
http://www.technorati.com/search/www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/business/yourmoney/30idol.html

American Idol - The Show That Almost Wasn't - Lessons on Empires and Organisations

2006-04-30T17:28:00.000+08:00
(picture taken from the New York Times, 30 April 2006)

I just read on the New York Times a most insightful article on the arduous route that American Idol, that phenomenal hit on TV networks around the world, had to take to be aired.

The article traces the difficulties that the original inventors of the show, Simon Cowell and Darrell had in trying to persuade the American TV networks to support this new reality TV idea. What they faced were mainly arrogance, ignorance and disinterest, all from a know-it-all attitude from the studios' top dogs.

Below is an extract from NYT describing the cold self-enclosed wall of arrogance and ignorance faced by Simon Cowell, the famed producer and American Idol judge, when he first tried to pitch the show to the major American networks.

Despite the wall he sensed going up at the UPN meeting, Mr. Cowell, never cowed, simply plowed ahead with his pitch. "What this is really about is the American dream," Mr. Cowell told the American executives in his smooth British tones. He laid out the format for the show that he and Mr. Fuller were calling "Pop Idol" in Britain, describing how exciting this show would surely be. When Mr. Cowell wrapped up his comments, the room went quiet — stone silent.

At the opposite end of the table, a young woman executive, whom Mr. Cowell had identified in his head as the "lippy second-in-command," seemed to be calculating whether or not this truly was the end of the presentation.

"And what exactly do you think we're supposed to be doing for you?" the woman said, dismissively.

"Well, actually, sweetheart," Mr. Cowell replied, applying just a dash of acid, "it's more a question of what I could be doing for you."

Again a terrible silence fell. Then the woman piped up: "Well, we'll get back to you."

Mr. Cowell said he had heard that line before — too many times for it to bother him ...

From 'How a Hit Almost Failed Its Own Audition', by Bill Carter, The New Yoirk Times, 30 April 2006

Full Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/business/yourmoney/30idol.html

The lessons to be drawn are many: how to recognise talent, how to recognise current inadequacies, how to be vigilant and open-minded to suggestions and new life-lines, how not to be self-inflated in ego, how to be focused and humble in success, how to be undaunted in failures, and how to be excited about the possibilities and tasks of the next day rather than yesterday.
In this American Idol saga, one aspect that particularly strikes me is how some of the top executives in the highly successful networks become so complacent, self-important, and perhaps so ignorant and ill-informed, that they have forgotten how to really get down into the details and merits of a proposal. In short, they passed up the chance to rectify a situation, or to harness the potential of a new idea.

Sometimes, its seems that the Top Dogs in any organisation will be so overly puffed up in their self importance and self-know-it-all confidence that they simply forget how to appreciate a gem when they encounter one. They either treat suggestions, feedback/criticisms and new ideas pitched to them with condescension and scant regard, and worse still as personal affront to their empires. At times, they place themselves on a pedestal high up, looking upon all with benign largess and bestowed smiles. Tell them that the writing is on the wall, and that they ignore the signs at their peril, they will not believe it. They are oblivious to the very propsect of being made obsolete.

In history, when the rulers stopped self-evaluation and self-warning, when the rulers stopped watching and observing the signs, when the rulers stopped listening and improving, it spelt the beginning of a long demise. That was how great empires and kingdoms were overrun and disintegrated, that was how great rulers were overthrown, and in the last 100 years that was how big business companies and conglomerates were overtaken or bought over. Think about the fall of the ancient Macedonian Empire, the Persian Emprie, the Roman Empire; think about the endings of the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty; think about MGM, IBM, Ford, General Electrics. They all fell at the end due to inner-weakness, lack of proper governance, over-reliance on hear-say and interference by sweet-whispering lackeys, and inflated egos ignoring all good advice from officials and the ground.

At the end of the day, there's a lesson here as we note how Fox Network (thanks to the incisive dictates of Murdock to 'Buy It NOW') managed to overtake the otherwise more powerful TV networks who had smugly given American Idol the passover. No one has the monopoly of knowledge and power for ever. One has to be nimble and humble, willing to really walk the ground and observe, able to recognise wise counsel and weak sweet-nothings, and willing to change direction, admit weaknesses/errors and take hard decisions. This is especially if one is in great power, for otherwise, he will choose to ignore the changes of trends and sentiments, and that will be the beginning of the fall.

And if we still don't see the point, think of Alexander the Great, and think of Julius Caesar.

But I digress. This insider's view of the putting together of American Idol is full of juicy bits of news nad comments, and is well worth a read.

Farewell ... by Thomas E Spencer

2006-04-23T20:32:00.000+08:00
Came across a most soulful and beautiful poem, by the great Australian poet Thomas E Spencer (1845-1911).

Farewell

As we travel Life's weary journey,
And plod through the gathering years,
With our burdens of care and sorrow,
O'er a pathway bedewed with tears.
If, perchance, for a fleeting moment
Our hearts should with rapture swell,
We have added but one more sorrow,
When we bid the glad time "Farewell".

I have watched the bright dawn awaking,
And noted each changing light,
As the sun, in its morning splendour,
Dispelled the dark gloom of night.
I have welcomed its bright rays stealing
Over hill-top, and wood, and dell;
Yet, my joy was alloyed with sorrow,
As I bade the bright stars "Farewell".

I have seen the red sun descending
To its home in the glowing west,
Whilst the tremulous voice of nature
Was solemnly lulled to rest.
I have welcomed the stars, appearing,
And greeted them one by one,
Yet, my greeting was toned with sadness,
As I said "Farewell" to the sun.

When we welcome the summer sunshine,
Farewell to the flowers of Spring.
Adieu to the fruits of Autumn,
When we welcome the frosty king.
Good-bye to the joys of childhood,
When vigorous youth appears;
Then - a season of strife and turmoil,
And - farewell to the vanished years.

I am sighing a farewell message,
As I sit in the gathering gloom.
Farewell to all earthly sorrows,
Then - rest, in the silent tomb.
Farewell to the trees, and flowers,
To mountain, and stream, and dell,
Farewell to the glorious sunlight,
To the moon and stars, "Farewell"

明朝壮志，绿义豪存。

2006-04-19T19:23:00.000+08:00

《绿长青》

今夕叹兮忆往昔，
昨景物尤人飞逝。
明朝畅潇成壮志，
绿水青天义豪存。

。。。写于二零零六年公中乐队演奏会毕

DaChangJin for laughs

2006-04-18T22:31:00.000+08:00
Someone sent me this link to an absolutely hilarious flash animation based on the DaChangJin song.

Completely silly ... sends you frothing and rolling on the ground at the genius of that stupidity (haha .. an oxymoron) . Read the Chinese words that they fit to the song. And the childlike voice simply tops it all.

http://flash.cyol.com/product/05121802324416.swf

A Phoenix Risen From The Ashes ... Lest We Forget

2006-04-18T00:47:00.000+08:00
Reflecting on the journey the band has made this past year...

Recall the promise that our band made last year on August 8 during the National Day celebrations in the hall, when we told the school about our WMC results, and that we would make good, that we would press on, and be one day a phoenix risen from the ashes?

Remember when we came together and refocused ourselves to the true purpose of music not merely about competition, but about passion, humanity and compassion? Remember when we then relooked at our programmes back in August last year, and embarked on a new direction?

Remember how you guys embarked on the 5-year / 1-year plan for Band, Department and Section, the Fun Camp, the band website and band motto One Band One Sound One Brotherhood, the theory/appreciation plan, the drills and physical training, the soccer games, the band cheers, the concert repertoire, the slow and patient work on each piece, and the final sweep of musicality and exhiliration in the final rehearsals and final performance?

Finally, remember how we urged ourselves to be composed, calm, relaxed, focused, to give a great send-off concert memory to the sec 4s, and to do justice to the music, in the last 2 weeks to the concert, and on concert day itself?

And so, that is the journey from that humbled beginning after our return from the Netherlands, to Aesthetique 2006 when we emerged stronger, more bonded, more passionate, more human and more compassionate, both in our music, and as a band.

And this is the true lesson of this year's work by the whole band: A phoenix risen from the ashes ... Setbacks making us stronger, more humane and more compassionate ... Music conveying humanity, transcending boundaries and making connections with our audience.

And this journey of WMC 05 to Aesthetique 06 should be a significant epoch period in the band's development annals... it must become part of the band's shared memory and psyche, our raison d'etre.

These we must remember as we surge on ... Lest we forget.

Best Years Of Our Lives

The Day After - GE 2011 and Beyond

Still Sharp and Witty

A First Prize Speech

Rise and Fall of Nations and Organisations

Over-reaction to Maths PSLE Gets Flake from Forumers

Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize? WTF?!??!?!?!?!

SIGNS

The State of Singlish

National Day Rally 2009 - Shaping Our Future Together

Happy Shakespearean Birthday! Onscreen!

Sketching Shakespeare on film and TV

Why Henry VIII matters - David Starkey tells School Gate

Her Dream - Susan Boyle, Britain's Got Talent 2009

Why Does He Have To Shout?

EARTH HOUR

JK Rowling's Speech at Harvard Commencement

Kobe Illuminare

Kobe Illuminare 2

Kobe Illuminare 3

Kobe Illuminare 4

Kobe Illuminare 5

Kobe Illuminare 6

Kobe Illuminare 7

Himeji Castle, UNESCO World Heritage

Arashiyama 4

Arashiyama 3

Arashiyama 2

Arashiyama 1

Kiyomizu Temple, UNESCO World Heritage

Kiyomizu Temple, UNESCO World Heritage

Labour Against Tories - Advertising Wit

Labour Against Tories - Advertising Wit

Genius, Opportunity AND Hardwork - The Full Equation

Are schools focusing too much on feelings? from the London Times Online School Gate Page.

Are schools focusing too much on feelings?

from the best of New York Times Blogs ... blogpost by Judith Warner

Tears to Remember

45 Years Later, the First Afro-American President. Martin Luther King Jr ... Jesse Jackson ... Obama

Palin Power

Superficial China Gets Pretty Face To Mime While Not-So-Pretty Girl Sings At Olympics

A Nation In Mourning

Do Schools Kill Creativity? Lecture by Sir Ken Robinson

Olympics 2008 Video

Woohoo! Alive Again! 2008!

Pavarotti...

Flowers of Yorkshire

Singapore Day 2007 in New York City and What Makes Us Singaporean

881 - Getai - Our National Heritage

There's No Place I'd Rather Be

CH Events July August 2007 Return for the annual Get-togethers!

Life is fragile

China Immersion Trip: A Great Adventure - Photos I

300 ... Prepare for Glory! Tell of Victory!

And It Was To Be A Manageable Paper.

Renaissance. Rebirth.

I M A Workaholic

Silence and Music

A Photo To Remember

Curse of the Golden Flower

Sweet Nothings

Flag Of Our Fathers

It's Been A Good Year

If ... My Ode to The Class of 2006 Preparing for the O Levels...

Die, Survive or Thrive

Farewell Assembly 2006 and CH Alumni Founder's Day Dinner

Mad Rush .. EL .. Music ... EL .. Music ... EL .. Music ...... Exciting!

Forbidden City: The Musical - A Hundred Days of Changes, To Change The Way We ...

ESSAY PRACTICE: One-word Question (I)

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My Singlish Dreaming

A Beautiful Heart

Singapore Dreaming

Did I actually spend time writing this? Yes. It's for the anon tagger's edification, if he ever appreciates it.

Singlish and English(es) in Singapore - Laughs

Singapore Idol Madness ... Traffic Obstruction

EL Narrative Writing Reminders and Examples

Climb Every Mountain

First They Came For The Communists

Thank You For The Music - CHMA 06

台湾感动。。。当人民站起来时