Singapore vs Australia is an interesting match. It's not the straightforward one way traffic that many people might have expected before the match. It was nice to turn on the TV at 40 min and see that Australia hadn't broken Singapore down. Eventually Singapore's defence gave way after Kewell and Viduka cut them open, but Singapore were denied by the woodwork twice. Another case of the scoreline giving them an unflattering impression. 3-2 would have been a more accurate reflection of how things went. It's almost a form of flattery that these guys started hacking a few of our players down. But why do this sort of thing in the last football match played at the Kallang stadium?
A few weeks ago, they posted this article by this dimwit for Soccernet. Minus 10 marks for failing to mention that that match was supposed to be the closing ceremony for Kallang stadium.
And this guy had the temerity to suggest that Australia is the home team simply because people watch a lot of EPL. It's like saying that Wembley has a lot of Arsenal fans who would cheer Thierry Henry on in a England vs France match. It doesn't work that way. It's almost like saying that Singaporeans have no national pride. Abbas Saad is considered one of Kallang Stadium's legends, of course, but only when he's wearing the red shirt.
If Australia were to play against Italy in the world cup (they came within a hair's breadth of knocking the eventual champion out) we would cheer for Australia, because they are almost an Asian side. If they were to play any other Asian team, we would cheer that Asian team. Even if that Asian team is Japan.
He also denigrated the quality of the Australians who played for Singapore, saying they wouldn't make it anywhere else. I heard that Abbas Saad won a few caps for Australia, so I wonder where that bullshit came from.
At least he mentioned the Malaysia cup matches, but he said that the matches were political because of the split from Malaysia. I think it'd be more accurate to say that every Malaysia Cup match, and every Malaysia Premier League match involving Singapore and any other team is a derby match. If Celtic or Rangers were to join the EPL then that's more or less what they'd expect.
Saturday, 30 June 2007
Thursday, 28 June 2007
6904
Saw this article in the papers today. My eyes popped out. Apparently 6904 won the top 2 prizes in 4D. The Singapore Pools spokesman said that the chance of this happening was 1 in 100 million. This is preposterous. If Singapore Pools people are so bad in calculating probability, I would want to be betting against them for football results. Actually I do that, and on average, I’m more or less even.
Now technically, he’s right. The chances that 6904 will win the top prize is indeed 1 in 100 million. The answer is correct but the question is wrong. The question should have been “what are the chances that the first 2 numbers are the same?" Then it is a less astronomical 1 in 10000. Considering that there are 156 draws in a year, on average this means once in 66 years. A rare event, to be sure, but not that rare.
Of course, this method of calculation also applies to “what are the chances that the same number will win both x and y?” Where x and y are 2 different prizes. So if x and y are 2 consecutive first prizes, then the answer is the same: 1 in 10000, once in 66 years.
Then the question arises: what is the chance that the first prize and another prize will be the same? This is not easy to calculate. But it is easy to calculate what are the chances that all the other winners are different from the first prize. So if the first prize is ABCD, then the probability that the 2nd prize is not ABCE is 0.9999, same as the 3rd prize, each starter prize, each consolation prize. The probability that none of the prizes is same as the first prize is therefore (0.9999 ^ 22) and the complement set of that is 0.0022, or 1 in 455. So every 3 years, you will find the 1st prize having the same number as 1 other prize.
The spokesman says “the same four-digit number coming up twice is not unprecedented, but usually, it appears in the starter or consolation category, not as a double first-second prize whammy.” Now this is not quite as stupid as his other statement. What are the chances that at least 2 different prizes have the same number? The probability of the second prize being different from the first is 0.9999. The probability of the 3rd prize being different from 1 and 2, if 1 and 2 are different, is 0.9998. Etc etc etc. So for the 23 prizes, (0.9999 * 0.9998 * … * 0.9978) is 0.975. 1 – 0.975 is 0.025, which is 1 in 40, which means it happens roughly every 13 weeks or so.
Now technically, he’s right. The chances that 6904 will win the top prize is indeed 1 in 100 million. The answer is correct but the question is wrong. The question should have been “what are the chances that the first 2 numbers are the same?" Then it is a less astronomical 1 in 10000. Considering that there are 156 draws in a year, on average this means once in 66 years. A rare event, to be sure, but not that rare.
Of course, this method of calculation also applies to “what are the chances that the same number will win both x and y?” Where x and y are 2 different prizes. So if x and y are 2 consecutive first prizes, then the answer is the same: 1 in 10000, once in 66 years.
Then the question arises: what is the chance that the first prize and another prize will be the same? This is not easy to calculate. But it is easy to calculate what are the chances that all the other winners are different from the first prize. So if the first prize is ABCD, then the probability that the 2nd prize is not ABCE is 0.9999, same as the 3rd prize, each starter prize, each consolation prize. The probability that none of the prizes is same as the first prize is therefore (0.9999 ^ 22) and the complement set of that is 0.0022, or 1 in 455. So every 3 years, you will find the 1st prize having the same number as 1 other prize.
The spokesman says “the same four-digit number coming up twice is not unprecedented, but usually, it appears in the starter or consolation category, not as a double first-second prize whammy.” Now this is not quite as stupid as his other statement. What are the chances that at least 2 different prizes have the same number? The probability of the second prize being different from the first is 0.9999. The probability of the 3rd prize being different from 1 and 2, if 1 and 2 are different, is 0.9998. Etc etc etc. So for the 23 prizes, (0.9999 * 0.9998 * … * 0.9978) is 0.975. 1 – 0.975 is 0.025, which is 1 in 40, which means it happens roughly every 13 weeks or so.
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
Face to Face
This is weird. I'm selling books on yahoo, and some guy with an account of the same name as the author bids for it. So I sent him the email, wanting to play along with him, "you're the author? Haha. Why would you want a copy of the book?"
Turns out he was really the author. He had run out of author copies of his own book, and wanted to get his hands on 1 copy as it was out of print. Now I got to figure out how to get it to him in London.
I wonder if I should autograph it just for him.
Also I don't know if you guys do deals with people from overseas. I have just heard that the USPS has abolished surface mail. So mailing stuff out of the US has just gotten very expensive. Just to let you know.
Turns out he was really the author. He had run out of author copies of his own book, and wanted to get his hands on 1 copy as it was out of print. Now I got to figure out how to get it to him in London.
I wonder if I should autograph it just for him.
Also I don't know if you guys do deals with people from overseas. I have just heard that the USPS has abolished surface mail. So mailing stuff out of the US has just gotten very expensive. Just to let you know.
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Instant Karma
Now earlier on, I thought I could use a snack or something. So I popped into the 7-11, and got myself a bag of Twisties (a 30 something man eating Twisties? Don’t ask.) I saw that they had marked down the Twisties, so I went to pay at the counter. But they charged me full price. I protested to the cashier who was serving me but she was the more junior one, so she deferred to the other guy, who was still handling another customer. When he was done, I brought the senior guy to the shelf to show him the mark down price tag. Then he said, hold on, and made a call. When I was tapping my foot in annoyance, the guy who he was talking to came by (must have been passing by anyway) and they conferred for a little while, until he found out that the mark down price came with dates, it ceased to be effective yesterday. So no mark down. So, you want a bag for that? He asked. Feeling a little miserly, I said, give me back my money. The junior cashier gave me a dirty look.
Well I found another markdown on Orangina, which is my favourite drink, but I have no idea why they price the damn thing so high, and I almost never buy it unless it’s on markdown. So I took the can and gulped it down.
The bus came soon after, and then I boarded it and sat down. You wouldn’t normally think of watching your manners all the time, like on the 145, going through the Chinatown section, and normally it’s full of haggard senior citizens where I can be extremely complacent about my etiquette. I felt a belch coming up and let it rip at full volume. It was one of the performances that I could be most proud of. The whole bus could hear it. (It was a single decker: I still don’t have the kungfu to belch so loud a whole double decker can hear it.) Immodestly, I rubbed my belly, and continued to read a book I picked up from the library - history of Russia.
Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw somebody waving hi. I didn’t recognise her at first, but later on found out that she was a former colleague from the company, a friend of MY’s. I was like... shit. I belched after St Andrew’s Cathedral, which means she must have heard it! Damn. But of course that didn’t stop me from having a proper conversation with her. I’m sure she must be thinking I’m such a boar. (With familiar people, it’s OK because they know I’m a boar. With casual acquaintances, it’s pretty embarrassing.)
So how does that relate? I think that if I wasn’t so stingy to balk on paying the $$$ for the twisties, I wouldn’t have taken the Orangina and belched out loud in public. But of course, reading my big tome on Russian history on one hand and gracelessly pouring the bag down the hatch (I’m not above doing that if I don’t think I’m watched) is also slightly off putting.
Well I found another markdown on Orangina, which is my favourite drink, but I have no idea why they price the damn thing so high, and I almost never buy it unless it’s on markdown. So I took the can and gulped it down.
The bus came soon after, and then I boarded it and sat down. You wouldn’t normally think of watching your manners all the time, like on the 145, going through the Chinatown section, and normally it’s full of haggard senior citizens where I can be extremely complacent about my etiquette. I felt a belch coming up and let it rip at full volume. It was one of the performances that I could be most proud of. The whole bus could hear it. (It was a single decker: I still don’t have the kungfu to belch so loud a whole double decker can hear it.) Immodestly, I rubbed my belly, and continued to read a book I picked up from the library - history of Russia.
Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw somebody waving hi. I didn’t recognise her at first, but later on found out that she was a former colleague from the company, a friend of MY’s. I was like... shit. I belched after St Andrew’s Cathedral, which means she must have heard it! Damn. But of course that didn’t stop me from having a proper conversation with her. I’m sure she must be thinking I’m such a boar. (With familiar people, it’s OK because they know I’m a boar. With casual acquaintances, it’s pretty embarrassing.)
So how does that relate? I think that if I wasn’t so stingy to balk on paying the $$$ for the twisties, I wouldn’t have taken the Orangina and belched out loud in public. But of course, reading my big tome on Russian history on one hand and gracelessly pouring the bag down the hatch (I’m not above doing that if I don’t think I’m watched) is also slightly off putting.
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Short Lived Teaching Appointments 2
or, What's it all about, Alfie?
Alfian being removed from his job as a teacher. That guy is a real lightning rod. And there are endless speculations about why it happened.
Most of these explanations have to do with who he is: that he’s gay (not 100% confirmed), Malay, a rebellious playwright, criticised the government in the past.
From what I have heard of him, there’s nothing to suggest that he’d be anything other than a good teacher. He knows how to reach out to his students, doesn’t condescend them.
Then there are people who said that what did him in was blogging about work. I dismissed it out of hand once. I thought that if they were to fire him because of that they would have told him and made it look less sinister. But that doesn’t mean it has nothing to do with a blog. But the fact is that he named the school he was teaching in. That could have been a big mistake.
But I still don't think it's serious enough to warrant sacking even a relief teacher. Sacking relief teachers are almost unheard of - it's like sacking a day job labourer - why not just let their time run out, and you can stop hiring them?
I have a theory that you can get plenty of crazy people to teach people in elite schools, since you know that they will be on the straight and narrow anyway. Put them together with a crazy teacher, and it will be “enrichment”, it will be “interesting”, but in the end the students will fall in line. In contrast, put a firebrand in a neighbourhood school, and he will incite people to rise up against the system. Tell them that the system is unjust, not to take things lying down.
I think they had considered him a threat to the system. But maybe this is giving them too much credit, because it actually implies they gave this matter some thought. Equally likely it was just "I don't like the looks of him", and out he went. And consider the circumstances in which he went in there – he wanted to go see what it was like teaching in a neighbourhood school. What might he have done? Blogging about it is one thing, would he have written a play that would paint the MOE in a very bad light?
My impression of the theatre scene in Singapore – no matter how much they purport to be against the system, or “daring” or “subversive”, it’s invariably populated by elites. The wall that separates the elites and the common man in Singapore is still intact, and with the construction of the Esplanade, it has become a fortress. It’s “say what you want, do what you like, but keep it in the family”.
The other thing is that somebody who was a top scorer in the “O” and “A” levels would actually go and teach in a neighbourhood school. He was all but breaching the divide that separates the elite schools from the bad. How were they going to stand for it?
He said that he was there to learn about what being in a neighbourhood school was like. Would that have counted against him? Wouldn’t they rather he be teaching? But I don’t doubt his teaching ability. It’s just that they can use that against him.
Would he have had an opposition party candidate on their hands? So in the end, I guess, they just got rid of him. If you looked at it from another point of view, he was a most unsuitable candidate, with all these minuses against him.
There are other theories about his sacking which are not so favourable towards him. Somebody analysed his blog entry accounts of his teaching at the school, and concluded that it was "orientalist" and condescending. Like a member of the elite looking at neighbourhood school students as though they were animals at the zoo. I took this one seriously for about all of 5 seconds. It's judging those writings very harshly if you want to go down that road.
Some people say that he engineered this all along. I can only expect that he will not be that surprised if they were to sack him, given how vociferously he had criticised the government in the past. And for him to have in mind what he was to do in the event of a sacking, as a contingent plan (ie this entry), that's possible. But to say that his intention of applying for the job had not been to gain the experience of teaching, but to embarrass the government in the event of his inevitable sacking, is ridiculous. He's a playwright first, and only incidentally a politician. No matter how political some of his writings are, they aren't, were never the main point.
I once had a teacher who taught me 6 months. Call him Bouncy. He was the director of a prominent theatre group in Singapore. But he left eventually. Never connected with the kids to the extent that Buddha did, you could say that Buddha was more of an extrovert. But sometimes I wonder if people in that line feel that you can’t really be too much your own person. One of my teachers was a transsexual. Call him / her Dragula. Don’t ask me how Dragula got the job. But at the end, she said to a friend of mine: don’t teach. Don’t be a fool. Not long after, she left for a corporate job and is now doing quite well. Even managed to get herself married.
I guess if you have this environment in the teaching service, you got to wonder if it’s healthy for the nation. I’m sure that many teachers get disillusioned in the end. All these well meaning people who fall by the wayside.
Alfian being removed from his job as a teacher. That guy is a real lightning rod. And there are endless speculations about why it happened.
Most of these explanations have to do with who he is: that he’s gay (not 100% confirmed), Malay, a rebellious playwright, criticised the government in the past.
From what I have heard of him, there’s nothing to suggest that he’d be anything other than a good teacher. He knows how to reach out to his students, doesn’t condescend them.
Then there are people who said that what did him in was blogging about work. I dismissed it out of hand once. I thought that if they were to fire him because of that they would have told him and made it look less sinister. But that doesn’t mean it has nothing to do with a blog. But the fact is that he named the school he was teaching in. That could have been a big mistake.
But I still don't think it's serious enough to warrant sacking even a relief teacher. Sacking relief teachers are almost unheard of - it's like sacking a day job labourer - why not just let their time run out, and you can stop hiring them?
I have a theory that you can get plenty of crazy people to teach people in elite schools, since you know that they will be on the straight and narrow anyway. Put them together with a crazy teacher, and it will be “enrichment”, it will be “interesting”, but in the end the students will fall in line. In contrast, put a firebrand in a neighbourhood school, and he will incite people to rise up against the system. Tell them that the system is unjust, not to take things lying down.
I think they had considered him a threat to the system. But maybe this is giving them too much credit, because it actually implies they gave this matter some thought. Equally likely it was just "I don't like the looks of him", and out he went. And consider the circumstances in which he went in there – he wanted to go see what it was like teaching in a neighbourhood school. What might he have done? Blogging about it is one thing, would he have written a play that would paint the MOE in a very bad light?
My impression of the theatre scene in Singapore – no matter how much they purport to be against the system, or “daring” or “subversive”, it’s invariably populated by elites. The wall that separates the elites and the common man in Singapore is still intact, and with the construction of the Esplanade, it has become a fortress. It’s “say what you want, do what you like, but keep it in the family”.
The other thing is that somebody who was a top scorer in the “O” and “A” levels would actually go and teach in a neighbourhood school. He was all but breaching the divide that separates the elite schools from the bad. How were they going to stand for it?
He said that he was there to learn about what being in a neighbourhood school was like. Would that have counted against him? Wouldn’t they rather he be teaching? But I don’t doubt his teaching ability. It’s just that they can use that against him.
Would he have had an opposition party candidate on their hands? So in the end, I guess, they just got rid of him. If you looked at it from another point of view, he was a most unsuitable candidate, with all these minuses against him.
There are other theories about his sacking which are not so favourable towards him. Somebody analysed his blog entry accounts of his teaching at the school, and concluded that it was "orientalist" and condescending. Like a member of the elite looking at neighbourhood school students as though they were animals at the zoo. I took this one seriously for about all of 5 seconds. It's judging those writings very harshly if you want to go down that road.
Some people say that he engineered this all along. I can only expect that he will not be that surprised if they were to sack him, given how vociferously he had criticised the government in the past. And for him to have in mind what he was to do in the event of a sacking, as a contingent plan (ie this entry), that's possible. But to say that his intention of applying for the job had not been to gain the experience of teaching, but to embarrass the government in the event of his inevitable sacking, is ridiculous. He's a playwright first, and only incidentally a politician. No matter how political some of his writings are, they aren't, were never the main point.
I once had a teacher who taught me 6 months. Call him Bouncy. He was the director of a prominent theatre group in Singapore. But he left eventually. Never connected with the kids to the extent that Buddha did, you could say that Buddha was more of an extrovert. But sometimes I wonder if people in that line feel that you can’t really be too much your own person. One of my teachers was a transsexual. Call him / her Dragula. Don’t ask me how Dragula got the job. But at the end, she said to a friend of mine: don’t teach. Don’t be a fool. Not long after, she left for a corporate job and is now doing quite well. Even managed to get herself married.
I guess if you have this environment in the teaching service, you got to wonder if it’s healthy for the nation. I’m sure that many teachers get disillusioned in the end. All these well meaning people who fall by the wayside.
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Revolution 9
I guess I thought I'd stop blogging. But just had to vent out at Alfian's sacking. I guess there will always be stuff to talk about. Plus I may need a new blog to publicise some new stuff.
Blogging's still not as fun as it used to be, so the posts here will be irregular. I want to start out on a clean slate. I don't expect to be blogging as much as I used to.
The title of my blog comes from the strangest song the Beatles ever recorded, the infamous "Revolution 9". You can find it on the White album, which explains why I picked this design for the backdrop.
Actually since I'm on this I might as well blog about "Revolution 9". Many people hate it, but for me it's one of the most intriguing Beatles songs of all. It's not even a song, but a sound collage, a scrapbook of various sound bits that John and Yoko pieced together.
In its own way it's a summary of the White Album, which is everything but the kitchen sink. A lot of people think that Sergeant Pepper is the quintessential Beatles album, although Revolver gets more critical acclaim. But for me it's the White Album, and also the official name is The Beatles. It's almost a career overview for the Beatles, everything they've ever done can be traced back to something on that album. It's also one of the most inconsistent Beatles album, I can actually name 10 songs that I don't like, but that's the spirit in which it was conceived.
And inside the album lies the secret to the appeal of the Beatles: they're everybody's band. That's because they've done everything, covered all bases. Blues*1? Check. Country*2? Check. Hard rock*3? Check. Psychedelia*4? Check. Folk*5? Check. Beach Boys*6? Check. Ballad*7? Check. Overblown late night radio*8? Check. Tin Pan Alley*9? Check.
To be sure, the albums that preceded and followed this, Sergeant Pepper and Abbey Road, both contained a great variety of music, but both had the discipline of being song cycles. The White Album is simply nothing but rojak, but what a glorious rojak.
1968, the year that the White Album came out, is the year of the revolution. All over the world, from Mexico City to Berkeley, Columbia U, Paris, Prague, Chicago, there were student riots. Nobody really knew what they were all about. Maybe they were raging against conformity? But it was electrifying, and nobody ever saw anything like that ever since, except maybe 1989 in Europe. The Beatles wrote "Revolution". The Rolling Stones wrote "Street Fighting Man".
But John and Yoko also produced "Revolution 9", which made a few reference to the riots. It was probably also the sound of a fractured mind, because there were parts that were positively schizophrenic. Some familiar snippets from old Beatles songs, like the orchestra crescendo from "A Day in the Life".
It also reminds me of "Mrs Dalloway", Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness novel, which nevertheless uses the technique of having a signpost in the middle of all the chaos to reorientate the audience. The repeated refrain "number 9, number 9, number 9" serves the same purpose as Big Ben in the Woolf book. I think when you are putting together large unwieldy things discipline becomes very important.
It's no wonder that John Lennon said that he spent more time working on "Revolution 9" than any other Beatles work. I can see how, because a lot of thought has gone into it. This is one of the most hated Beatles songs of all because everybody expects something else from them, but for me it's very bold and daring, and a great piece of work because it could so easily have been an unlistenable mess. As it is, it has the logic, the utter compelling logic of a nightmare. It's noisy here, quiet there, but utterly unsettling. It's modern, probably ahead of its time although this recording technique probably borrows more than a few ideas from French avant garde music.
Is my blog going to be conceived in the same spirit? Like a rojak mishmash of plenty of ideas? I don't know. I will not be posting frequently enough for there to be a meaningful answer to that.
*1: "Yer Blues"
*2: "Rocky Racoon"
*3: "Helter Skelter"
*4: "Glass Onion"
*5: "Blackbird"
*6: "Back in the USSR"
*7: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
*8: "Good Night"
*9: "Honey Pie"
Blogging's still not as fun as it used to be, so the posts here will be irregular. I want to start out on a clean slate. I don't expect to be blogging as much as I used to.
The title of my blog comes from the strangest song the Beatles ever recorded, the infamous "Revolution 9". You can find it on the White album, which explains why I picked this design for the backdrop.
Actually since I'm on this I might as well blog about "Revolution 9". Many people hate it, but for me it's one of the most intriguing Beatles songs of all. It's not even a song, but a sound collage, a scrapbook of various sound bits that John and Yoko pieced together.
In its own way it's a summary of the White Album, which is everything but the kitchen sink. A lot of people think that Sergeant Pepper is the quintessential Beatles album, although Revolver gets more critical acclaim. But for me it's the White Album, and also the official name is The Beatles. It's almost a career overview for the Beatles, everything they've ever done can be traced back to something on that album. It's also one of the most inconsistent Beatles album, I can actually name 10 songs that I don't like, but that's the spirit in which it was conceived.
And inside the album lies the secret to the appeal of the Beatles: they're everybody's band. That's because they've done everything, covered all bases. Blues*1? Check. Country*2? Check. Hard rock*3? Check. Psychedelia*4? Check. Folk*5? Check. Beach Boys*6? Check. Ballad*7? Check. Overblown late night radio*8? Check. Tin Pan Alley*9? Check.
To be sure, the albums that preceded and followed this, Sergeant Pepper and Abbey Road, both contained a great variety of music, but both had the discipline of being song cycles. The White Album is simply nothing but rojak, but what a glorious rojak.
1968, the year that the White Album came out, is the year of the revolution. All over the world, from Mexico City to Berkeley, Columbia U, Paris, Prague, Chicago, there were student riots. Nobody really knew what they were all about. Maybe they were raging against conformity? But it was electrifying, and nobody ever saw anything like that ever since, except maybe 1989 in Europe. The Beatles wrote "Revolution". The Rolling Stones wrote "Street Fighting Man".
But John and Yoko also produced "Revolution 9", which made a few reference to the riots. It was probably also the sound of a fractured mind, because there were parts that were positively schizophrenic. Some familiar snippets from old Beatles songs, like the orchestra crescendo from "A Day in the Life".
It also reminds me of "Mrs Dalloway", Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness novel, which nevertheless uses the technique of having a signpost in the middle of all the chaos to reorientate the audience. The repeated refrain "number 9, number 9, number 9" serves the same purpose as Big Ben in the Woolf book. I think when you are putting together large unwieldy things discipline becomes very important.
It's no wonder that John Lennon said that he spent more time working on "Revolution 9" than any other Beatles work. I can see how, because a lot of thought has gone into it. This is one of the most hated Beatles songs of all because everybody expects something else from them, but for me it's very bold and daring, and a great piece of work because it could so easily have been an unlistenable mess. As it is, it has the logic, the utter compelling logic of a nightmare. It's noisy here, quiet there, but utterly unsettling. It's modern, probably ahead of its time although this recording technique probably borrows more than a few ideas from French avant garde music.
Is my blog going to be conceived in the same spirit? Like a rojak mishmash of plenty of ideas? I don't know. I will not be posting frequently enough for there to be a meaningful answer to that.
*1: "Yer Blues"
*2: "Rocky Racoon"
*3: "Helter Skelter"
*4: "Glass Onion"
*5: "Blackbird"
*6: "Back in the USSR"
*7: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
*8: "Good Night"
*9: "Honey Pie"
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
Short lived teaching appointments 1
When you’re a teenager, there are some bad years, and there are good years. Sec 3 and 4 were great years because it was around then that I discovered that teenage life was not the complete doom laden disaster that my mother said it would be. Those 2 years were my favourite years. Not my happiest years, but those that I would definitely want to relive over and over again.
During the first half of sec 3, I had witnessed the departure of 2 teachers. I had never really been close to my teachers. But I was starting to like my life at last. A window was opening, and those were the teachers who were standing there when I looked out of it.
One of them taught Physics. He was vaguely nerdy, but earnest. I liked that he saw that I was one of the better ones at Physics. But I think there was one incident where he made a dirty joke in class, and I could tell he wasn’t the brightest bulb around. I was sorda sad to see him go after half a year, and the teacher who came in, we knew that he was more careful, streetwise. I guess we despised him a little for that but no big deal.
This may come as a surprise to you: I took higher Chinese. I’m only willing to admit it now because a colleague of mine gleefully told everybody that he had taken higher Chinese and I had never heard him speak a word. So I thought, why not me, right?
I know, my Chinese sucks. It always had, but it didn’t suck as badly as many people in my class, and at least at Sec 1 I was able to scrape the entrance exam. Maybe the years of struggling in the deep end of the pool took its toll on me? Who ever knew? I didn’t really hate Chinese, like some people loathed it. I never was the most Chinese of all people, but I’m too egoistic not to take something that’s part of my identity seriously. It could be the most shit language in the world (it’s not) and I’d still put in a decent effort because it’s my language.
But I never did well, because there was some other stuff that was more interesting, that I could understand more easily. Like Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Literature and English. Can’t expect me to be good at everything, can you?
We had a new teacher that year, he came with a fairly large reputation, and he wrote the lyrics for wu suo nan yang, did other work in the media. I think he also wrote the theme song for kopi-O. Those were the golden years for SBC dramas, and frankly, that was when they still had vaguely interesting things to write scripts about other than the shit you see on TV now exemplifying how empty our yuppie-ish aspirations are.
The Chinese teacher was a breath of fresh air. Let’s call this guy Buddha. Chinese is usually a dreary subject in class, because of the lack of interest in it, but he made it fun for us. We know that we’re better at English than the Taiwanese, the Hongkongers, the Mainland Chinese, the Malaysian Chinese, but we really really suck at Chinese. (At least in the English-y schools I went to.) So it was always a question of morale. But he made it interesting.
Buddha was a witty guy, and he was really good at the language, like he more or less challenged us to be as good as him. I remember him going through this short story about a guy watching his old father climb up and down a railway platform to buy him some oranges.
He also taught a lot of stuff about the Chinese arts that was unfortunately lost on me. I guess it’s good for one’s ego if you see that your teachers are willing to go out on a limb and teach you all sorts of funky crazy stuff that’s not in the syllabus.
As I said, I was one of the lousier students in class, but I made the effort to memorise all my vocab lists. But he surprised me one day - we had to write a personal letter for composition one day, and 2 weeks later everybody got back their composition books except for me. He read out my personal letter in class, not because it was any good - it was crap. But because he was amused that I had written a suicide note. Of course I was only ever going to do it in his class. (Not the first time my composition was read out in class though. But that was English, so it’s a different story.)
I think, even though we had the language barrier, we both recognise that we had something in common. Buddha was every bit as mischievous as I was. Cracking jokes like seeing a couple of dogs on a TV advert and calling them gou nan nu. And then he was also subversive as hell, he would open the textbook, go through the stuff in 15 minutes, and spend the rest of the hour explaining why it was crap. Well I know that my memories of those days are pretty fragmented, but I’m twice as old now as I was then, don’t expect me to remember it like it was yesterday.
There was this school skit I put up that involved advertising toilet paper. To this day I’m fairly amazed that I managed to get away with putting it up in a fairly conservative place like my school. Somebody was sitting down on a toilet bowl on stage, and I was advertising for a brand of toilet paper called “PSC”. At the end it would be revealed that “PSC” stood for “pang sai chua”. Till then people in the hall were getting kinda bored with the other plays. Mine brought the house down. I was startled to find that it was the teachers who had applauded the loudest. (Except for my form teacher, who told me she had been acutely embarrassed by it all.) Only later did I find out that PSC stood for Public Service Commission, and quite a few of the teachers had been grumpily serving out their scholarship bonds. Needless to say, the Chinese teacher loved it, and from then on I earned the moniker, “pang sai chua lao ban”.
A fun teacher, loved by his students, the one Chinese teacher who almost inspired me to like the subject. Naturally he had to go. We were told, after the mid year exams, that he was quitting. It was shocking. We have our “welcome to the fucking system” moments in our lives, and that was mine.
Why did he go? Rumour mongering is always a big activity at any school, be it a boys’ or a girls’ school. Some say he had demanded to be made the Chinese HOD. Some say he pushed the system too far and didn’t stick to teaching what was in the syllabus. Some say that the other teachers found him a little too arrogant. Probably he didn’t fit into the system? I don’t know. Could he have been more circumspect and avoided getting into trouble with the system? Yes, even though that would have meant that he had to pare down some of his plans for us. Another theory goes that he could have threatened to quit if they weren’t able to accommodate to his style. He could have said to himself, if I’m going to stay in teaching, I want my teaching experience to be (etc etc etc) or otherwise ... well a guy like him would always have fish to fry elsewhere.
It may not have been that bitterly disappointing at that time, but it was a less bright world for me after that. The first half of Sec 3 had more happy memories for me than the second. Well, the second half had job week, where I found out that if you are doing job week, you absolutely want to prowl around the Malay (ie east) part of the town, because they are more generous. Also had end of year scout camp which I blogged about before. And taking Grade 8 for a second time, and failing (kinda stupid because the first time I scraped a pass), and finally ridding myself of piano lessons for good. And a trip to New Zealand.
Buddha’s not the only colourful character who taught Chinese. My sec 4 teacher was a complete bapok who was a smooth talker, encouraged us to “love” each other, and was so feminine (he was a guy) that we concluded that he had to be gay. A nerve wrecking experience having to attend his class, but you need entertainment in life. A couple of months ago I visited a friend working for MOE, and he told me later that he had bumped into the sec 4 bapok teacher, and we traded snide remarks about him. Fond reminisces.
Chinese classes in school are just like Defence against the Dark Arts classes at Hogwarts. Always interesting for the wrong reasons, and the teachers don’t last too long.
During the June holidays, 2 things happened. First, I wasn’t selected for the school maths team. Probably did badly because of sleep deprivation. I vaguely regret not making the team, but I’m equally certain I wouldn’t have enjoyed the drilling either.
There was this other thing pulling me in another direction, and that was writing. I attended the creative arts program, where you had students attend a series of talks and immerse themselves in creative writing. Eventually I wasn’t that much of a writer. OK, I wrote school plays, won a couple of prizes here and there, but I know my limitations. I knew plot, I knew structure, I knew pacing. But I never mastered dialogue.
At the creative arts program there was this Malay guy I knew from scouts. And I didn’t really pay that much attention to him then, but I think that was probably the launching point for what would turn out to be a brilliant career. That was Alfian, and the reason why I’m blogging about this is, of course, the Alfian relief teacher incident. I’ll have my say on that, but that’s for another blog entry, another day.
(In fact that is why I wrote this entry, I wanted to think about the Alfian incident from a different point of view, like the student's perspective when a favourite, maverick teacher is removed from the system. )
During the first half of sec 3, I had witnessed the departure of 2 teachers. I had never really been close to my teachers. But I was starting to like my life at last. A window was opening, and those were the teachers who were standing there when I looked out of it.
One of them taught Physics. He was vaguely nerdy, but earnest. I liked that he saw that I was one of the better ones at Physics. But I think there was one incident where he made a dirty joke in class, and I could tell he wasn’t the brightest bulb around. I was sorda sad to see him go after half a year, and the teacher who came in, we knew that he was more careful, streetwise. I guess we despised him a little for that but no big deal.
This may come as a surprise to you: I took higher Chinese. I’m only willing to admit it now because a colleague of mine gleefully told everybody that he had taken higher Chinese and I had never heard him speak a word. So I thought, why not me, right?
I know, my Chinese sucks. It always had, but it didn’t suck as badly as many people in my class, and at least at Sec 1 I was able to scrape the entrance exam. Maybe the years of struggling in the deep end of the pool took its toll on me? Who ever knew? I didn’t really hate Chinese, like some people loathed it. I never was the most Chinese of all people, but I’m too egoistic not to take something that’s part of my identity seriously. It could be the most shit language in the world (it’s not) and I’d still put in a decent effort because it’s my language.
But I never did well, because there was some other stuff that was more interesting, that I could understand more easily. Like Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Literature and English. Can’t expect me to be good at everything, can you?
We had a new teacher that year, he came with a fairly large reputation, and he wrote the lyrics for wu suo nan yang, did other work in the media. I think he also wrote the theme song for kopi-O. Those were the golden years for SBC dramas, and frankly, that was when they still had vaguely interesting things to write scripts about other than the shit you see on TV now exemplifying how empty our yuppie-ish aspirations are.
The Chinese teacher was a breath of fresh air. Let’s call this guy Buddha. Chinese is usually a dreary subject in class, because of the lack of interest in it, but he made it fun for us. We know that we’re better at English than the Taiwanese, the Hongkongers, the Mainland Chinese, the Malaysian Chinese, but we really really suck at Chinese. (At least in the English-y schools I went to.) So it was always a question of morale. But he made it interesting.
Buddha was a witty guy, and he was really good at the language, like he more or less challenged us to be as good as him. I remember him going through this short story about a guy watching his old father climb up and down a railway platform to buy him some oranges.
He also taught a lot of stuff about the Chinese arts that was unfortunately lost on me. I guess it’s good for one’s ego if you see that your teachers are willing to go out on a limb and teach you all sorts of funky crazy stuff that’s not in the syllabus.
As I said, I was one of the lousier students in class, but I made the effort to memorise all my vocab lists. But he surprised me one day - we had to write a personal letter for composition one day, and 2 weeks later everybody got back their composition books except for me. He read out my personal letter in class, not because it was any good - it was crap. But because he was amused that I had written a suicide note. Of course I was only ever going to do it in his class. (Not the first time my composition was read out in class though. But that was English, so it’s a different story.)
I think, even though we had the language barrier, we both recognise that we had something in common. Buddha was every bit as mischievous as I was. Cracking jokes like seeing a couple of dogs on a TV advert and calling them gou nan nu. And then he was also subversive as hell, he would open the textbook, go through the stuff in 15 minutes, and spend the rest of the hour explaining why it was crap. Well I know that my memories of those days are pretty fragmented, but I’m twice as old now as I was then, don’t expect me to remember it like it was yesterday.
There was this school skit I put up that involved advertising toilet paper. To this day I’m fairly amazed that I managed to get away with putting it up in a fairly conservative place like my school. Somebody was sitting down on a toilet bowl on stage, and I was advertising for a brand of toilet paper called “PSC”. At the end it would be revealed that “PSC” stood for “pang sai chua”. Till then people in the hall were getting kinda bored with the other plays. Mine brought the house down. I was startled to find that it was the teachers who had applauded the loudest. (Except for my form teacher, who told me she had been acutely embarrassed by it all.) Only later did I find out that PSC stood for Public Service Commission, and quite a few of the teachers had been grumpily serving out their scholarship bonds. Needless to say, the Chinese teacher loved it, and from then on I earned the moniker, “pang sai chua lao ban”.
A fun teacher, loved by his students, the one Chinese teacher who almost inspired me to like the subject. Naturally he had to go. We were told, after the mid year exams, that he was quitting. It was shocking. We have our “welcome to the fucking system” moments in our lives, and that was mine.
Why did he go? Rumour mongering is always a big activity at any school, be it a boys’ or a girls’ school. Some say he had demanded to be made the Chinese HOD. Some say he pushed the system too far and didn’t stick to teaching what was in the syllabus. Some say that the other teachers found him a little too arrogant. Probably he didn’t fit into the system? I don’t know. Could he have been more circumspect and avoided getting into trouble with the system? Yes, even though that would have meant that he had to pare down some of his plans for us. Another theory goes that he could have threatened to quit if they weren’t able to accommodate to his style. He could have said to himself, if I’m going to stay in teaching, I want my teaching experience to be (etc etc etc) or otherwise ... well a guy like him would always have fish to fry elsewhere.
It may not have been that bitterly disappointing at that time, but it was a less bright world for me after that. The first half of Sec 3 had more happy memories for me than the second. Well, the second half had job week, where I found out that if you are doing job week, you absolutely want to prowl around the Malay (ie east) part of the town, because they are more generous. Also had end of year scout camp which I blogged about before. And taking Grade 8 for a second time, and failing (kinda stupid because the first time I scraped a pass), and finally ridding myself of piano lessons for good. And a trip to New Zealand.
Buddha’s not the only colourful character who taught Chinese. My sec 4 teacher was a complete bapok who was a smooth talker, encouraged us to “love” each other, and was so feminine (he was a guy) that we concluded that he had to be gay. A nerve wrecking experience having to attend his class, but you need entertainment in life. A couple of months ago I visited a friend working for MOE, and he told me later that he had bumped into the sec 4 bapok teacher, and we traded snide remarks about him. Fond reminisces.
Chinese classes in school are just like Defence against the Dark Arts classes at Hogwarts. Always interesting for the wrong reasons, and the teachers don’t last too long.
During the June holidays, 2 things happened. First, I wasn’t selected for the school maths team. Probably did badly because of sleep deprivation. I vaguely regret not making the team, but I’m equally certain I wouldn’t have enjoyed the drilling either.
There was this other thing pulling me in another direction, and that was writing. I attended the creative arts program, where you had students attend a series of talks and immerse themselves in creative writing. Eventually I wasn’t that much of a writer. OK, I wrote school plays, won a couple of prizes here and there, but I know my limitations. I knew plot, I knew structure, I knew pacing. But I never mastered dialogue.
At the creative arts program there was this Malay guy I knew from scouts. And I didn’t really pay that much attention to him then, but I think that was probably the launching point for what would turn out to be a brilliant career. That was Alfian, and the reason why I’m blogging about this is, of course, the Alfian relief teacher incident. I’ll have my say on that, but that’s for another blog entry, another day.
(In fact that is why I wrote this entry, I wanted to think about the Alfian incident from a different point of view, like the student's perspective when a favourite, maverick teacher is removed from the system. )
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