Sore Throat and Addtional Worries

I've been feeling really drained every day and my voice has degenerated into a low growl because a flu and a sore throat combined just took the fight completely out of it.

Taught a class yesterday and the blessed little things were giggling at the hoarse gutteral sounds that issued from my throat.

After that we brought the normal technical class for their national education trip to the merlion, and I finally learnt the significance behind the merlion! The lion's head represents Sang Nila Utama, who discovered Singapore, and the fish boday represents the fishing village that Singapore used to be.

I just reread what I had written and discovered that I'd used "boday" instead of "body". Curse these weird secondary school keyboards!

Anyway, the boys were totally uninterested in what the tour guide were saying, and it didn't help that he was pretty old and he didn't understand them. He didn't try to meet them at their level, and used bombastic words like "entrepreneurship" and "innovation" and "emulation", which turned them completely off. They couldn't see the relevance of the tour at all, and a tour which was supposed to be interesting turned into a long lecture by the tour guide while the boys fooled around behind the class and muttered about him to themselves.

A funny Malay boy who creates a lot of trouble during class but who has a good heart (he was very tender to an old man during the visit to the old folks home) was making lots of noise during the tour guide's speech. I sat down next to him and he said he found it really boring (and I agree). "Maybe you find it boring, but give him some face lah," I suggested. "You're so charming but you don't choose to exercise your charm on him meh?"

"Cher, why you want me to give him my face lah cher?" He said with the funniest expression. "My face got only one so handsome, you want me to give him for what? I want to keep my face lah cher!"

Sadly, I couldn't control my laughter. Many of them smoke, and get into trouble because they bring cigarettes to school. So now they only smoke at home, and some of them are trying to quit but the others just don't see the point of it. They don't see the point of studying at all, and thinking long term is difficult for them.

We passed a grand old auntie sitting beside the Singapore River and puffing away on a thick cigarette, and the Malay boy said, "Hello Auntie! Auntie you smoke ah!" "You don't smoke meh?" The wrinkled auntie retorted nonchalently. "Auntie I do lah, at home, but here cannot because of - " and he pointed to his school uniform with a goofy look.

He isn't trying to quit, but I'm deliberating over what to say to him. I want to tell him that his face looks ashy and his lips are blacker than usual because of his habit, and I want to tell him that sometime soon he'll start getting breathless and tired more easily. But I don't want to hurt his feelings. So I'm still thinking about what to say.

I didn't know attachment was so tiring...

More Thoughts (Skip if hurried)

Today I observed a kind of “counselling” session that involved the whole Normal Technical class. This external counselor came to talk to them, and it was quite enlightening watching her teaching methods and how she earned their respect. She was sincere, yet strict; and it was obvious she cared very much about them. I think they could sense it; and though they fooled around just to test her mettle, they obviously respected her. She was very quick with her comebacks; and kept them on their toes all the time as she talked. She told them about goals, and how they had to set some goals in their lives, and I hope it helped them.

Later we gave out our survey forms and got some really strange answers. To “race”, someone answered “Night Elf”, and he lived with his parents, grandparents and the demon hunters. His greatest achievement was “to be a demon hunter”, and his favourite pastime was “being a demon hunter”. The subjects he was interested in outside the curriculum were “to eat, demon hunting, and to sex”. (??) And his ambition was to be… you guessed it… a demon hunter.

I have so much tallying of data to do now…

We brought the Normal Technical class to do their CIP at an old folks’ home today for two hours. Talked all the way to the old folks’ home, sometimes seriously, sometimes not. The guys were funny and animated, and the girls were adoring and chatty. They told me a bit about themselves and mostly asked me about myself too. I think it was the first time I’d really talked to a whole group of people so different from myself.

We got to the old folks’ home and were given the task of cleaning it. Not that I had any problems with that; but I thought it’d have been more meaningful to talk to the old folks. But we got on with the cleaning anyway, and I managed to chat a lot more to the group under me while we were cleaning the grills. They’ve got goals and ambitions, just not very clear-cut ones; when I asked them what they wanted to do after their N-levels, they said that they wanted to do private O-levels, or some of them were aiming for ITE as well. I told them that I’d been to ITE Balestier and that it had seemed pretty good, but those who wanted to go to ITE were aiming for the one in Simei.

Asked them about their interests, and even the girls were more interested in Design and Technology and Art and hands-on types of subjects rather than academic ones, which means that they could be pretty happy in the ITE and later in poly or in their jobs. Yet what made me sad was that a lot of them only had hazy ideas as to how to reach their goals. One of the girls wanted to be a teacher; but she didn’t know how to go about doing it, and what to study; and other girls asked me what they could work as if they studied Maths. To someone like me, who grew up in a family who encouraged academics for academics’ sake, it seemed strange and different to me to have to justify academics, to make it practical and relevant to daily life, even though that was probably the aim of it all to start with. I felt really sad and helpless, and I didn’t know why; I need to go and check up on all this, so that I can tell them how to set about achieving their goals, so that at least they have something to work towards.

We started talking to a few of the old folks, and the girls were pretty shy but after a while they became more confident to wheel the patients about from place to place and to hold the hands of the elderly. They could be so mischievous during class, pulling faces at the counselor and making rude jokes; but they were so tender with the old folks. One woman was obviously in great pain and I spent ages holding her hand and talking to her with two of the Malay students. She kept repeating “Tolong, Tolong” (help, help in Malay) and “hou tong ah hou tong hou tong” (it hurts, oh it hurts) in Cantonese and we felt helpless. Later I chanced on one of the Malay girls with her head buried in her hands. She couldn’t take it and had started crying. Her friend was beside her, morose.

“How can they do such a thing?” She said through tears. “I will definitely stay with my mum next time, how can people just leave them here like that?” She was subdued and quiet throughout the rest of the time.

I remember how I’d gone to an old folks’ home in Junior College and had cried as well, and I seemed to see a shadow of myself in her.

Hope that I can help them in some way now and in the future.

Poetry and Loneliness and Evocativeness

What is the difference between a civil servant and a public servant?

I was wondering about that; so Someone Who Knows, please enlighten all of us so that we can skip this topic and race on to the good bits.

While I’m at it, does anyone know a word for “nondescript, insignificant, blending into the background” that starts with “in” and is 3 syllables or more? Because I was wondering about that too. We were all discussing it today, and ended up calling it “in-thingyish”.

I sound nerdy.

I got my Malacca photos developed today. Some photos look very funny because they’re taken too close and the br**** area looks kind of sag** (my nonsuccessful attempt to be inscrutable, hur hur). The photo of my dad holding a mangosteen was taken really badly and he looks 70 instead of 65. The lamentable thing is his nose looks almost exactly like mine. My genes have been contaminated by him… I look exactly like my mom, except for her wonderful, small, sharp nose which contrasts with my wonderful, not-so-small, money nose (what the Chinese euphemistically call a nose that is, well, the size of a small Cadbury cream egg).

Anyway, was looking through my photos and was very amused when I came across this one photo of an old man by the sea in Malacca. When I took it I thought I was being sensitive and artistic and I thought that I was taking a photo which would capture the kind of loneliness and poetry of the old man’s life, which would be evocative and bold; and felt very proud of myself. However after I’d taken it, (behind his back of course) I’d walked a little closer and discovered that he had been relieving himself and was still relieving himself. :o( Luckily, the photo came out evocative and bold and poetic; but I’d been an unknowing perv and I feel like such a fool now. I’m thankful that the old man will never know; but isn’t it a strange world? He’s probably wandering around living his life and minding his own business in Malacca, not knowing that this Singaporean busybody has one of his finer moments captured on film. I wish I could stop being so “blur”, but it must be a gene or something; I’ve been blur since I was born (at a young age, I thought that “On Christ the Solid Rock I stand” was “Oh Christ Was Born in Robot’s Land”) and I hope I won’t be blur until “I’ve been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun” but it seems a likely possibility.

Got to run. I want to catch Singaporean Idol; and did you know that the Banana Man (the bright guy who auditioned in a Watermelon Mask and Banana hairdo) was on Friendster? Hehe. You know who I’ll be adding next…

What Motivates A Student?

I observed more lessons today as part of my teaching attachment, and was informed by my teacher mentor that she wanted me to invigilate the test she would be giving her Normal Academic class tomorrow. Of course I said yes, but tonight I’m going to pray hard that everything will be ok and that they will take the test without incident and that they will behave themselves.

Our project is on how to motivate the different kids from the different streams. Honestly, I don’t think two weeks is enough to do this project. I’d like a few years!

I don’t remember exactly what made me like or dislike teachers, but I usually liked the teachers who taught my favourite subjects. So I always liked the English teachers and the Literature teachers.

However, thinking back, there were only two teachers who made a very great impact on me. One was my Higher Chinese teacher, who has become my role model for the kind of teacher I want to be. Our class was terrible at Chinese, and he walked into class on the first day of Secondary Four and announced his belief in us (well, his belief in himself, rather). He told us that every year he had taught he had turned some of the worst students into A-students. It might have been blatant propaganda but it sure worked on me. From that day on I started to nurse the hope that I could perhaps get an A in my Higher Chinese.

He always put in a lot of effort into his classes, keeping us occupied with worksheets, short stories, and compositions. He read out short stories that his own students had written, which were simple and interesting. He gave spelling tests every day, over and over again, until we’d finally mastered the characters. He had a very precise “People’s Republic of China” accent even though he was a Singaporean, and to top it off he’d written a book before, which he boasted of time and again. He knew his subject and loved it and his enthusiasm infected me. He always teased me about my being “auntie”, because I was always cleaning the blackboard and sweeping the floor. He was flamboyant, not a little good-looking, very camp, dramatic, and sarcastic. I had tremendous faith in him.

I took my Higher Chinese Prelims and got a miserable C5, but when I got my O-level Higher Chinese grades back, I couldn’t believe my eyes. A2, and I’d written “the museum of the plants” instead of “the botanical gardens” in my essay, which I’d cried about because my father said that it was an unforgivable error! I attribute the A2 to Mr Tan Kar Chun, because of his faith in himself and in me, which may have brainwashed me into having such faith that I could get an A. Who knew but that it was all psychological, because I’ve never been good at Chinese. But it certainly worked.

The other teacher, surprisingly, was a Chemistry relief teacher we had for some time, when my other teacher was on maternity leave. I can’t even remember his name. But I remember that he was a retired Chemistry teacher with an unremarkable face. We didn’t think much of him at first, because he was old and slow and unlovely, but his remarkable methods of teaching soon won us over.

He would heat the test tube over the Bunsen burner with his bare hands and encourage us to do the same. He would give us little tips that I put to good use during practical lessons. For example, he would reiterate time and again that any gas bubbling out quickly from the test tube would always be carbon dioxide, because only carbon dioxide would give “vurgurous eefarvarsense”. I can still hear him saying “vurgurous eefarvarsense” now, as I write about it. During our chemistry practical exam for the O-levels, every single gas bubbled out rapidly from the bottom of the test tube. “Vurgurous eefarvarsense”, I thought, and confidently wrote “carbon dioxide” and described everything carbon dioxide did for every one (colourless, odourless, extinguishes a lighted splint, not least of all vigorous effervescence observed!).

I wasn’t a typical hardworking student. I would dream away during class and look out of the window at boys. I never really paid attention except during English lessons. My Geography teacher remembers me with horror as the girl who answered, “What is the physical barrier which separates China from India?” as “The Great Wall of China”. I used to memorise answers by writing songs about them, or by thinking of dumb mnemonic thingys (I still remember the Banjaran Titiwangsa, a mountain in Malaysia, because I used to think “the BANana goes for a JALAN jalan with his TITI whose surname is WANG and they SA niao together!” – translation: the banana goes for a walk with his younger brother whose surname is wang and they urinate together…)

But the things that motivated me were belief in the capability of my teacher and unorthodoxy in teaching methods. Yes, these were the two things that motivated me.

Weirdness... is Hereditary.

My mom was really strange today. I woke up at 545 am as usual and brushed and washed the various parts that needed to be brushed and washed, and headed downstairs half-awake for my breakfast. She had her usual hymn collection, “The Breath of God”, in the CD player. As I was getting my breakfast she said, “When I die, I want this played at my wake.” And looked at me with a steady yet humourous eye.

I nearly spilt Milo on myself, it was so early in the morning and here she was talking about death in this extremely matter-of-fact way. My dad always talks about how his stomach hurts a lot and how he’s getting old and how he’s going to die soon. He does that so often that I’ve become used to it, and take it as a matter of course. Plus I hug him everyday so that should make him that little bit healthier, don’t you think? But this was the first time my mom had mentioned death.

I was really freaked out and hugged her around her sparetire-y middle and said, “Can you please don’t say this kind of thing leh” and she said, “I feel my heart palpitating… anyway when I die, just remember that I like this CD, play it at my wake, I don’t want people coming and gossiping about me, I just want them to listen to the music” and I said, “uhhhh ok” and filed that piece of information away with the resolve to take better care of my parents!
This reminded me of a dream two weeks ago. I dreamt that I was walking down the stairs of my house, and it was so dark that I couldn’t find anything. I couldn’t see where I was going, and I shouted for my mother to come and help me. I yelled and yelled and no one came, and I shouted myself awake. Lying on my bed with heart thumping fast I thought that perhaps my dream meant that my mother had died. I panicked and sneaked into my parents’ room at about 3 a.m.

I could hear my dad snoring like a cement mixer, but I couldn’t hear my mom breathing at all, so I rested my hand lightly on her hair to see if it was still warm. It was, but I still couldn’t hear her breathing and she hadn’t moved. So I put my finger underneath her nose to see if I could feel any air coming out!! To my horror, my trembling finger couldn’t detect anything, and I was about to go into panic mode when to my immense relief my mom yelled, “Ning ah Ning! What on earth are you doing? Huuuuurrrrrhhhh!!!” and I tell you I had never been happier to hear her shouting in my 21 years.

When I told that to Meyin and Selina and Clarissa and Valerie, they laughed so much the entire carriage of people in the MRT was looking at us. And Selina is going to stay away from me lest I put my finger underneath her nose. Ah well…

Increasing Levels of Weirdness Detected

It’s been a long week, and my final chance of relaxing in the weekend was blown when my mother asked me to help her mark her CME work for her classes (which I’ve been doing for the past don’t know how many weeks). So I sat down and worked at it but was more than rewarded by the answers the kids were giving.

To “Why is it healthier to eat lightly cooked vegetables instead of cooked vegetables”, a cute little boy wrote, “Because vegetables look seemingly lesser after being cooked”.

And to “What happens to a grain of rice when it is cooked?” The same boy wrote, “It but br bursts when too much moisture has been absorbed.”

So was cackling over the scripts and listening to the radio and marking, and managed to finish everything in about 5 hours and then I was drained and wandered around the house singing and disturbing my parents.

It’s too bad that my brother is already married and isn’t around to kind of buffer me so that my parents don't have to get such a large dose of me when I’m back.

Today when I was taking the MRT home from church this small Malay boy was giving out flyers at the MRT station which no one was taking. He looked at me and in just a second a host of things ran through my head: where is he from? Why does he have to give out pamphlets to earn some spare cash? Does he study in the ITE? What does he want to do in the future? I’m not kidding such is my psychoticity that I was thinking all these things as he held out the pamphlet to me (but the thoughts just took a second to come out, swirl awhile, and disappear, lah). And then I seemed to perceive him as not merely a pamphlet-givery person but a three-dimensional figure with a history, and future and a past, and I had the feeling that it would be an honour to take a pamphlet from such a person with that kind of personality and history that I’d made up.

I took the pamphlet.

I’m starting to think that either (i) the DPPS has worked too well on me, (ii) I’m on my way to becoming weird, or (iii) I am weird

I Am Aware I am Losing Readers By The Day

We went to an ITE (Institute of Technical Education) in Balestier this morning, and it was my first glimpse of an ITE and how it was run. Many things struck me about the ITE. First of all, the teachers seemed much more patient and caring, and the students seemed a lot more down-to-earth. Secondly, the education provided was pretty well-rounded (or so it seemed) as students weren’t overstretched and were given an opportunity to lead in their own interests such as rock climbing, dancing, etc. Thirdly, and most importantly, students seemed to have a lot more self-confidence in the ITE, showing that streaming, instead of being elitist, does allow students more chances to shine.

Statistics have shown that dividing students into the stronger batches and the weaker batches actually raises the grades of the weaker students. Our weakest students (supposedly) did better than the average students from other countries in maths and science in International tests, coming in fourth. So streaming helps the different levels of students to learn at their own paces.

I have been so successfully brainwashed. Aiyah…

A principal (the youngest principal in Singapore) of a neighbourhood school came to talk to us today. I listened, rapt, for almost two hours while he talked, and wrote down random things which struck me about his talk.

"If you go to a neighbourhood school and if anyone is willing to talk with you and share with you, it’s your honour.
You need to learn to connect with people who are very different from you.
We have designed our schools after the manner of a factory. This has to change.
Most teachers teach in only 1 way; and only a few skilled teachers teach in multiple ways to get through to the different levels of students present in a single class.
You need to challenge the assumption that there is only 1 way to teach.
Students need to take ownership for their learning. Too much emphasis is placed on the teacher for teaching.
Most of the learning cycle occurs outside the classroom.
There are diminishing divides between schools and communities.
If you ignore what happens in the home, you will never be able to teach.
Community involvement has not succeeded unless your students personally get to know someone else who is less advantaged.
In Singapore, it is good to allow people to contest your ideas, otherwise you will never develop the best ones.
Teachers need to move beyond classroom management, to classroom leadership.
Leadership: Create meaning for kids. Find every support so they can learn. Lead by example.
Unless you’re truly concerned about something, you will never learn.
Our curriculum is not relevant.
Innovation: creating new value for something.
Not incumbence, but insurgence.
Not building to last, but building for continual change.
Move beyond being plan-driven, to being discovery driven. "

On the way home, a friend was telling me about the Normal Academic and Technical kids, and how she’d learnt to connect with some of them, her students’ brothers and their friends. She’d played basketball with them for some time and they had tripped her, and after they fell they stood looking at her and that was when they had started to respect her, for they said (these students being parang-carrying students belonging to gangs) that no-one could have fallen like that and not have cried. For you to win their respect, you have to be sincere and you have to be rugged, and you have to show an interest in the things that interest them.

After that, they were willing to meet up with her for Maths tuition.

Will write a “normal-ler” entry tomorrow, and tell you about kayak-polo which we are going to try to play tomorrow at the East Coast!

Inspiring! But Ah, the Shallowness of My Soul!!

The first half of the day was a blur because I wasn't fully awake yet. After lunch and some laughter and conversation I woke up completely and was able to pay better attention during the second half of the day, which was really good because that was when all the good bits came in.

During the second half of the day, the Head of the National Education department in the ministry of Education came to talk to us. National Education is this thing that's supposed to be infused subtly into the school syllabus so that a greater sense of national pride can be created in Singaporeans. Having such a long jargonish-sounding aim you would expect the head of the NE department to be long faced and dragonish looking, but he wasn't. He was wrinkly and old and humourous and cute and he called himself the "Chief of Propoganda".

He told us a few anecdotes, justified the concept of National Education, listened patiently to various criticisms of it being ineffective and overtaxing and impratical because of the logistics involved, and acknowledged all these problems in a very humourous down-to-earth way. He was a very inspiring, funny speaker, and at the end he gave a little speech about us having to build up a sense of pride in our students about how Singapore went from an undeveloped country to an "affluent city state" in just 39 short years, how the various races and religions coexist so peacefully together in Singapore, how we have managed to retain our Asian identity and still integrate ourselves pretty successfully into the Western world (our students did even better than English and American ones on International English tests!) (?), and how we built our country up into what it is today from scratch. Ok, I may have been successfully emotionally manipulated and brainwashed but I really felt this sense of pride rising up in my chest...er....should I say the feminine part of the chest? Maybe not. ahahhahahhaa....

Two entrepreneurs also came to speak to us, Singapore's education system being geared up to nurture innovation and entrepreneurship. I expected a long esoteric talk on cash flow and market economies and blahdy blahs, but the talk was so inspiring.

Questions were put to them. "What makes a successful leader?" we asked.

"I believe everyone is a leader in his own circle, in his own way. The janitor may be a dynamic leader within his own circle, and the CEO is a leader in his own circle. The janitor may feel out of place in a group of CEOs, but that doesn't mean that he isn't a leader in his own right. You may feel you're not a leader. But everyone is born with leadership qualities. It's up to you to find them and use them. Don't ever say you can't do anything because there are always other people who can and what they can do, you can do," this coming from the heavily made-up female entrepreneur who reeked of wealth.

"What makes a successful entrepreneur?"

"I have to say it's humility. You have to recognise the best in people and learn how to bring it out. You have to recognise that a business isn't about earning money. It's about creating jobs for people... it's about taking the money that the government gives you, investing it and growing it, and giving it back to benefit others." The HMUFE (heavily made-up female entrepreneur) answered.

"I would say that there's only one thing that makes a successful entrepreneur, and that is: You have to do what you say. Now this may sound easy. But it's not. You have to work at it every day. It's only when people know they can truly depend on you that you have succeeded in your business and only then can you succeed as well." The QCNG (quite cute nerdy guy) answered.
I was so blown away, but then again I don't happen to be the cynical type so other people may have found it very cheesy but I just drank every word in. Haha...

We went out for dinner at one of the dying out rickety hawker centre thingys near NUS and sweated and chomped our way through chicken chops (not western at all, lah!) and nasi lemak, and moaned about what the guy from Social Services had said yesterday while showing us some statistics about the demographics of Singapore.

He was talking, talking, talking, calmly showing us graphs and facts and figures, talking about our falling marraige rates, and he said very placidly, "Yes, if a young person cannot find a partner by the time they graduate from tertiary institutions, it is highly unlikely that they will be able to get married in the future." Valerie and I looked at each other with horror and I gripped her arm, and some of the guys were giving each other worried looks too, and that particular civil servant continued droning away as if nothing was the matter!

So we were griping about that during dinner and talking about our visit to the Social Service Centres and things.

I was thinking about how, yesterday, when the teacher had asked me to explain my "roles" to the class, I'd been a little lost as to what to say. I'd spoken extra slowly and clearly, and had tried to use as simple a vocab as I could. But when I got home, I agonized over whether they'd thought I'd been condescending to them.

I agonize too much over what I say and what I do. Every night when I get home and reflect I make big plans and I pray. Tomorrow I won't laugh so much, tomorrow I'll be more serious, tomorrow I won't talk so much about guys, and then something happens and I'm back to being frivolous shallow-souled me.

Today this guy complimented me on my top and I really wanted to say "thank you" and leave it at that but Yijin gave me that "Something dodgy is happening" smile and when aforesaid guy elaborated on the niceness of the lace on that top I burst into giggles which were not meant. I-do-not-want-to-giggle. But sadly they just came out like burps.

I know I make a good first impression on people (at least I think and hope I do), but I worry about good future impressions on people because I think I'm like a balloon covered with very fancy icing. On the outside I may look as though I have something solid and delicious inside but slice into the cake and it pops with a very loud bang and it turns out to be just AIR.

Need to work on that butter and cream and eggs!

Boring Civil Servant = ME

It’s been two days since I started my DPPS (Developments in Public Policy Seminar), which I thought was going to be propaganda but which I found to be very useful and relevant and surprisingly interesting.

The first day started with an overview of the public service, which sounds boring but it was really interesting. It gave us an insight into the philosophy behind which our government makes its policies. The three principles by which our government tries to abide by when making policies in Singapore are:

1.Reward for Work, Work for Reward
2.Test for Results, Not Political Correctness
3.Leadership is Key

I thought every one of them made quite a lot of sense, but all of us could also pick out quite a few problems with the first two. People from various ministries such as PS21 and IPD came to talk to us, and gave us to understand some of the reasons behind various governmental policies and what went on behind the scenes in Singapore.

It was all very interesting.

Today we had a talk about Singapore’s Economic Strategy during which I nearly fell asleep, not that it wasn’t interesting but just that it was too early in the morning, and then after coffee we played this game: “What would you do if you were the Finance Minister?” At first I thought that to call it a game would be quite a far stretch, but found it fun after all despite my limited knowledge.

We had to take on the roles of the various interest groups in the countries such as the SMEs (small/medium enterprises), MNCs, foreign investors, unemployed and underprivileged, top bracket marginally rich, etc, and work out how much we wanted to tax the top wage earners, the corporations, and how much percentage of GST we wanted to have, and also how much we would allot to the various ministries like education, defence, etc. Woww….. enlightening… especially when we learnt that our proposals would all result in wage deficits. Hahah…

Then this guy from MCDS came down to talk to us (about social policies) and I finally understood why they’ve come up with stuff like the Romance Campaign; I have to take my hat off to them if it really did work… even though it may have seemed funny to the outside world, I have to give it to the civil servants for trying their hardest to keep families together and to try to bolster our aging population… they seem really passionate about what they do and willing to try anything as long as it brings the results they want (Test for results, not political correctness remember?)

Then we went for a visit to social service centres around Singapore. I went to a centre serving the intellectually disabled. It was the first time I was actually really aware of efforts being made to help them and how they were working out. The people in charge at the centre (TOUCH centre for independent learning) told us that they were aiming to help their clients integrate into society in three years.

Apparently MCDS subsidizes 50% of their activities, but many additional costs are also incurred, which they try to meet as best as they can. We got a chance to observe a lesson, and my heart was thumping quite hard before I went into the class. Like having a crush on someone only worse (somehow I always manage to bring frivolous stuff in right?).

Luckily the people there were friendly and they made me feel almost at ease immediately, and the teacher was doing a very relevant topic: roles. He asked: What is your role? How do you help your mother at home? And I felt strangely that the lesson was for me and that the teacher was probing deep into my psyche (Maybe it helped that he was dedicated and patient and young and cute).

I felt strangely humbled after visiting…

Anyway on a completely different note, for people who say Singaporeans are soulless, please catch Singapore Idol. It’s funny, it’s heartbreaking…. It’s very very watchable and the people featured are so human I cried during the second episode!
Ok better stop being the boring civil servant I am!

Priorities and Fatness

Was reading this book on Leadership recently and one of the things it talked about was prioritising. So I sat down and thought about my priorities.

1. Guys. I'm always full of what they did, what they said, and how they looked.
2. Clothes. Way, way more than necessary.

And I thought about what I wanted my priorities to be.

1. God. I want to know him truly.
2. Helping. Hopefully someone's burdens will be a little lighter because of me.

Somehow my actual priorities and my ideal priorities seem worlds apart, maybe that's why I'm so schizoprenic.

Went out to East Coast yesterday night and ate way more than what was necessary. I'm getting fatter and fatter, and with this horrid burnt colour I'm beginning to look like a "ham chim bang" (Chinese pancake). Ruthie Ruthie whatever happened to your fair English arms?

Funny Incidents

I forgot to mention this incident that happened during OBS: Was looking at one of the stray dogs on the island while talking to Jen who said, "Isn't he beautiful? Do you keep pets at home?"

And I don't know whether my hearing is really degenerating, but I heard "pads" and with a look of concern replied, "No, but I have some in my bag."

Jen's look of surprise triggered so much laughter. I'd thought she had been talking about sanitary pads (sanitary napkins!)

Similarly during one of our kayaking expeditions to a new campsite, the message was passed down, "Don't row too near to the coast!" and I passed the message, "Don't row too slow!" The looks of puzzlement were priceless.

On the downside, though, I think I'm getting old.

Yesterday was spent relieving OBS memories in the comfort of the open-air eating place in Chinatown, while consuming a huge dinner (as usual). We had oyster omelette, satay, porridge (congee to the non-Singaporean), Indian rojak, popiah and tu-tu-cake. I can't remember what else we ate but I remember coming away extremely stuffed.

We made plans for that day, to sing karaoke for a few hours, then play basketball for a few hours, then eat and chat. But in the end the scheme degenerated into singing karaoke for a few hours, looking halfheartedly for a basketball court and not succeeding, and sitting down to eat for a few hours, not that I have any complaints about that.

We made plans for the next week, to play basketball and have dinner on alternate days, and to go kayaking at East Coast Beach on saturday. We promised to teach our scholarship officer the capsize drill on saturday. What she doesn't know, however, (ha ha) is that she will have to willlingly capsize her own kayak first.

Now that I'm on the OBS train of thought (I'm not, really, but I'm the blogger and I can do as I jolly well please) I should write this priceless incident down which happened at OBS. We had to work on this teamwork project which involved squeezing our whole group of sweaty and smelly people, some of whom had not changed their clothes for days, onto a square raft made of a few wooden planks, and somehow transport that raft, with ourselves, for a distance of 4 metres. It was awful. Of course, we mucked around for a bit, clinging on to each other, before we finally figured out a planb of taking the raft apart while we balanced on the remaining planks and hung on to each other.

The worst thing about this project, something that you would never think of, was the smell. 10 smelly people in close proximity clinging onto wet t-shirts and having to endure the smell of each other for an hour and 45 minutes was an experience entirely new to me. But you tried not to think about it, hung on to whoever you could, and envied the taller people.

So my watchmate was in front of me, and I was clinging desperately on to something of hers which I didn't recognise, and concentrating more on trying to stabalise myself than on what I was clinging on to. I was so occupied with balancing myself that I didn't hear her urgent cries of "Ruth. Ruth! Move your hand higher up!" and while the "raft" rocked precariously clung on still harder until her firm hand moved mine insistently further up. Only then did I realise what I had been doing! Luckily both of us were more amused than anything else and our stifled giggles rocked the raft!

Next entry will be more civilised, I promise! : )

Everything Condensed

Wow… it’s been over a month since I last blogged… and many things have happened in that past month. I’m making a resolution to blog more consistently… if not I probably won’t remember the things I did in Singapore when I get back to Leeds. When I’m back in Singapore, the things that happened in Leeds seem surreal and vaguely dream-like, and unless something triggers off a memory, an incident, most Leeds happenings are only captured in photographs clearer than my memory.

Katie came for three weeks and we had a wonderful time : ) Was really glad to see my friends rising to the fore and showing the both of us around. I felt like a tourist in my own country because I had to use her Lonely Planet for directions sometimes! I never knew that there was so much to see in tiny Singapore. (and it helped that we went up to Penang and Malacca as well)But I think we made it fun for ourselves… thanks Katie for being so fun to stay with, and for protecting me from Sadako.

Now that Katie’s back, I have trouble sleeping o’ nights because I keep imagining this thing coming out of my mirror. Something vaguely Sadako-like with long tangled hair and a toothless weird grin. Yesterday I was on the phone with Andrew, and while we were talking about the most mundane thing I had the distinct sensation that there was something beside me opening its mouth and breathing at me. It’s no use telling me it wasn’t there. I know it wasn’t, but I have a pretty vivid imagination, too vivid sometimes!

I also went for the three day Outward Bound course, designed to build up your leadership ability. We were stranded in the ulu-est part of Singapore, Pulau Ubin, for four days, without proper toilets or washrooms. Our toilet was the sea, and our washroom was a beautiful quarry tucked away in a secluded corner of Pulau Ubin. We’d wake up in the morning every day and jump into the sea from the jetty, which was more terrifying than it sounds, because of the sinking sensation when you fall down, down, down, and the horrible plunging feeling when you hit the sea and salt water goes up your nose and you look around in terror for jellyfish who would look better as appetizers on a plate at a Chinese wedding dinner than swimming around dangerously close to you.

Still, I think the OBS did something to instill confidence and I really had a good time getting to know the rest of the people who went (some of whom were cute, haha). The last day was the best day for me, because we had to do this “personal challenge” sort of thing. We had to climb up, one by one, onto a little platform just big enough to stand on, about 5 storeys high, and jump off into nothingness, clutching at a little bar about one meter away and trying to hang on. I was terrified and it didn’t help that most of the guys succeeded in doing it!

Then the girls started going up one by one. I was the fourth girl and when I got onto the platform, I looked down and went “Omigod!” It was really scary being up there and the bar didn’t look reachable at all. We had to shout something before we jumped, so I shouted my thing and Jen shouted up to me, “Monkey Bar!” That really helped me because I just thought, “Ok, I’m on the ground, I’m on the ground, and that’s just a monkey bar,” and with heart thumping wildly I jumped and clutched at the thing for a split second and then the rope stopped me from falling and I was so relieved to be let down inch by inch that I grinned at everyone every inch of the way.

I also went down to the pre departure for UK-bound students at Marina Mandarin hotel, where I managed to talk to a couple of the freshers coming to Leeds. Hopefully some of them will become my friends… and we’ll be able to provide support for one another.

I gave my number and email to the people I talked to, and was in the midst of talking to people when this guy I’d talked to before came up and said, “thanks, I’m going off now, would it be cool with you if we met up sometime?” To which of course I said yes because I couldn’t have said anything else and remained polite. The very next day I got a text from him thanking me again, and asking me whether I was free anytime soon, because he wanted to buy my textbooks. So I said that I didn’t have any textbooks, and that the coursenotes were enough. And he texted back “In that case would you be free for coffee?”

I don’t know why I can’t even go out for coffee with someone who seems nice and who’s going to Leeds and who seems to want to get to know me. Maybe it’s because coffee has taken on a rather dodgy connotation in my head because of my housemates laughing and joking when someone else dodgy asked me whether I was free for coffee in Leeds. And maybe it’s because he’s not smart and charming and cute and funny enough. Admit it, Ruth! You’re shallow. :p

So I texted back: “Will txt u when I’m free, if not see u in Leeds” not intending to text him at all and I think, with my approach to everything, I will very likely end up a grey-haired, boobsaggydrooping, grumpy, plump, windbreaking old spinster. Serves me right!