sometimes it is so easy for one to get disappointed.
but sometimes i then get angry and disappointed at myself. for getting disappointed in the first place.
and it is times like this when i come back to melvinstory and do the same thing all over again.
to give it back to God.
to be thankful. i mean, i really should. i know i am blessed, in one and many ways.
what do i have to whine about?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Of growing up and aging
For two years in SAJC, I travelled on the NEL.
And then I stopped doing so when I left the school.
Today, I was on the journey again.
But, on the familiar journey, I could not recall the feeling, of time ticking away helplessly, I experienced today. It was never there, at least never so much "in my face".
I did not remember having to chase after the invisible enemy of time even while traveling.
The scary thing was, but yet, I was not rushing for anything today.
And I knew, instantaneously, I've aged.
And then I stopped doing so when I left the school.
Today, I was on the journey again.
But, on the familiar journey, I could not recall the feeling, of time ticking away helplessly, I experienced today. It was never there, at least never so much "in my face".
I did not remember having to chase after the invisible enemy of time even while traveling.
The scary thing was, but yet, I was not rushing for anything today.
And I knew, instantaneously, I've aged.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Difficult PSLE 2009 Mathematics Question
Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?
Assume,
Jim bought x chocolates.
Ken bough y sweets.
Chocolates
Jim : Ken
1/2 x : 1/2 x (after Jim gave half of x to Ken)
1/2 x : 1/2 x - 18 (after Ken ate 18 chocolates)
Sweets
Jim : Ken
1/2 y : 1/2 y (after Ken gave half of y to Jim)
1/2 y - 12 : 1/2 y (after Jim ate 12 sweets)
Therefore,
Jim's sweets : Jim's Chocolates
1 : 7 (given)
1/2 y - 12 : 1/2 x
=> 7(1/2 y - 12) = 1/2 x
7y - 168 = x -------------------(1)
Ken's sweets: Ken's Chocolates
1: 4 (given)
1/2 y : 1/2 x - 18
=> 4(1/2 y) = 1/2 x - 18
x = 4y + 36 ---------------------(2)
Solving (1) = (2),
We get y = 68 (Answer)
i was never expected to understand this at age 12.
no wonder parents are "up in arms" again.
oh yes, the above answer is mine. verified correct by the media :)
Assume,
Jim bought x chocolates.
Ken bough y sweets.
Chocolates
Jim : Ken
1/2 x : 1/2 x (after Jim gave half of x to Ken)
1/2 x : 1/2 x - 18 (after Ken ate 18 chocolates)
Sweets
Jim : Ken
1/2 y : 1/2 y (after Ken gave half of y to Jim)
1/2 y - 12 : 1/2 y (after Jim ate 12 sweets)
Therefore,
Jim's sweets : Jim's Chocolates
1 : 7 (given)
1/2 y - 12 : 1/2 x
=> 7(1/2 y - 12) = 1/2 x
7y - 168 = x -------------------(1)
Ken's sweets: Ken's Chocolates
1: 4 (given)
1/2 y : 1/2 x - 18
=> 4(1/2 y) = 1/2 x - 18
x = 4y + 36 ---------------------(2)
Solving (1) = (2),
We get y = 68 (Answer)
i was never expected to understand this at age 12.
no wonder parents are "up in arms" again.
oh yes, the above answer is mine. verified correct by the media :)
Monday, September 28, 2009
melvin grows in analytical ability
i have a new resolute.
i want to increase my analytical ability.
it is important.
i want more of the think-on-my-feet skill.
to do that my library of knowledge must expand.
not just concerning depth, but i am seeking a wide expansion too.
i want to create a well so rich, that i can tap on it to articulate on just any matter reasonably and with soundness and prompt reaction.
God, enlarge my tent. :)
i want to increase my analytical ability.
it is important.
i want more of the think-on-my-feet skill.
to do that my library of knowledge must expand.
not just concerning depth, but i am seeking a wide expansion too.
i want to create a well so rich, that i can tap on it to articulate on just any matter reasonably and with soundness and prompt reaction.
God, enlarge my tent. :)
Sunday, September 27, 2009
He still is
it seemed some things didnt turn out quite well this term.
it seemed some skies didnt light up.
melvin will keep believing.
for He knows my way, He holds the key.
ACE for tomorrow's TWC! :)
it seemed some skies didnt light up.
melvin will keep believing.
for He knows my way, He holds the key.
ACE for tomorrow's TWC! :)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
MM Lee Kuan Yew: Keep it Clear, Keep it Simple
A Management Communication reading I enjoyed:
(The Straits Times, 27th February 2009. Retrieved from http://www.asiaone.com/print/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090227-125024.html on August 25th 2009)
Thirty years ago today, on Feb 27, 1979, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew called a meeting of ministers, ministers of state and senior civil servants to discuss how government papers and minutes can be written in clear, clean prose.
Singapore's GDP has grown almost sevenfold since 1979. Marina Bay didn't exist then. Changi Airport was still two years away from completion. Singapore has been transformed beyond recognition in the last 30 years. But the same, alas, cannot be said of the quality of written English, which remains recognisably the same now as it did in 1979. We reprint excerpts of Mr Lee's address to mark a melancholy anniversary.
I WANT to discuss the importance of simple, clear, written English. This is not simple. Dr Goh Keng Swee gives every officer whom he thinks is promising and whose minutes or papers are deficient in clarity, a paperback edition of Sir Ernest Gowers' The Complete Plain Words.
It presupposes that the man who attempts to read the book has reached a certain level of literary competence. The book, written words, cannot convey to you the emphasis, the importance, the urgency of things, unless the receiver is a trained reader. And in any case, human beings are never moved by written words. It is the spoken word that arouses them to action. Arthur Koestler rightly pointed out that if Adolf Hitler's speeches had been written, not spoken, the Germans would never have gone to war. Similarly, Sukarno in print did not make great sense.
The spoken language is better learnt early; then you will have fluency. However, my thesis is that the written language can be mastered at any age without much disadvantage. It is learnt fastest when your written mistakes are pointed out to you by a teacher, friend, or senior officer. That was the way I learnt.
When I was in school my compositions were marked. When my children were in school they simply got grades for their written work. Their teachers had so many essays that they never attempted to correct the compositions. This has contributed to our present deplorable situation.
I want to convince you, first, of the importance of clear, written communication; second, that you can master it, if you apply yourself.
The use of words, the choice and arrangement of words in accordance with generally accepted rules of grammar, syntax and usage, can accurately convey ideas from one mind to another. It can be mastered.
When I was a law student I learnt that every word, every sentence has three possible meanings: what the speaker intends it to mean, what the hearer understands it to mean, and what it is commonly understood to mean. So when a coded message is sent in a telegram, the sender knows what he means, the receiver knows exactly what is meant, the ordinary person reading it can make no sense of it at all.
When you write minutes or memoranda, do not write in code, so that only those privy to your thoughts can understand. Write simply so that any other officer who knows nothing of the subject can understand you. To do this, avoid confusion and give words their ordinary meanings.
Our biggest obstacle to better English is shyness. It is a psychological barrier. Nobody likes to stop and ask, 'Please, what does that mean?' or 'Please tell me, where have I gone wrong?' To pretend you know when you don't know is abysmal folly. Then we begin to take in each other's mistakes and repeat them, compounding our problems.
The facility to express yourself in a written language is yet another facet or manifestation of your ability, plus application and discipline. It is a fallacy to believe that because it is the English language, the Englishman has a natural advantage in writing it. That is not so. He has a natural advantage in speaking the language because he spoke it as a child, but not in writing it. It has nothing to do with race. You are not born with a language. You learn it.
Without effective written communication within the government, there will be misunderstanding and confusion. Let me give a few recent illustrations of writing so sloppy that I had to seek clarification of their meanings:
• 'With increasing urbanisation and industrialisation, we will require continued assistance particularly in the technological and managerial fields.'
I asked myself: What have I missed in this? What has the first part about urbanisation and industrialisation to do with the second part about continued assistance? Why do we need more assistance, particularly in technological and managerial skills, because of increasing urbanisation and industrialisation?
It is non sequitur. We need technological and managerial assistance anyway. The first part does not lead to the second part.
• 'It is necessary to study the correlation between language aptitude, intelligence and values and attitudes to ensure that the various echelons of leaders are not only effectively bilingual but also of the desirable calibre.'
I read it over and over again. It made no sense. This is gibberish! I enquired and I was told, well, they were trying to find out how language ability and intelligence should influence the methods for instilling good social values and attitudes.
Well, then say so. But somebody wanted to impress me by dressing up his ideas in big words. Next time impress me with the simple way you get your ideas across.
• 'France is the fourth major industrial country in Europe after West Germany, Britain and Italy.'
Calculating backwards and forwards, I decided France cannot be the fourth. I queried. The reply was that France was fourth in terms of number of industrial workers. Now, China probably has the largest number of industrial workers in the world. In some factories they may have 14,000 workers when a similar factory in America would have 4,000. Does that make China the first industrial country in the world?
• 'The Third World has the stamina to sustain pressure for the Common fund. Progress will probably be incremental with acceleration possible if moderation prevails.'
Now what does this mean? By 'incremental' the officer meant 'slow'. 'Slow', I understand; but 'acceleration possible', I do not.
If we do not make a determined effort to change, the process of government will slow down. It will snarl up. I have noted this steady deterioration over the last 20 years. I want to reverse it. If we start with those at the top, we can achieve a dramatic improvement in two years, provided the effort is made.
Now I want to discuss how we can do this:
To begin with, before you can put ideas into words, you must have ideas. Otherwise, you are attempting the impossible.
The written English we want is clean, clear prose - not elegant, not stylish, just clean, clear prose. It means simplifying, polishing and tightening.
Remember: That which is written without much effort is seldom read with much pleasure. The more the pleasure, you can assume, as a rule of thumb, the greater the effort.
When you send me or your minister a minute or a memo - or a draft that has to be published like the President's Address - do not try to impress by using big words; impress by the clarity of your ideas.
I speak as a practitioner. If I had not been able to reduce complex ideas into simple words and project them vividly for mass understanding, I would not be here.
The communists simplified ideas into slogans to sway the people's feelings - to get them to move in directions which would have done us harm. I had to counter them. I learnt fast. The first thing I had to do was to express ideas in simple words.
My experience is that attending courses helps but not as much as lessons tailored for you. You have written a memo. Somebody runs through it and points out your errors: 'You could have said it this way'; 'this is an error'; 'this can be broken into two sentences' and so on.
In other words, superiors and peers and even subordinates who spot errors should be encouraged to point them out. My personal assistants point out my mistakes; I tell them to.
Some final examples on how urgent the problem is, from two papers coming before Cabinet: The first, a very well-written paper; the other badly written. But even the well-written paper contained a repetitious phrase which confused me. Because it was well-written, I thought the repeated words must be there to convey a special meaning:
• 'If the basis for valuation is to be on a basis other than open market value as evidenced by sales, arbitrariness and protracted litigation would occur, thus tarnishing the credibility of government machinery.'
I ran my eye back to the opening words. I queried: 'Do we lose anything if we dropped the words 'to be on a basis' before 'other'.' Answer came back: 'No meaning is lost.' And this was in a well-written paper.
Let me read from the second paper, which tried to explain why we must set up an institute:
• 'The need for such services is made more acute as at present, there is no technical agency offering consultancy services in occupational safety and health.'
I asked: 'What's happening 'as at present'? Why 'as at present'?'
What the officer meant was: 'There is acute need because there is no department which offers advice on occupational safety and health.'
We have taken each other's mistakes. He had constantly read 'as at present', 'as of yesterday', 'as of tomorrow', so he just stuffed in three unnecessary words - 'as at present' - into his paper.
There is such a thing as a language environment. Ours is a bad one. Those of you who have come back from a long stay in a good English-speaking environment would have felt the shock when reading The Straits Times on returning.
I spent a month in Vancouver in October 1968. Then I went on to Harvard University in Boston. For one month, I read the papers in Vancouver. They were not much better than The Straits Times. They had one million people, English-speaking. But there was no sparkle in their pages.
The contrast in Harvard was dazzling. From the undergraduate paper, The Harvard Crimson, to the Boston Globe, from the New York Times to the Washington Post, every page crackled with novel ideas, smartly presented. Powerful minds had ordered those words. Ideas had been thought out and dressed in clean, clear prose. They were from the best trained minds of an English-speaking population.
Let us try to do better. We are not doing justice to ourselves. I know the ability is there; it has just not been trained to use the written word correctly and concisely. And it is not too late to start.
It is not possible to conduct the business of government by talking to each other with the help of gesticulation. You have to write it down. And it must be complete, clear and unambiguous.
(The Straits Times, 27th February 2009. Retrieved from http://www.asiaone.com/print/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090227-125024.html on August 25th 2009)
Thirty years ago today, on Feb 27, 1979, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew called a meeting of ministers, ministers of state and senior civil servants to discuss how government papers and minutes can be written in clear, clean prose.
Singapore's GDP has grown almost sevenfold since 1979. Marina Bay didn't exist then. Changi Airport was still two years away from completion. Singapore has been transformed beyond recognition in the last 30 years. But the same, alas, cannot be said of the quality of written English, which remains recognisably the same now as it did in 1979. We reprint excerpts of Mr Lee's address to mark a melancholy anniversary.
I WANT to discuss the importance of simple, clear, written English. This is not simple. Dr Goh Keng Swee gives every officer whom he thinks is promising and whose minutes or papers are deficient in clarity, a paperback edition of Sir Ernest Gowers' The Complete Plain Words.
It presupposes that the man who attempts to read the book has reached a certain level of literary competence. The book, written words, cannot convey to you the emphasis, the importance, the urgency of things, unless the receiver is a trained reader. And in any case, human beings are never moved by written words. It is the spoken word that arouses them to action. Arthur Koestler rightly pointed out that if Adolf Hitler's speeches had been written, not spoken, the Germans would never have gone to war. Similarly, Sukarno in print did not make great sense.
The spoken language is better learnt early; then you will have fluency. However, my thesis is that the written language can be mastered at any age without much disadvantage. It is learnt fastest when your written mistakes are pointed out to you by a teacher, friend, or senior officer. That was the way I learnt.
When I was in school my compositions were marked. When my children were in school they simply got grades for their written work. Their teachers had so many essays that they never attempted to correct the compositions. This has contributed to our present deplorable situation.
I want to convince you, first, of the importance of clear, written communication; second, that you can master it, if you apply yourself.
The use of words, the choice and arrangement of words in accordance with generally accepted rules of grammar, syntax and usage, can accurately convey ideas from one mind to another. It can be mastered.
When I was a law student I learnt that every word, every sentence has three possible meanings: what the speaker intends it to mean, what the hearer understands it to mean, and what it is commonly understood to mean. So when a coded message is sent in a telegram, the sender knows what he means, the receiver knows exactly what is meant, the ordinary person reading it can make no sense of it at all.
When you write minutes or memoranda, do not write in code, so that only those privy to your thoughts can understand. Write simply so that any other officer who knows nothing of the subject can understand you. To do this, avoid confusion and give words their ordinary meanings.
Our biggest obstacle to better English is shyness. It is a psychological barrier. Nobody likes to stop and ask, 'Please, what does that mean?' or 'Please tell me, where have I gone wrong?' To pretend you know when you don't know is abysmal folly. Then we begin to take in each other's mistakes and repeat them, compounding our problems.
The facility to express yourself in a written language is yet another facet or manifestation of your ability, plus application and discipline. It is a fallacy to believe that because it is the English language, the Englishman has a natural advantage in writing it. That is not so. He has a natural advantage in speaking the language because he spoke it as a child, but not in writing it. It has nothing to do with race. You are not born with a language. You learn it.
Without effective written communication within the government, there will be misunderstanding and confusion. Let me give a few recent illustrations of writing so sloppy that I had to seek clarification of their meanings:
• 'With increasing urbanisation and industrialisation, we will require continued assistance particularly in the technological and managerial fields.'
I asked myself: What have I missed in this? What has the first part about urbanisation and industrialisation to do with the second part about continued assistance? Why do we need more assistance, particularly in technological and managerial skills, because of increasing urbanisation and industrialisation?
It is non sequitur. We need technological and managerial assistance anyway. The first part does not lead to the second part.
• 'It is necessary to study the correlation between language aptitude, intelligence and values and attitudes to ensure that the various echelons of leaders are not only effectively bilingual but also of the desirable calibre.'
I read it over and over again. It made no sense. This is gibberish! I enquired and I was told, well, they were trying to find out how language ability and intelligence should influence the methods for instilling good social values and attitudes.
Well, then say so. But somebody wanted to impress me by dressing up his ideas in big words. Next time impress me with the simple way you get your ideas across.
• 'France is the fourth major industrial country in Europe after West Germany, Britain and Italy.'
Calculating backwards and forwards, I decided France cannot be the fourth. I queried. The reply was that France was fourth in terms of number of industrial workers. Now, China probably has the largest number of industrial workers in the world. In some factories they may have 14,000 workers when a similar factory in America would have 4,000. Does that make China the first industrial country in the world?
• 'The Third World has the stamina to sustain pressure for the Common fund. Progress will probably be incremental with acceleration possible if moderation prevails.'
Now what does this mean? By 'incremental' the officer meant 'slow'. 'Slow', I understand; but 'acceleration possible', I do not.
If we do not make a determined effort to change, the process of government will slow down. It will snarl up. I have noted this steady deterioration over the last 20 years. I want to reverse it. If we start with those at the top, we can achieve a dramatic improvement in two years, provided the effort is made.
Now I want to discuss how we can do this:
To begin with, before you can put ideas into words, you must have ideas. Otherwise, you are attempting the impossible.
The written English we want is clean, clear prose - not elegant, not stylish, just clean, clear prose. It means simplifying, polishing and tightening.
Remember: That which is written without much effort is seldom read with much pleasure. The more the pleasure, you can assume, as a rule of thumb, the greater the effort.
When you send me or your minister a minute or a memo - or a draft that has to be published like the President's Address - do not try to impress by using big words; impress by the clarity of your ideas.
I speak as a practitioner. If I had not been able to reduce complex ideas into simple words and project them vividly for mass understanding, I would not be here.
The communists simplified ideas into slogans to sway the people's feelings - to get them to move in directions which would have done us harm. I had to counter them. I learnt fast. The first thing I had to do was to express ideas in simple words.
My experience is that attending courses helps but not as much as lessons tailored for you. You have written a memo. Somebody runs through it and points out your errors: 'You could have said it this way'; 'this is an error'; 'this can be broken into two sentences' and so on.
In other words, superiors and peers and even subordinates who spot errors should be encouraged to point them out. My personal assistants point out my mistakes; I tell them to.
Some final examples on how urgent the problem is, from two papers coming before Cabinet: The first, a very well-written paper; the other badly written. But even the well-written paper contained a repetitious phrase which confused me. Because it was well-written, I thought the repeated words must be there to convey a special meaning:
• 'If the basis for valuation is to be on a basis other than open market value as evidenced by sales, arbitrariness and protracted litigation would occur, thus tarnishing the credibility of government machinery.'
I ran my eye back to the opening words. I queried: 'Do we lose anything if we dropped the words 'to be on a basis' before 'other'.' Answer came back: 'No meaning is lost.' And this was in a well-written paper.
Let me read from the second paper, which tried to explain why we must set up an institute:
• 'The need for such services is made more acute as at present, there is no technical agency offering consultancy services in occupational safety and health.'
I asked: 'What's happening 'as at present'? Why 'as at present'?'
What the officer meant was: 'There is acute need because there is no department which offers advice on occupational safety and health.'
We have taken each other's mistakes. He had constantly read 'as at present', 'as of yesterday', 'as of tomorrow', so he just stuffed in three unnecessary words - 'as at present' - into his paper.
There is such a thing as a language environment. Ours is a bad one. Those of you who have come back from a long stay in a good English-speaking environment would have felt the shock when reading The Straits Times on returning.
I spent a month in Vancouver in October 1968. Then I went on to Harvard University in Boston. For one month, I read the papers in Vancouver. They were not much better than The Straits Times. They had one million people, English-speaking. But there was no sparkle in their pages.
The contrast in Harvard was dazzling. From the undergraduate paper, The Harvard Crimson, to the Boston Globe, from the New York Times to the Washington Post, every page crackled with novel ideas, smartly presented. Powerful minds had ordered those words. Ideas had been thought out and dressed in clean, clear prose. They were from the best trained minds of an English-speaking population.
Let us try to do better. We are not doing justice to ourselves. I know the ability is there; it has just not been trained to use the written word correctly and concisely. And it is not too late to start.
It is not possible to conduct the business of government by talking to each other with the help of gesticulation. You have to write it down. And it must be complete, clear and unambiguous.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Safari
i thought i am anti-apple and everything apple.
i just made a comment in technology and world change class hours ago about that.
but,
minutes ago,
bored flipping through marketing,
i downloaded safari.
hello safari.
(goodbye google chrome)
i guess we can never be absolutely sure, right?
melvin has to learn this.
honestly, it feels good, somehow.
but still,
i still love creative. for reasons of patriotism and thankfulness as a loyal consumer.
i still may probably not buy a mac. and an ipod. or anything that is a paid apple merchandise.
and in the creative-apple war, CREATIVE WINS.
in the windows-mac war, WINDOWS WINS.
just maybe, my preference for Google (Chrome) wasn't a strong one.
i still adore kym ng.
i still am jun phyo.
i still love ms. presea.
i am still melvin.
some things don't quite change. :)
i just made a comment in technology and world change class hours ago about that.
but,
minutes ago,
bored flipping through marketing,
i downloaded safari.
hello safari.
(goodbye google chrome)
i guess we can never be absolutely sure, right?
melvin has to learn this.
honestly, it feels good, somehow.
but still,
i still love creative. for reasons of patriotism and thankfulness as a loyal consumer.
i still may probably not buy a mac. and an ipod. or anything that is a paid apple merchandise.
and in the creative-apple war, CREATIVE WINS.
in the windows-mac war, WINDOWS WINS.
just maybe, my preference for Google (Chrome) wasn't a strong one.
i still adore kym ng.
i still am jun phyo.
i still love ms. presea.
i am still melvin.
some things don't quite change. :)
Sunday, August 9, 2009
to grandpa
i said goodbye to grandpa on 4th August, 2009.
for a man who taught and brought me up through the early years of my life, i am grateful.
i shared during one of the wake nights with relatives, that one lesson his generation has taught us is that of faith.
they did not know much, only heard of this faraway place called singapore, and by faith they went on a two month's boat journey away from home.
not a penny more to spare, without wind of how life would be for them.
yet, they stepped out, in faith.
leaving behind all that they had,
because they were driven, by faith.
the experience is unimaginable, for people like us who have never lived through it.
and the lesson is precious, a generation after us would probably not have the chance to hear of their personal testimonies, of faith.
i am grateful.
for a man who taught and brought me up through the early years of my life, i am grateful.
i shared during one of the wake nights with relatives, that one lesson his generation has taught us is that of faith.
they did not know much, only heard of this faraway place called singapore, and by faith they went on a two month's boat journey away from home.
not a penny more to spare, without wind of how life would be for them.
yet, they stepped out, in faith.
leaving behind all that they had,
because they were driven, by faith.
the experience is unimaginable, for people like us who have never lived through it.
and the lesson is precious, a generation after us would probably not have the chance to hear of their personal testimonies, of faith.
i am grateful.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
community service project
busy busy busy.
community service project. sometimes we have to say it out in full to remember it is the service to community.
i was working on the video at BATES141's office the other day, when the guy opposite started a conversation like this (not exact words though, i have poor memory).
"hey, you're doing this for, your final year project?"
"erm, no. this is our community service project. it is a students' initiative."
"oh, so, you're doing it for your portfolio then?"
(i gave a quizzical look) "?"
(i think he was trying to reverse damage now) "i mean, yea, besides wanting to serve the cause, you can include it in the portfolio?"
"oh, yea, i guess we can write this in."
-End of conversation-
yesterday, daryl asked on the car while on the way to pick up vouchers, "why did you join this csp?"
"i dont know. i think i am the odd one amongst you. i dont really have a story to tell about problem gambling. i have to admit that when i first applied for the position, it came out of an obligation to serve the club. i am not good at mahjong, poker, or any of the games played. so i guessed i had to contribute somewhere, and csp seemed appropriate."
-End of important part of conversation-
community service project. what do i have to offer, what can i serve in?
"serve from the heart," said Emily Hogan of the office of career services.
but at least i know, the day of teaching and sharing during the training workshop last week added meaning to my experience. it felt good, though i cant actually describe why.
and there were more valued things about this community service project, and there will be more. i am sure.
community service project. sometimes we have to say it out in full to remember it is the service to community.
i was working on the video at BATES141's office the other day, when the guy opposite started a conversation like this (not exact words though, i have poor memory).
"hey, you're doing this for, your final year project?"
"erm, no. this is our community service project. it is a students' initiative."
"oh, so, you're doing it for your portfolio then?"
(i gave a quizzical look) "?"
(i think he was trying to reverse damage now) "i mean, yea, besides wanting to serve the cause, you can include it in the portfolio?"
"oh, yea, i guess we can write this in."
-End of conversation-
yesterday, daryl asked on the car while on the way to pick up vouchers, "why did you join this csp?"
"i dont know. i think i am the odd one amongst you. i dont really have a story to tell about problem gambling. i have to admit that when i first applied for the position, it came out of an obligation to serve the club. i am not good at mahjong, poker, or any of the games played. so i guessed i had to contribute somewhere, and csp seemed appropriate."
-End of important part of conversation-
community service project. what do i have to offer, what can i serve in?
"serve from the heart," said Emily Hogan of the office of career services.
but at least i know, the day of teaching and sharing during the training workshop last week added meaning to my experience. it felt good, though i cant actually describe why.
and there were more valued things about this community service project, and there will be more. i am sure.
Friday, July 24, 2009
the anomaly tween/teenager/youth
i was just watching "The Vox" by ChannelNewsAsia, on an edition about tweens. great stuff.
not that i am acting young to categorize myself in their generation, but reflecting the materials unto myself reminded me about some odd (and scary) truths about this melvin.
even as a younger tween, or teenager, or even a youth now, i knew all along that i was an anomaly to the generation.
i despised the "ultraman", "superman", and their family of action heroes since young, and even today i keep harry potter a thousand miles at bay, to the offence of thousands, probably millions. i could not understand why men would be obsessed with the impossibly supernatural, why live in unattainable fantasies?
so, even at a tender age, i dominated the black box (as much as i could) and switched to the mature channel 8 during the "aunty" time belt when the other channel was busy attracting tweens/teenagers with their cartoons.
that was how i got to know the six "ah jies" of mediacorp at that age even better than any adult,
and started noticing kym ng and evelyn tan to be enthroned in my heart of admiration.
i'd rather be lost in the world of romance, money, and fame, than be thrilled by men flying on fake wings.
today, i still continue buckling the trend to stick out as a sore thumb in my crowd.
i always feel, and proclaim, that "i am too old to be studying".
not that i am not enjoying studying.
yesterday, a junior asked about my "secret to success" now.
my frank reply was to "love what you are studying". and it is true - i cannot enjoy my studies any better now.
but at the same time, i cannot deny the eagerness to be "released", into the great corporate world of dreams.
oh, wait for me. (:
not that i am acting young to categorize myself in their generation, but reflecting the materials unto myself reminded me about some odd (and scary) truths about this melvin.
even as a younger tween, or teenager, or even a youth now, i knew all along that i was an anomaly to the generation.
i despised the "ultraman", "superman", and their family of action heroes since young, and even today i keep harry potter a thousand miles at bay, to the offence of thousands, probably millions. i could not understand why men would be obsessed with the impossibly supernatural, why live in unattainable fantasies?
so, even at a tender age, i dominated the black box (as much as i could) and switched to the mature channel 8 during the "aunty" time belt when the other channel was busy attracting tweens/teenagers with their cartoons.
that was how i got to know the six "ah jies" of mediacorp at that age even better than any adult,
and started noticing kym ng and evelyn tan to be enthroned in my heart of admiration.
i'd rather be lost in the world of romance, money, and fame, than be thrilled by men flying on fake wings.
today, i still continue buckling the trend to stick out as a sore thumb in my crowd.
i always feel, and proclaim, that "i am too old to be studying".
not that i am not enjoying studying.
yesterday, a junior asked about my "secret to success" now.
my frank reply was to "love what you are studying". and it is true - i cannot enjoy my studies any better now.
but at the same time, i cannot deny the eagerness to be "released", into the great corporate world of dreams.
oh, wait for me. (:
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