Monday, August 11, 2008

Breath

today was a good day; a good conclusion to a good weekend. for some reason i'm actually feeling quite happy now =)

this weekend i pushed my IOP, chinese script, physics photogates prac and TOK essay all out, as well as a... minor essay on Economics. i feel quite happy that i've cleared all that... did some scripting for touhou as well. started working on the end boss of stage 4...

this morning, i was writing up the second draft of my TOK essay. i realised i had to cut the third AOK - visual art. so i just wrote on math and medicine. still hard, cause there were just too many problems with the first one. and i don't feel as accomplished as i did when i finished up my previous TOK essays in years 3 and 4. in fact, i read my year 4 TOK, or rather POD essay. i was like o.o i can write like that?

then, i met russell for lunch at this japanese place at novena. i go there quite a lot, probably because its very good value. $8 ish for a rather full and good quality meal. after lunch, i followed him to orchard to say hi to ellius, and there i met a few of the other BB ppl too.

i came back and slept -.- and now am printing out a lot of stuff that i did over the past few days/weeks.

amazingly i still feel quite happy with today. =)

jk.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

13.17

A certain event yesterday, as well as a certain post on a blog I read is the inspiration for this post.

We were basically forced to listen to a lecture on library techniques, how to construct effective search statements and the like. Naturally, given the content of the lecture, especially one going beyond the dismissal time of 1640, it was sort of expected that there would be much disappointment...

The effectiveness of having such lectures would be something I would probably question, given that I'd think that in general, the people who are actually listening and/or not being disruptive are probably those who already know most of the content. It's not the fault of the lecturer; rather, it's just that those who are (somewhat) attentive are probably those who know, and that those who are the ones who need to be taught are most probably not listening. (I know, I lack evidence for this claim. It's just a hypothesis.)

Of course, there are reasons why such lectures have and will continue to take place. Firstly, if said lectures were made voluntary, I don't think many people would go, and the message would most definitely not reach the people who need to be told. Also, from a pragmatist point of view, making such lectures compulsory is probably an easy way to occupy the students during the EE period where they are supposed to be in school (since the school is accountable for what goes on during school hours...). Furthermore, holding such lectures reflects positively on the accountability of the school in that it contributes towards the school developing students holistically. Hence, I guess I don't have much against the idea of holding such lectures; even though I don't really like them, I don't see much of a better alternative, as detailed above.

Essentially, what happened was that due to said disappointment leading to noise especially beyond 1640, the students were held back till about 1730. The choice of punishment was certainly not an easy one to make; while I would indeed agree that the students concerned including myself should have been punished in some way, and the structure of the punishment is, in my opinion, generally acceptable (probably better if it was shifted to staying back the next day, since keeping parents waiting = bad idea), the justification provided for the punishment seems to fail under logical scrutiny. This "justification" - lack of respect.

Now the problem is, you cannot (or at least, I believe people cannot) force respect out of other people. Was it the students' choice to attend the talk? You could argue yes (ponning as an alternative), but given the nature of the alternative I think a 'no' fits this question better. Hence I don't believe that expecting "respect" out of the students is reasonable, since I disagree with the notion of forcing respect, and there does not seem to be a reasonable argument that the attempted establishment of said respect was not forced - unless you wish to encourage students to skip said lectures.

In my opinion, what I find questionable about this judgment is exacerbated by the fact that no attendance was taken, further increasing the incentive to skip such talks completely in the future, in anticipation of both not spending the time of the talk in an efficient manner, as well as not spending some of the time after that in an efficient manner.

That said, I think I can understand, to some extent, the intentions of the person who meted out said punishment described above. Naturally, the choice of what punishment to issue would not have been easy. Still, I would be inclined to maintain that the justification for said punishment seems somewhat off.

More accurately, I think the appropriate reason for punishment is really failure to APPEAR respectful, since after all that's what (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you see it) others see, and I think it's also what's important. I don't know if I would personally consider myself innocent or guilty, but I was there in body, physically doing little and speaking little, but very far away in mind. For some reason, this reminds me of a certain legal case I read about, where the "contents of one's mind" can be locked away securely from others; in that situation, a subpoena for the accused to reveal his password for a drive on his computer was quashed because revealing the password was believed as equivalent to self-incrimination, which is not something one is allowed to force.

jk.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

End of Night ~ Border Distortion

Yesterday was one of the most draining parades I think I'll go through in my life as a BB Primer.

As a Primer, on one hand I do bear some kind of responsibility to my peers, in the sense that I'm supposed to be an example to them. It was this reasoning, coupled with the fact that I believe that elementary levels of character in certain respects should be consistently demonstrated, that made me carry out the course of action I selected in the end. However, I do know the risks inherent in following this path; namely, possibly risking relationships with several of the other Primers, as well as creating an increased level of workload (yet, I believe this remains necessary). Hence making this decision, and following the course of action that I took was not easy; but somehow, before parade started, I really felt compelled, for some reason or another, to pursue these actions.

In the declaration that the Primers made during the Enrolment Service, the phrase "be shining examples to the Boys" was mentioned. Personally, I believe that this idea of "shining examples" shouldn't only be shown to those under us, year 2 or not, but also among ourselves and even to our officers. Naturally irresponsibility plays little of a role if we try and act as "shining examples"... Of course, we can't be serious all of the time, something which I'm trying to learn. However, I do believe that there are some elements of responsibility and discipline that should not be compromised.

I think I've really had enough of the headaches for now. Had a good talk with Mr Allan Lee today on this. I'll try and think through some of these issues, but not now.