iphoting's Sink

On the eve of Teachers’ Day, let me link to a teacher’s rant on why teaching is so hateful.

Then, we found ourselves chatting about what ‘The System’ makes people to be. Groupthink comes to mind. The effects of Mr Tan SK’s departure can still be felt. Many claim that the organisation has lost its side of humanity, focusing on all but the important issues. The overemphasis on the tiny technicalities will lead it backward, never forward. No doubt, the people running the machine are capable of doing what they ought to do.

Today, amusingly, the lower secondary students sang the ‘Yellow Submarine’ song in unison during the ACES walk about around school. Their inspirational source ought to be highly amusing and skilful. Worry not, I guess we’ll find a way to play this cute animation film for the class to enjoy.

Now, the moment that everyone’s wondering for, someone has written a petition for honest causes finally.

Two writing repositories were brought to my attention. I think they are good reads, the latter especially.

I’m wondering again; what would happen to an educational officer if he or she physically manhandles a student? This principal resigned voluntarily. Not sure if there are others but hearing it, the punishment looks severe.

Apart from that, the school term is dashing to an end at great speed. Believe it or not, 8 months of the IBDP or 3 terms to be exact has gone past. Looking back, I’ve got no idea of what I’d done; it looked as if I’ve most productively wasted 8 months of my life, but I guess the results appear much later.

The Cockpit Pupil’s Strength documentation looks like a joke.

Around the Bridge table yesterday, a classic conversation appeared:-

A: So, are you going to p0n the swimming PE?

B: Why you whole day talk about the same thing?

A: Cuz I got nothing else to talk about!

B,C,D: Buahahahahahahaha

What a prompt response.

Well well, looks like some of the beans are finally out.

Reality distortion field experienced its finest demonstration this day during the ToK lecture and Billy Joel was compared to Handel. It much summarises how I’d felt about English Literature taught and assessed in school.

It’s quite amazing that the Singapore Police let Martyn See off, for producing Singapore Rebel (a “political” film), with just a stern warning; no jail, no expulsions, no caning, nor any suspensions. Of course, fighting is a bad thing no matter how it is placed. Thankfully, the Singapore Police knew better to let him off than to punish him for making some trivial video.

Then it got me wondering. If a manager were to fire and change his secretaries frequently, is there a problem with the secretaries or does the problem actually lie with the manager himself; neither or both?

There’s this funny piece of assignment called portfolio which I think is a test of skills different from what’s intended. It assumes that the student know what he or she should not have already known and what he or she should already know. I also find it quite amusing that it took me a day or so to acquire and learn how to use the tools of the trade. Lessons or guided explorations to these tools would also be a great help. Maybe in future, they should make life a little easier by stating the “skill prerequisite” and “what you should learn from this investigation”. Removing the guesswork would allow us not-so-telepathic students the ability to produce more logically flowing “investigations”. And they were saying that it takes more than 3 full non-schooling days to complete this portfolio. Now, I guess that I am to assume that time would wait for me.

Today’s sermon by Rev Dr A R Bernard has been enlightening. He uses flow diagrams to preach. He talked about how God is a God of pattern and everything follows a pattern (I sense ToK alarm bells ). He then talks about how information is able to change, through a few processes such as thought or information processing, beliefs, actions, results and habits, outcomes, i.e. success or failure.

It makes perfect sense in many contexts, including ordinary daily life. Control the sources of information and there, you’ve controlled the population. Hence, knowledge or the control of it, is power.

After all, to put it bluntly, stupid people exist to protect the intelligent people.

This day, I found myself chatting with ephemera about life and the cunning minds of chess players who get nowhere. Fear by the terrorists without even setting off a bomb. Lack of fear by press without pressing news. Oh how blissful people ought to be; the vicious cycle of the forms of government. Hitler’s rise and fall revisited. The question would thus be, which comes first, the end of a complete vicious cycle or the end of the world. The signs of the end times are glaring; it’s time to harvest all that’s left before it is too late - What’s the point of joining the winning side of a war when it’s over? It’ll be too late for war compensations.

Yet, the bliss is a beauty. The island against all odds stand proud and strong. Oh well, oh well, how much time do we have left?

“Live each day as if your last as one day you’ll certainly be right.”

This is the day of long awaited maintenance. Three out of three desktops in my house required some form of meddling; two needed a new PSU and another needed a format. The pain about windows is that it requires a lot of time before and after a format in order for a computer to be of production ready status. Things get much complicated with Windows Activation and/or Windows Genuine Advantage.

Spent half a day shopping for two new PSUs which has 20 ATX pin support. The hardware installation was painlessly simple; it’s a matter of swapping the old for the new. The pain comes only when I’d realised that the new PSU I’d bought does not have support for (1st gen) P4 systems. Thankfully, the other one, the only working PSU is designed for P4 systems. Hence, a mutual swap saved the day.

After putting the new PSU in, both 4 year old systems worked like new again, albeit a little less snappy than my now-in-service Macbook.

Looking at the old computers, I found it amusing that they managed to last so long without a pressing need for an upgrade. After all, should the hardware allow, these computers would be part of the furniture for a long time to come.