27 February 2010

Primary Sch Friends Gathering, Lau Pa Sat, 26 Feb 10


This was the third gathering I attended. I suppose it was a matter of time when we have shared enough memories of school life, then either find the meetings boring and join the group less or find topics that will appeal to our (middle-aged) minds.


We did a little of the latter at this gathering, sparked off by a sharing of readings Buckminster Fuller and Robert Kiyosaki. Only towards the end of the gathering did I realise where my friend was coming from when he went deeper into his life journey which was not exactly smooth.


But I also realised the importance of diplomacy, especially in sharing one's beliefs and especially if you would like to convince others.

26 February 2010

Bad food in camp?

There is an article in Asiaone which reported that trainees at a NS Camp in Malaysia had complained about poor food among other things.

In my days, the food was never good, but thought that the poor food was one of the ways designed to toughen up 'soldiers'. Thankfully for the younger generation, the quality of food has improved by leaps and bounds with 'best-sourcing' (SFI!). Washing chores have also been outsourced.

My memory remains of the worst breakfast I have ever had in my life. Of cold yellow noodles, joined into lumps, dumped on my mess tray then sprinkled with lukewarm diluted water that served as 'soup' at 6am in the morning.

18 February 2010

Momentum is important in exercise routine

After a long (ie one week overseas holiday) lay off from the pool, I found myself struggling to finish my basic 5-lap freestyle routine. Normally, I do a continous 5-lap, stop for a 3 minute or so break and follow up with a second 5-lap. Yesterday, I had to stop after every lap to that I could perform the 5 laps without dying.


This is why keeping up the momentum in the routine is important.

Today is my weekly run again. Because I also missed last week's run, I cannot miss today's run though my brain is conjoling me to take it easy. I am preparing myself mentally for a painful 6.5km journey.

16 February 2010

Kampar-Ipoh Trip 2010

I visited Kampar ( 金宝 in chinese) for the first time to attend an AJC's classmates wedding. Kampar is 30-40 mins drive away from Ipoh, so after the wedding, I also went to Ipoh to take a look. Some memories:

1) High cost of living

Cost is rather high in Kampar and Ipoh. Take food for example. A bowl of bak kut teh costs RM5.50, a Sunkist orange cost RM1 and taxi rides are exorbitantly high at a minimum of RM6 (for a really short trip) and RM40 from Kampar to Ipoh. A portion of dim sum costs between RM3 to RM7. Of course, the prices are still reasonable if converted to SGD but we should compare before the conversion.

2) Hot weather
When we left Singapore, it was hot. But it was even worse in Ipoh. One of my friends said this is because Ipoh is a valley and it is inland. When S and I were exploring the town on an afternoon, we looked like the only ones doing that. A taxi uncle later told us it was just impossibly hot to walk around in Ipoh's afternoon sun.

3) Traditional
The Malaysian chinese are more traditional than us (at least my family) and I can observe many detailed rules being observed during the wedding day. What I particularly liked was that an old auntie was continually dishing out auspicious nouns and adjectives as the couple were going about their business. The only setback was that they used Cantonese which I am not very fluent in.

4) Suay

We were so unlucky this trip. Some examples:

i. The theme park "Lost World of Tambun" was closed on Tuesdays when we visited. The taxi dropped us, turned around and left and we could not flag down another taxi till some 40 mins later.

ii. The dim sum restaurant which I visited on the last morning was closed for an hour just at the time I arrived.

iii. The coach left Singapore using the 2nd Link but somehow returned using the Causeway even though my wife and I were the only passengers and we told them early we did not need to alight at Woodlands. It was 5am when we reached Johor customs and it was already packed. At Woodlands checkpoint, I could not go through the automated turnstile as my luggage was too big and later I was asked to open my luggage because the shape of the car air freshener which I bought looked weird on x-ray.

Confucius and Socrates

I had an interesting discussion with my wife's cousin yesterday during a CNY visit. He is not a local and he has sent his children to both government schools and international schools. He shared this insight.

He said that government schools are run along Confucius principles and that is the teacher is there to teach and the students just has to open their ears and absorb. I can just imagine the chinese movies depicting such scenes of rows of students sitting ramrod straight and reciting after the master.

The western version is adapted from the philospher Socrates. The teacher will teach enough and then prompt the students to ask questions. By way of the how and what questions were asked, the teacher senses the level of understanding of his charges and adjusts his teaching.

This however is very demanding of the teachers and the system, as this required customising.

He also shared that in international schools, there is no streaming. Weaker students are encouraged to mixed with the stronger ones so that they can learn from each other. More capable students however are not being forced to learn at a slower pace (as the example illustrated earlier) as the teachers will cater for their learning needs, but even this is done very subtlely.

My batch was streamed at primary 3 and even at that tender age we understood what it meant to be in 6A or 6B. This continued into secondary school and even manifests somewhat in work.

If I have children, I think I would opt for them to be educated in the way of Socrates. That is, if I could afford it.