Things closer to my heart

I realise it's been quite some time since my last entry. Quite a few things have happened recently... I went on a Genting trip with Clemence, Timothy and Tecko... did my volunteer work at Boys Town... joined the Young Entrepreneurs Society... signed up for the School For Entrepreneurs Camp and went for another scholarship interview at SMU. Well... since I can't possibly blog down everything I will focus on more important things.

Genting trip had its happy and sad moments with some disagreements between me and Clemence and gang. However, overall it was fun and I have learnt some new things from the trip too.

My tutee at Boys Town asked me to come on Monday evening only to realise he's not free. Hence, he helped me get 2 Secondary Two boys to replace him. After some persistent effort on my part to get them to understand how to make x the subject of an equation, one of the boys Henry suddenly asked me why I am so garang. He wasn't really interested in understanding the topic anyway and he wondered why I had to try so hard since in his opinion volunteer work is only a way to kill time. I was rather disheartened by what he said but I tried to keep my cool by explaining that I really wanted to help them and that I travelled 2 hours to and fro Boys Town not because I have too much time to kill. (In fact I was really quite busy recently) The other boy, Xavier, was also not interested in learning too and gave up after a few tries before returning to his drawings. In fact, he really resembled the artistic boy in Xiao Hai Bu Ben a lot... he keeps a lot to himself, has a low self-esteem and likes to draw irregardless whether he's happy or sad. Therefore, I also gave up on teaching them and decided to interact with them more. Henry asked me about my education background and I told him about my schools and stuff and he told me some people like me are born smart, hence people like him lose out. (which is so totally not the case... and I'm blur and some of my friends also think I'm dumb... in fact there are many smart people out there and I'm definitely not one of them, but I'm willing to learn from them... that's what I told him... and truthfully speaking I feel that he is sharper and more quick-witted than me) Xavier asked me to draw something for him and I drew my trademark... a smiling sun wearing sunglasses and he told me that I must be a cheerful person. (which is also not true... in fact I live in misery more than happiness, just that I always remind myself to cheer up after an unhappy event and my handphone wallpaper even has a smiling face... that's what I told him too) Basically, we discussed quite a few life lessons on anger management, coping with disappointments and personal unique strengths and that's when I suggested to them that I would bring my minilab 500 experiments next week to show them how to make jelly (polymers) from just chemicals alone... (even tempting them with the idea of throwing it on their friends and assuring them it will still not break) Xavier was particularly excited by the idea and even said he liked the way young teachers like me interest their tutees with fun stuff. : ) However overall, I feel rather useless because I still could not do much to help them achieve their goals or change their lives.

Today, I went for the SMU scholarship interview, this time for scholarships less prestigious than Lee Kong Chian and SMU scholarships. After the 30 minutes interview, I feel that I'm 80% confident I will not get the scholarship. Basically, we discussed about the army, education and politics and we have very different views on each topic. I can sense the professors are rather radical and do not like the idea of conscription and loss of freedom in general. For example, they asked me whether there is a need for NSF liability to be 2 years and why the SAF needs to spend so much of our current budget, even to the extent of buying 4 submarines. I replied that a minimum of 1 year is needed for NSF liability because officers need at least 1 year for their training and whether it should be one and a half years or 2 years depends on the manpower and the intake size, which only Teo Chee Hean has the data. I could not answer why the navy needs 4 submarines as I do not know accurately the size of the navy. However, I strongly feel that the defence budget cannot be trimmed because it will imply lesser emphasis on our defence, but it shouldn't be increased needlessly as well because it will threaten our neighbours.

They also challenged me further whether there is a need for the government to allocate more resources to education instead and asked whether the classroom size should be reduced in primary school. I personally feel that it is not very feasible to reduce the classroom size in primary schools because not many teachers want to teach primary school kids and by reducing the classroom size, primary schools will need more teachers. On top of that, we already have a shortage of teachers. They rebutted that we can hire more foreigners to teach in primary schools by allocating more resources to edcuation. However, I feel it would not work because not many foreigners are willing to teach in primary schools too. If you take a look carefully, how many foreigners teach in primary schools compared to secondary and junior colleges. A naive thinking that using money will draw them to primary schools may only result in ineffective teaching as these foreigners may not feel enthusiastic to teach small kids. Currently, primary schools have larger classroom size than secondary schools or junior colleges because they have a shortage of teachers willing to teach these young kids. Also, I feel that primary school kids need more bonding with their friends at this stage thus I do not see what's so bad about having more friends in the class. Besides, how many primary school kids are really that motivated enough to constantly ask questions such that they require more attention from teachers which is only possible in a smaller class? I do not deny that MOE has reduced the class size for primary one and two but that is because kids at such an age cannot take care of themselves (they urinate in their pants, fight over minor matters etc.) thus more teachers are needed to handle them. Well, if it is really so easy to reduce classroom size and get more teachers for primary schools, why hasn't MOE done it earlier, not forgetting that we already have a shortage of teachers. Maybe money alone isn't enough to remedy this shortage. Afterall, many teachers feel that their greatest problems lie in the fact that they cannot punish students in the appropriate way and parents often do not cooperate with them in teaching the right values to the kids.

Anyway, I also feel proud about certain things such as passing my driving test on Wednesday when I only had time to start reading it on Tuesday afternoon. Actually, I seriously thought of giving up and skipping the test altogether for the NUS business networking session. However, I decided to trust myself in the end and the results proved that I'm right in believing myself. It is not so much about passing the test that made me proud of myself but more of the fact that I gained my own trust by believing in myself. On Saturday, I will be attending the School for Entrepreneurs Camp organised by the Dennis Wee Group. Although I paid a hefty $1200 for the camp, I feel that it is worth it. Now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for what may happen on Saturday. ; )