Grim thoughts

There are a bunch of people from an international panel to evaluate universities right here in the faculty these few days. And what is the most notable thing that they find about the students in the faculty? "Why don't your students speak up during lectures?" The professors can only shrug and look baffled. Some attribute it to the apathy of students, to lack of courage to speak up, to the general LT culture that seems to forbid speaking out of turn.

When I mull over this aspect of the Singaporean education, I wonder if students have been groomed since their primary days to be passive, acquiescent learning machines, to be receptive, but not responsive. Some people would rather chat on msn during lectures than to think of the lecture and on what they might want to ask the lecturer. But I must not be harsh: I am not a model of responsiveness myself, nor do I feel any compulsion to be, given the general 'dead' atmosphere of an LT and the accepted one-way flow of information. In fact, when once the lecturer tried to ask our opinion on why a statutory provision was so, only a handful of exchange students ventured to have a discusion with her, while the rest of us just zonked out. When I tried to follow the discussion, the myriad of conflicting information that was being produced by those students in the discussion hardly seemed relevant, although the lecturer praised each opinion enthusiastically. A cynical part of me wondered if this praise was just a strategy to encourage us to speak up, rather than because the opinions were of any substance whatsoever.

A young woman who came in to my year already having a postgraduate degree from elsewhere has left after just one year, and they tell me that it was because she found Singaporean students to be too apathetic. I personally liked her not only because she was warm and open and would be one of the few who would ask (interesting) questions during lecture, but she would enthusiastically participate in organising some faculty events like seminars and lunches and would earnestly try to get us involved. But inertia is a hard thing to go against and maybe she eventually decided that she would not go against the collective inertia in the student body anymore.

Not only do foreigners find this stifling, but even home grown Singaporean students cast around for a way out. I have a friend who is intent on gong for exchange, because she cannot stand the deadening atmosphere in school anymore. I did not previously mind so much the oppressiveness, but today I think that I can appreciate why she thinks this way.

Maybe we should just chalk it up to the Singaporean-Chinese mindset of playing things safe and not venturing from your comfort zone unless compelled to do so. Nobody seems prepared to change things, and you know what? even after complaining so much, I can't say that I feel a burning drive within me to revolutinise things. Even after criticising so bitterly, I will attend my next lecture and not make any greater effort to speak up than I did today. Tell me, what has gone wrong?

A senior was right when she said that after Year 1, students become jaded and cynical. I feel this inexorable transformation myself. Is there any need to fight it?

Close Encounter with the Religious Kind

I've hit a blogging streak, and because it may have to tide us over the next month or so, I am making the most of it while I still have it.

Coming back from Clementi this evening with my hands (very) full of shopping (as some people who saw me will testify), I resolved, when I saw the shuttle bus coming, to press forward amongst the crowd of people also waiting there, in the hope of finding a seat. I decided that I could not survive the ride back standing while thus laden with groceries, including a newly acquired rice cooker (with a steaming tray!). Fortunately I found seats for both me and my groceries. My rice cooker had to make do with the floor.

At the UCC stop, a curious figure boarded the bus. Curious in the sense that one such as he is not usually seen around in the urban society of this country, much less in the vicinity of the campus. This was a genuine man of religion (of what religion is open for surmise) complete with beard, skullcap, white robes and holy book. He settled himself in a seat right across the aisle from me, opened his book and started to read, murmuring the sentences to himself.

I thought of suicide bombers in Israeli buses. But I dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred: a suicide bomber would not dress in a manner that would make him stick out like a sore thumb amongst the other people. He would not carry overt symbols of his religion. He would try to look as much like the man on the street as is possible. I surveyed his midriff. Nope, not bulky enough to possibly contain a bomb belt. I relaxed into my seat.

I idly contemplated his possible reactions if I were to reach over and grab the book from his hand. Would he leap up at me in a fury? Would he give a shout of surprise? Would he just stare at me aghast, not knowing for a moment how to react to this act of impunity? But I did not disturb this distinguished gentleman of religion, and left him in peace to his perusal of scripture.

I am so racist. Professor Bell would be shocked if he read this.

Bombs Away...

This is starting to make me smile...

Anyway, I was going to talk about a near miss this afternoon just as I was leaving my block. Of bird goo, I mean. People staying in Block 1 might have noticed bird droppings on the area of floor outside the fire escape door (you pass that area when you exit the lift lobby and make two left turns). I have noticed them but have never paused to contemplate their source (after all, who expects bird droppings in a roofed area?). Perhaps I should have.

This afternoon as I was passing that area on my way out to class, a random missile came dangerously close to making it necessary for me to turn around and go back up to my room again. I could have sworn I felt it brush past my fringe on the way down! But a tentative search with my fingers yielded no telltale white substance on my hair. I put a careful distance between myself and the danger zone and looked up to see if I could spy the culprit. Several mynahs were chilling out on the piping running just under the ceiling. As I glared at them, another bird obliged me with another demonstration.

I had a class to attend, and I turned to leave. Behind me, the mynahs started chirruping and calling, almost as if they were chortling with glee.

P/S: Ignore the monologue below, if you please. It is alright to have a multiple personality disorder, as long as you are comfortable with it. Furthermore, some people seem to have more than one voice talking in his or her head. Having just one voice in your head is probably a mild form of the disorder.

Me (whiny voice): But I still don't feel up to blogging...

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Alter ego: Snap outta it and stop wallowing in self-pity.

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It is raining and I have just lost that upbeat happy mood I started the night with earlier. No thanks to everything. How am I supposed to relate amusing anecdotes in this frame of mind?

Crisis

My cousin needed to retake his exams because he failed half his subjects, and my uncle (with some helpful suggestions from my mother) proposed to park this cousin onto me and my brother every weekend (nights included), so that we could oversee his studies!

Not that this wasn't a serious matter from their point of view. If he didn't do well this time, he would have to be retained in that level for the next year. It was time to sound the alarms. My mother out of the goodness of her heart and her desire to help, volunteered the only form of help she could offer from far-off KL, she volunteered US.

I dramatically announced to my brother: "We have a crisis on our hands!" And a crisis it indeed was. However, we eventually whittled our obligations down to committing a few hours a day several days a week to oversee the studies of this cousin. That's the best I can do.

Charmed

The most charming of all is still the Dean. He may look a staid, homely fellow, but don’t be deceived by his straight-laced appearance. Not only does he carry a lively and interesting conversation but he is also a very illustrious fellow with many credentials in his pocket, although he tries to downplay it in his modest, self-effacing manner. I was impressed to learn that he was a litigation lawyer in D&N, one of the top local firms here before moving into academia.

He told about his experience in litigation, and somehow the conversation turned to how lawyers handled things when they lost a case. He said that lawyers never quite get used to losing cases but at the end of the day, when you have brought up every defensible point and presented your case honourably and well, the judge and your contemporaries will respect you for the work you have done. He says that he has had judges coming up to him even after his side lost and saying: "I thought that you did a good job and performed better than the other party’s lawyer, but I had to rule for the other side because they had a better case." The Dean says that when a lawyer acts honourably in court the word will spread and judges will then be more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt in some situations instead of disbelieving what he says offhand.

As to why he moved into academia, he says that it is more interesting, in that he can be involved in many diverse areas including advising government and corporate bodies besides researching and teaching and maybe doing a little litigation on the side. Our illustrious Dean has been made Senior Counsel at the tender age of not-quite-forty, an attestation to his litigating capabilities. He works as a barrister, a kind of freelance litigator, in that smaller firms often approach him if they have a difficult case on hand or if they are up against senior counsels in a top firm. I asked if it was because he had a certain standing in the litigation scene and he waved it off modestly, with a bit of an embarrassed chuckle, and tried to explain that it was to do with practicality and economics and all that.

However he says that although it is a meaningful and productive life that he leads, he is well aware of the fact that had he continued his career in a law firm, he could quite easily be earning 3-4 times the amount he is earning now, not, he says, that NUS pays too badly (as I understand, even normal staff get pretty decent pay, and a Dean should get well past $10,000 a month). Understandable regrets, as top litigators usually get the largest slice of the profit pie in a legal partnership. I asked him if he did not feel a twinge of regret for the road not taken, and he said no, but sometimes he does wonder how he might cope should anything unexpected crop up in life. As we progress in life, he says, we all like to put a little bit by the side, make a little nest egg in case of an illness or something. He adds that he does sometimes wonder if he could afford it should his children want to study in the US next time... and I just think that he is so positively endearing, that I really could continue to transcribe the conversation that we have had, but it is about time I stopped raving about him and went back to work.

Rain in the night

You get a delicious chill when you hear thunder booming dully from the depths of the night sky. You look forward to the smell of rain when you sleep and the comforting patter of droplets on your windowpane. Maybe you might need to rouse yourself in the middle of the night to shut some windows to prevent the rain from soaking your bed and shorting out your computer, but even that exertion is not necessarily an unplesant one. After all, you fall right back to sleep after doing what's necessary and only realise what you have done when you wake up to a chill and blustery morning and find the windows shut. Then you realise that you must have woken up in the night, even though you know that you have slept exceptionally deeply, cocooned by the pouring rain swishing down outside.

The intervals between the rumbles of thunder are shorter. You know the storm is approaching although you cannot yet smell the rain. So you go to bed, nursing a little nugget of glee in your heart at the expectation of rain tonight.

Sound Effects

I really have to remark on how clearly sounds from my neighbour's room are transmitted to mine. I put it down to the fact that both our windows are large and when open transmit sound easily. I get the full benefit of all the songs she plays (fortunately our tastes do not differ too greatly) and I know if messages are received at her handphone. What's more, I also happen to know that her boyfriend has a tendency to burp quite loudly and frequently (or maybe it is something that he just ate). It is amusing for a while, but then when I get tired of all the disturbances, I slam my window shut.