This is irritating. My TagBoard is being targeted by spammers. Damn leceh-lah must log-on to ShoutMix to delete these pesky comments. My comment function in individual posts are also targeted by spammers too. But at least WordPress has the Akismet plugin that more or less eliminated most spams though there are the occasional spam that slipped through the plugin. Gah. Bloody spammers. Go away. you are not invited.

Neither do I want any blogwalking jokers coming and leaving stupid messages on my comment or tag board. Dimwit spammers.

“Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

I was reading the Star today and I saw this quote. It suddenly meant very much to me. Does it define you?

Don’t look at “Power” at just literally the power to control things like Napoleon did. But look at “Power” at the way you view yourself having - the power with the string of As that you have, the power that you have in influencing people, the power that you have with the money that you earned.

Are we all guilty of having traces of Napoleon in us?

All the staying at home is slowly killing me. I kinda feel like I’m rotting. Get a job, most people will say. But what kind of job? Gah.

Btw my situation reminded me of an article I read in The Star pretty recently about Lee Kuan Yew talking about unemployed graduates in Singapore.

The following is the quote from here.

It is a national dilemma. Unless graduate unemployment is reversed, the middle class here faces erosion and social problems and poverty could set in.Out-of-work graduates are unable to service their home payments or maintain their family. More couples may decide not to have children.When he was Prime Minister during the early days of university-building, Lee Kuan Yew had said that Singapore would avoid countries like India, in producing too many jobless graduates.
With an able mind and higher expectations, too many of them would sit idly around coffee shops hatching revolutions, he explained.

Another article from the same author about Lee Kuan Yew quoted from another article here said:

For me, it’s like reliving some of the problems I had reported in other countries a generation ago.The headline made me recall what (then Prime Minister) Lee Kuan Yew once said about unemployed graduates.Commenting on the street violence that often marred life in India and Pakistan in those days, Lee attributed it partly to the large number of out-of-work graduates.
They were a potential source of instability. Their education allowed them to organise, plan or lead violent revolutions and they had the free time to do so.

I kinda feel what LKY said was true. I put myself as an unemployed graduate. Well I satisfy the first criteria, albeir voluntarily and the second criteria, let’s just say I’m an A-Level graduate and will be a university graduate in 3 years time.

And all the free time that I’m having, what have I been doing? Planning revolutions here and there on the Internet for the local youth scene.

Might work out, might not work out.

“With an able mind and higher expectations, too many of them would sit idly around coffee shops hatching revolutions, he explained.”

Damn I’ve been going for coffee sessions too many time thinking of ways to strike it big. Well perhaps it’s good. Or is it?

And just a few days back, I came out with a rebranding exercise for myself and this blog. I’m working on another personal project. Another revolution? Man!

Working makes time passes by very fast. But not working leaves me with too much idle time. And the brain is always cooking up some surprises for me.

Bobby “CE” Ong: It’s time to implement those revolutions. No more talk shop. Time for action.

This is weird. I am still getting used to this lifestyle - a lifestyle of slacking and bumming. After 2 years of hard work, it is rather strange not having anything to do.

When you are so busy, you wished for time to relax. When you have all the time to relax, you wished for things to challenge yourself. Life is ironic, isn’t it?

8 months to kill time. What shall I do? I had wanted all the time in the world to slack last time, but I did not really give much thought into what I will do during that free time. I was too busy studying I did not have the time to dream and imagine about the future – my favourite past time.

Laugh as much as you like, but I like dreaming and imagining up stuff. I used to do it a lot back in secondary school but I had to cut down on them in Singapore.

Read this: Life in Singapore, especially the junior college is simply too rigid and stressful for me to imagine stuff.

Look Singapore, you want to create creative students right? You want to remove the conventional, conformist, indifferent attitude of people right? You want people to think in unique, out-of-the box ways right?

Well, your education system DOES NOT encourage the above. It’s too RIGID, too ORTHODOX and too EXAM-ORIENTED. Students are encouraged to chase NOTHING ELSE but As in examinations.

Yes, it’s a process called meritocracy; I understand that. Perhaps it’s a trade-off between conflicting education policies. You push your students hard to ensure they are strong in their Science and Maths, but at what expense? I understand the need for Singapore to be the best in this globalised world; your teachers did a terrific job in drumming that into me. But I pity your Singaporean kids. They slog all their way through from Primary 1 all the way to JC2.

Those stronger ones might have the opportunity to develop other aspects once they are strong in their academics. They might EXPLORE other avenues. But how many of your students actually DARE explore things beyond their text books? Doing so might cause their exam results to deteriorate A BIT and cause them to LOSE OUT a lot. Is it worth it?

I had a serious misconception about your country before coming. My perception of your country and your education system before starting JC was this: Because Singapore is a more developed country, it will have a better education system as compared to Malaysia. And when I mean better I mean an education system that encourages creativity and unorthodox thinking. And this often means it is LESS EXAM-ORIENTED because exams FORCES students to think in a RIGID, INFLEXIBLE manner.

Maybe I did not do my research well enough. Maybe I did not watch I Not Stupid. And that probably gave me a cultural shock when I first entered my JC. I am surprised at the frequency of tests. I HATED the fact that the only way for me to succeed was to ROTE-LEARN my lecture notes.

The amount of things I had to MEMORISE used up so much of my brain capacity that at the end of the day I just have no spare brain cells to indulge in my imagination. Just ask Albert Einstein how important imagination is.

‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’

Anyway, I’m not out here to deride the Singapore education system. The system is also good in the following aspects.

1) The Singapore education system encourages one to think critically of a subject matter. Yes, all those studying and those tough tests actually improved my analytical skills, something that I did not learn very well back home. After 2 years I’m a different person; I can look at anything now and analyse it to bits and pieces – and the weird thing is, I actually enjoy doing so!

2) The Singapore education system makes a student more determined and competitive. Losing is not fun and the Singapore education system is excellent in making people lose. It is not uncommon for half the cohort to fail a certain subject. I thought exams are designed to pass students! Well, not here in Singapore. It’s design to fail student. Well it demotivates you, but it also encourages you to push harder to succeed. As long as you do not give up, the whole process just makes you a stronger person.

***

Ah, just my personal musings of the Singapore education system. I diverged a lot from my original thoughts. Perhaps I gotta write a more objective piece of the education system soon. 8 months to go - all the time to write.

It is really disheartening to look at the latest universities ranking provided by Times. As an 18 year old, my focus is just on the top 20 universities in the world - to look at it and make a decision in 1 year time on which university I should go to.

Because it is the school holidays now, I have cut down on reading the newspapers from daily to every few days. And I did not realise that the universities ranking had been released. That was till I talked to a Malaysian friend in NUS (National University of Singapore) yesterday.

He told me about how NUS had dropped down the ranking from 19 to 33. And how Malaysian universities – UM, UKM, USM had dropped even further down the list. It’s so bad that now not a single Malaysian university is in the Top 200.

Looking forward to find out how bad the situation was, I hopped on to Lim Kit Siang’s (Malaysia’s opposition leader) blog to got a fuller picture from his post.

It’s really shocking to see the extent of mediocrity that Malaysian universities have come to. Reading the comments on the post is even more depressing. Skimming through only a few of the comments is enough to make me feel sorry for my own country.

I’m now in Singapore doing my A-level under the ASEAN scholarship. My exams are at the end of next year. Although I could have done Form 6 which is equally hard (mind you A-levels in Singapore is NOT easy, it is super hard), I feel really bad that my own home land is doing so bad.

Over here in Singapore, everyone is striving to be the best with talks of globalisation, competition, talent being the talk of the town (government, teachers, students etc) daily.

I can’t help but feel sorry about Malaysia’s universities. I knew from last year when I was doing my SPM that I will never ever set foot on a Malaysian university. And with the new ranking list out, it’s becoming real evident that entering Malaysian university is not really an option.

The brain drain is for REAL. Young people like me, we are going away. I’m already technically out of the country. I’m going to pursue an overseas education in US or UK or worse come to worse in Singapore. And whichever country that I study for my university I’ll stay there for a few years to work. Only after that I’ll consider coming back to Malaysia to work.

I’m still young. Years of patriotism lessons in schools had certainly had in impact on me. It has certainly instilled a sense of love for holding on to the Malaysian citizenship. Although I must say I’m ashamed to talk about my country’s state of education or politics whenever we have discussions in my school or hostel with Singaporeans or other fellow international students.
I don’t like to discriminate people, but what do you want me to tell others of our Government’s policies? Yea I know History text books will say it is like our safety net to ensure racial stability, but why are young Malaysians feeling left out in their own country?

Staying in Singapore undergoing their intense public education system definitely puts great stress on a young person. It is really hard work, hard work and hard work over here.

You can see students working so hard to chase success. You can sense the hunger and desire to be the best, to chase for glory. Everyone is in a race. You are either in it or left to rot at the sidelines of society.

I can certainly feel the heat of global competition over here, albeit with mostly Singaporeans. Recalling back my secondary days in Malaysia, I can barely feel all these heat.

Education and life in Malaysia, where is it heading?

Singapore has surely upped the ante on efficient land public transportation. It has recently implemented the real time bus information feedback system in several major bus stops around the country.

Look at the following pixs taken at the Newton MRT bus stop.

When I came Singapore early this year, I was definitely impressed with its efficient public transportation system. However it can certainly be improved. There is one thing missing - that is the real time bus info system like the one shown. Well, now it’s finally implemented. It’s not available at all bus stops yet, only major ones but at least it’s a good start.

Observe the second picture closely and you can see the bus info is jointly provided by the two bus operators in Singapore. The system is implemented by Singapore’s Land Transport Authority. JPJ, try opening up your eyes a lilttle bit wider and take a look what those Singaporeans are doing!

And one last joke at the pix. Try searching for bus 700A. When’s the next bus arriving? 73 minutes! And the bus after that? 88 minutes! Hahahahahahaha…big joke! Here you have some technologically-advanced board giving real time bus info, but the maximum waiting time of 15 minutes is far exceeded by nearly 5 times! WTH?

Anyway Malaysia, try beating this! How many more light years away before this can be seen in Malaysia? Well I don’t mind not having this system in Malaysia yet. Just solve the bigger problem of having a punctual bus system first. Then get rid of rude bus drivers. Then please at least have bus information on the bus stops. And try having a super website like the ones in Singapore. They can guide me to my location from point to point. Check out their websites here and here. RapidKL does have a website but their bus routes is in an image file that can be found on their website.

And one final rambling…..Please RapidKL or Metrobus or whatever other bus operators in Klang Valley, how many times must I ask, can you PLEASE provide a bus route from Puchong Jaya to Subang/Sunway area? It’s a freaking 5 minute journey by car using the LDP, but there’s no bus operating this route (except for one operator plying this route every one hour or so?). Even the proposed freaking LRT line extension will not link Puchong with Subang. What’s your problem?

Well NickChan, think RapidPenang is good already? Still a long way to go for Penang, but at least the Government is doing something in the right direction…..

Oh and I’m pretty sure some of the new Rapid buses are disabled friendly too right? Well this is one part where Singapore still needs further improvements. From the bus board, only two of the buses there are disabled-friendly….I can only wonder how I will have to travel around if I’m in a wheelchair……..

Someone has to do it, but we never ask how it’s done. Cleaning the [tag]urinal[/tag]….How?

Use MOP la…..

Look at the pix closely; u can see the leftover strands of mop (hair? What d’ya call that?) at the urinal…..

Ewww…..they use mop to clean the urinal and then the same mop to clean the floor? Yucks….the more I think about it, the yuckier it becomes…..

Btw, for those friends who tried to access my site in the morning/afternoon, I’m sorry that it’s down. The server that my site is hosted was experiencing [tag]downtime[/tag] and it took the webhosting company one whole day to get it fixed…They said it’s a serious hardware failure, but then…..Hmmmm….I guess the service you get = the price you pay……