Tired...
Unexpectedly fruitful day... well, sort off.
Reached school damn early today (around 8), to check on crystals. And got shock of my life. I fully intended to identify a few seed crystals today, those with potential to "blossom" in to beautiful, well defined crystals that'll bag the competition, but, suprise suprise, had 2 petri full of small, almost minute ones, barely 1 mm across... another slightly better, larger crystals, bout 5mm, but shapes are not cubic, they're flat!! Then, one last dish, the one with less saturated solution... had three humongous crystals... bout 15 to 20mm. But the surface very rough, not exactly something you'd use for a competition.
Misadventures aside, had PW meeting later, in school, supposedly at 10.30am. But 2 members were (tsk tsk) late. So, went to stationary bike for bout 10 min, covered 2.0 Km i think, not sure if its mile or kilometre...
OK, so the rest finally arrived, and i was unaware of what they discussed, cos i slacked off. There was a buffet for a bunch of sec school students (lucky bastards), so we shifted to a classroom. Where i fooled around, you know, the usual, lame jokes and stuff. One of these days i'll be more involved in the discussion, but still, what's a guy to do in a group where he's the odd one out? It's obvious right, I'm the only male!!!
Finished survey and interview questions by 12.30 despite starting late. Largely thanks to Lubin and Ruth and Ying Xian... then went Parkway to check out refrigerators, cool huh? Harvey Normans and Best, where we (did i say we? i meant them) ask salespeople about how seelable the dispenser fridges were, after much deliberation and time spent on checking out new features. ( LG has a TV refrigerator!!! Eat that dudes) Verdict? sales people are a ununited lot, Harvey's says the market is small, Best's told us 50-50 and suggested we check the Internet...
And i thought they knew what they were selling.
Had lunch @ Yoshinoya... after Ruth left us for home, i think. T'was raining, hence our plan to go blade at ECP had to be postponed. Drifted round Parkway, saw Chor Min and a bunch of TJ people... She soiled her Bday prez, haiz, gotta be more careful with those stuff, bags are exposed to the unpredictables more often then we think possible. Rain ceased, but that old guy at rental shop refused to rent us blades... cycled instead. Rather transient, rain picked up not soon after, forced to stop. Pity, yx not gotten hang of cycling. Looking forward to Mon's blading session... it'd better not rain then.
Found shelter in Macafe, found yx Dad waiting, found a place to sit down, found out that i could crap under almost any circumstances. Talked 'bout our previous school lives and here are the *ahem, "research" findings:
- Me used to play hide-n-seek with P1 Chi teacher (that old hag, slowpoke)
- Rachel went St Anthony Pri
- Someone had a bald teacher sometime in her life, Chemo
- Me used to catch frogs in morn in P2, morn session, then throw at girls
- Rachel used to chase after unfortunate souls with a broomstick
- She dragged Simon into girls loo in Sec 1, now that domination
- Yx's classrooms always been near toilets, how interesting
Rushed back for GP tuition...
Was already quite worn, but endured, giving occasional comments. Today's topic: Education
It seems, after that tuition lesson, to me that today's Education system is an anachronism... especially the seating arrangements and bells. Education is what enriches a person's life, but how would that materialise if all education does is to equip skills for an industrial life? How is life enriched if all education does is to prepare us for a monotonous, robotic industrial life that is going to be obselescent before we even come of age? According to Alvin Toffler, we should be preparing for a super-industrial age, where anticipatory information is essential, where information about future must be had. We cannot forever dwell in a "factory", controled by bell rings, rigidly fixed and required to remain in our seats. To enrich lifes, education must let us dream, let us aspire, let us pursue our ambitions. Nevermind if we fail, the process alone would be enough to mature us into characters with integrity, discern towards life's facts and lies, thats's enrichment.
Mass education is without discrimination right? Wrong. Racial, well maybe to a small extent friendly banter among classmates can turn slightly racist, but all that is taken in good will. What's more important is intellectual discrimination. This is largely evident in the steaming exercises which aim to segregate the weak from the better from the elite. Is this fairness? How can we be convinced that everybody gets the same amount of education? And how much is enough for us to get similar job opportunities, financial security? How much is enough for us to understand what our inherent rights are? Does education now provide us with equal opportunities in life, or are some of us more equal than the others?
When can we shift away from this factory based style of receiving our education? We are still fixed, glued down to seats in class which forces us to look in front, our lives still controlled by the bell, us forever waiting with bated breaths, forever anticipating the bell, to signal the end of periods after boring periods. Sure, we sleep in classes, we refuse to line up in straight lines, we "heck care" the bell, but is this enough, enough for us to be educated sufficiently sbout the future to survive in a super-industry while being able to enjoy what we love? That is the question.
No matter how much schools try to alter their image to conceal what they are, factories producing stupified people for menial jobs, beneath the facade It's The End... in a system where we are to be manipulated according to the upper echelon's wish for a "better tomorrow" and not our's for a life we can call our own, can we, be more than just "living anachronisms"?
Yay!.. finally geting to blade again... dun let it rain on Mon, pls? pretty pls? hope i dun fall..
remember [11:20 PM]
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