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March 27th, 2012
February 7th, 2012
after a long time i am shifting house. renovations are not done yet so don't expect too much.
theknifeisclean.wordpress.com
theknifeisclean.wordpress.com
January 26th, 2012
January 15th, 2012
hi livejournal
its been some time since we last met
but you, my old and faithful companion
i will not forsake
i didn't do any end of 2011 start of 2012 posts...
but its okay
the new semester is here
i am already looking forward to the holidays
time to get my ass into gear
sem 2 looks to be a lot more challenging
the nba season is finally in full swing
i hope the grizzlies go far
hm
grizzly is a good word to play for words with friends
now that the term has begun i will be frequenting this place more. with more motivation to write
its been some time since we last met
but you, my old and faithful companion
i will not forsake
i didn't do any end of 2011 start of 2012 posts...
but its okay
the new semester is here
i am already looking forward to the holidays
time to get my ass into gear
sem 2 looks to be a lot more challenging
the nba season is finally in full swing
i hope the grizzlies go far
hm
grizzly is a good word to play for words with friends
now that the term has begun i will be frequenting this place more. with more motivation to write
November 16th, 2011
all men are products of those who have shaped them
for who i am today i am thankful to many many people. most of whom i will never adequately express my thanks because of a lack of hindsight/foresight, and now circumstances
this came to me as i was doing lit today
of how characters are shaped by others
and pol science
and social constructivism
and i have realised that people make you
you don't make what you are
it is a very interesting thought
it makes me grateful for all the people out there
and realigns my worldview once again. with exams we all get really egocentric and self centered. not in a selfish way, but in the sense that you keep focusing on yourself.
so i am taking the time to be glad for all the impactful people in my life. those who have made a difference
the best now i can do is
to do them proud and pass it on
for who i am today i am thankful to many many people. most of whom i will never adequately express my thanks because of a lack of hindsight/foresight, and now circumstances
this came to me as i was doing lit today
of how characters are shaped by others
and pol science
and social constructivism
and i have realised that people make you
you don't make what you are
it is a very interesting thought
it makes me grateful for all the people out there
and realigns my worldview once again. with exams we all get really egocentric and self centered. not in a selfish way, but in the sense that you keep focusing on yourself.
so i am taking the time to be glad for all the impactful people in my life. those who have made a difference
the best now i can do is
to do them proud and pass it on
November 14th, 2011
i just finished one day of study (by my standards anyway)
hardcore mugging is, as mau said, physically draining. i cannot sustain it for long
hardcore mugging is, as mau said, physically draining. i cannot sustain it for long
November 8th, 2011
November 6th, 2011
for once
just once
(please indulge me)
i will tell everyone that i am EXCEEDINGLY PLEASED with my lit essay
(refer to previous post about slapping self)
it looks like my smart-ass impulse was rewarded. extremely pleased. indeed.
2 weeks to exams... full power time
just once
(please indulge me)
i will tell everyone that i am EXCEEDINGLY PLEASED with my lit essay
(refer to previous post about slapping self)
it looks like my smart-ass impulse was rewarded. extremely pleased. indeed.
2 weeks to exams... full power time
October 28th, 2011
curse my smart-ass impulse to accept my prof's implicit challenge and come up with my own COMPARATIVE question for lit sem essay.
i'm foaming 100% now
i'm foaming 100% now
October 27th, 2011
i don't belong in this world of studying and producing results.
as much as i acknowledge my inherent competitive nature and near-compulsive need to prove myself better than whoever or whatever is out there, this continual process of ensuring that i am on the right side (ha-ha. this double pun never fails to tickle me even as i WRITE this. ha-ha again at a not-so-funny joke) of the infamous bell curve is not fun at all.
oh, some may say, but you can do it! so you should do it.
i have decided over the course of a few years (as if i'm so old) that if there's one thing i am going to stick by, it is doing what i want to do. this means not doing things just because people expect you to do it, or doing things because other people think it would be good for you (what are you studying in uni? 'literature'. oh.../you can write right? (implying articulatory prowess and such artsy things) why didn't you do law? 'i don't really like it.' oh...), or doing things that... well you get the idea.
when it comes to things like my university education of course i know that i have to do it. i acknowledge the necessity of such. but it doesn't mean i have to like it. a lot of people look at me and disbelief when i tell them that i'd rather start work than continue studying. this is because i know i will enjoy what i am going to do in the future. therein lies the irony that in order to teach, one has to be taught first.
there is something quietly vampiric about having to keep studying. i'm only in year one and i can feel it. heck, i can feel it in sem 1. the grind that awaits me lies out there up till 2015, in which i already have contemplated the horror that is a thesis paper. this kind of anticipatory dread isn't the kind that i felt when i was in ocs.
to be honest, there were many times in ocs where i felt like quitting. i felt like 38 weeks just wasn't worth it. the knowledge that there were x number of weeks more to be completed was daunting, to say the least. but being commissioned was possibly one of the best things that ever happened to me. not in the sense that i got to flaunt my rank and all that but it was the beginning of an extremely humbling journey. when i look back its in army that my ego got busted down to size. being an officer taught me about humility and helped me find myself in the world (to some extent). yeah there's a lot of people out there who diss you for being an officer, and say that you enjoy the good life, that you get to sleep in the whole day, you don't have to do regimental stuff, blah blah blah...
i always laugh it off when people do that, or just tell them with a genial smile not to engage in hasty generalization. but inside me i seethe and fume at these people who take it for granted that ocs was easy, who don't see the work that people put in, who, as one of my friends (a sergeant, just in case you, the reader, engage in more hasty generalization), said: 'they don't understand the burden of command'. this is why people who tell their extreme war stories about how they weren't allowed to book out by their unreasonable and demanding 2LT (who has no right to do that eh!?!?!) complain to 19 year old girls about how tough army was. 100% spit. i was not an exemplar of good officership by any standard but i would think that i discharged my duties as was my due. i hate it when people diss you when they don't actually know what went on. which is why i have the greatest respect for anyone who dispenses his duties with due diligence, be they storeman or sergeant. okay temporary rant end.
but 3 and a half more years of school? i tremble at the prospect of semester after semester after semester doing this over and over again. grind grind grind, essay churn essay churn, finals holidays finals. it makes me silent. it renders me incapable of though sometimes. an unnamed fear grips me when i stop to consider this fate which inexorably flies towards us at too slow a pace.
its not that i'm against education, or enlightenment, or any form of knowledge transfer. i would like to think that as a future teacher i am one of many champions of humanity in this noble cause. i am all for it.
but i am against rote testing. i am against formulaic methods for people who don't want formulaic methods. i am against force-fed education and curricula that have to be completed. i am against a system which encourages silent dissidence but no real resistance.
i want freedom of education. i'm not saying that it should be easy - far from it! as i often repeat to my class (o those heady days of early 2011), 'if it's easy there's no point in giving you the test': what words of wisdom! i can no longer remember who passed this gem on to me, but i shall treasure it. this is the heirloom of the educator. it must be hard! so that when you finally surround a new a difficult concept (like portal physics, ha-ha) with the figurative cerebral tendrils of your mind, you feel this sense of exultation which can't be replicated by anything else. academic pursuit must not possess academic rigour for the purposes of proving yourself as a known quantity. i am sure there are better ways to prove one's worth, especially when it comes to the crunch. does a master's in any chosen subject area mean you are competent? well technically competent, definitely. but if this competency is born of copying and overcitation and greyish academic practices then i do not have much to say about this competency. falling standards of academic integrity remove the innate value of such learning.
its like giving you first prize when you jolly well knew you only deserved third place... would you want the gold medal still?
the problem is that there are people who would say yes, even after moments of silent meditation within the self.
but we have no choice. choice is a luxury, all i can do is stumble onward in a mist. i want to put in some gatsbyesque thing about mist and fog and currents here but i can't pluck it out of memory. this may all sound very pessimistic but the only reason why i would write about this is because i possess an innately positive soul. the acknowledgement of the lamp of hope burning low stems from a knowledge of hope in the first place.
so here i sit at my desk, pouring my creative energies (what a glorious term!) into a piece of prose that might not amount to much, is written much for self-satisfaction and a justifiable selfish desire to be acknowledged, and contains much of my own opinion, as opposed to putting said creative energies into my en1101e essay, which lies on the toolbar of my computer, waiting for me to engage. but i cannot bring myself into truly dedicating myself into that piece of work.
so i continue typing. consider this my futile resistance to the struggle for results that we are thrown into. is it really that bad? is it not necessary in the end? but those are the very questions which cause us to accept the rhetorical answers and eventually assimilate us into the sad fate of deliberately blind obedience.
a red day indeed
as much as i acknowledge my inherent competitive nature and near-compulsive need to prove myself better than whoever or whatever is out there, this continual process of ensuring that i am on the right side (ha-ha. this double pun never fails to tickle me even as i WRITE this. ha-ha again at a not-so-funny joke) of the infamous bell curve is not fun at all.
oh, some may say, but you can do it! so you should do it.
i have decided over the course of a few years (as if i'm so old) that if there's one thing i am going to stick by, it is doing what i want to do. this means not doing things just because people expect you to do it, or doing things because other people think it would be good for you (what are you studying in uni? 'literature'. oh.../you can write right? (implying articulatory prowess and such artsy things) why didn't you do law? 'i don't really like it.' oh...), or doing things that... well you get the idea.
when it comes to things like my university education of course i know that i have to do it. i acknowledge the necessity of such. but it doesn't mean i have to like it. a lot of people look at me and disbelief when i tell them that i'd rather start work than continue studying. this is because i know i will enjoy what i am going to do in the future. therein lies the irony that in order to teach, one has to be taught first.
there is something quietly vampiric about having to keep studying. i'm only in year one and i can feel it. heck, i can feel it in sem 1. the grind that awaits me lies out there up till 2015, in which i already have contemplated the horror that is a thesis paper. this kind of anticipatory dread isn't the kind that i felt when i was in ocs.
to be honest, there were many times in ocs where i felt like quitting. i felt like 38 weeks just wasn't worth it. the knowledge that there were x number of weeks more to be completed was daunting, to say the least. but being commissioned was possibly one of the best things that ever happened to me. not in the sense that i got to flaunt my rank and all that but it was the beginning of an extremely humbling journey. when i look back its in army that my ego got busted down to size. being an officer taught me about humility and helped me find myself in the world (to some extent). yeah there's a lot of people out there who diss you for being an officer, and say that you enjoy the good life, that you get to sleep in the whole day, you don't have to do regimental stuff, blah blah blah...
i always laugh it off when people do that, or just tell them with a genial smile not to engage in hasty generalization. but inside me i seethe and fume at these people who take it for granted that ocs was easy, who don't see the work that people put in, who, as one of my friends (a sergeant, just in case you, the reader, engage in more hasty generalization), said: 'they don't understand the burden of command'. this is why people who tell their extreme war stories about how they weren't allowed to book out by their unreasonable and demanding 2LT (who has no right to do that eh!?!?!) complain to 19 year old girls about how tough army was. 100% spit. i was not an exemplar of good officership by any standard but i would think that i discharged my duties as was my due. i hate it when people diss you when they don't actually know what went on. which is why i have the greatest respect for anyone who dispenses his duties with due diligence, be they storeman or sergeant. okay temporary rant end.
but 3 and a half more years of school? i tremble at the prospect of semester after semester after semester doing this over and over again. grind grind grind, essay churn essay churn, finals holidays finals. it makes me silent. it renders me incapable of though sometimes. an unnamed fear grips me when i stop to consider this fate which inexorably flies towards us at too slow a pace.
its not that i'm against education, or enlightenment, or any form of knowledge transfer. i would like to think that as a future teacher i am one of many champions of humanity in this noble cause. i am all for it.
but i am against rote testing. i am against formulaic methods for people who don't want formulaic methods. i am against force-fed education and curricula that have to be completed. i am against a system which encourages silent dissidence but no real resistance.
i want freedom of education. i'm not saying that it should be easy - far from it! as i often repeat to my class (o those heady days of early 2011), 'if it's easy there's no point in giving you the test': what words of wisdom! i can no longer remember who passed this gem on to me, but i shall treasure it. this is the heirloom of the educator. it must be hard! so that when you finally surround a new a difficult concept (like portal physics, ha-ha) with the figurative cerebral tendrils of your mind, you feel this sense of exultation which can't be replicated by anything else. academic pursuit must not possess academic rigour for the purposes of proving yourself as a known quantity. i am sure there are better ways to prove one's worth, especially when it comes to the crunch. does a master's in any chosen subject area mean you are competent? well technically competent, definitely. but if this competency is born of copying and overcitation and greyish academic practices then i do not have much to say about this competency. falling standards of academic integrity remove the innate value of such learning.
its like giving you first prize when you jolly well knew you only deserved third place... would you want the gold medal still?
the problem is that there are people who would say yes, even after moments of silent meditation within the self.
but we have no choice. choice is a luxury, all i can do is stumble onward in a mist. i want to put in some gatsbyesque thing about mist and fog and currents here but i can't pluck it out of memory. this may all sound very pessimistic but the only reason why i would write about this is because i possess an innately positive soul. the acknowledgement of the lamp of hope burning low stems from a knowledge of hope in the first place.
so here i sit at my desk, pouring my creative energies (what a glorious term!) into a piece of prose that might not amount to much, is written much for self-satisfaction and a justifiable selfish desire to be acknowledged, and contains much of my own opinion, as opposed to putting said creative energies into my en1101e essay, which lies on the toolbar of my computer, waiting for me to engage. but i cannot bring myself into truly dedicating myself into that piece of work.
so i continue typing. consider this my futile resistance to the struggle for results that we are thrown into. is it really that bad? is it not necessary in the end? but those are the very questions which cause us to accept the rhetorical answers and eventually assimilate us into the sad fate of deliberately blind obedience.
a red day indeed
