power naps...

I never really believed in power naps. But yesterday, I had a real power nap experience.

I fell asleep for about 10 minutes. After waking up, I couldn't fall back to sleep.

Shucks.

beginning of the end...

Tomorrow is the beginning of exams.

I am in "I'm too slack for my own good" kinda mood.

last day...

Today is the last day of school. It might as well be the last day of my university life. Well, it might be. I came home with the intention of starting my last lit paper (alliteration!). But I guess blogging about this is more important. I was bugging me since this morning when I read the newspaper. Not to blog about this would have surmounted to a pure disregard of my university education as well as Dr. Abra*ham.

I am going to talk about a letter in the forum of The Straits Times. It is a reply by the Min*istry of Education, a potential employer if I might just add. The reply was to a father's, Mr. Tan, concern about his daughter career which appeared in the same forum on Tuesday, 15th April. Suffice to say, I'm not pleased with the reply that the ministry has given.

If I had not read the letter from Tuesday, I might have been placated by the reply given in today's forum. Unfortunately for the ministry, I did happen to read the letter from Tuesday and I thought that the ministry had totally skirted the real issue raised by Mr. Tan.

The main gist of the Tuesday letter was that Mr. Tan's daughter had applied to further her studies overseas. During this period, she would have to take no-pay leave. However, while she had no qualms about this, she did have an issue with the fact that there would be no teacher sent to replace her in her absence. The only way that the school could get a replacement teacher was if she had left the profession. In order not to disadvantage her students, she decided to leave her job so that a new teacher could come in. She was then a Head of Department. Mr. Tan then talked about how she then got a scholarship from an Australian university and might decide to stay there in the long term. This will result in a brain drain.

The reply today from the ministry was mainly about how the ministry could not hold Mr. Tan's daughter's school position while she was studying and that the ministry was looking at different ways that could allow more teachers to further their studies without having them leave the profession. In a very indirect way the ministry states, and I quote, "the school can draw on the additional teacher posts MO*E will set aside while she is away for her studies." I take this to mean that the school can request for a replacement teacher.

I thought that the reply did not readily answer the most salient point of Mr. Tan's letter. I thought the most important point was that if Miss Tan had taken no-pay leave instead of quitting, there would be no replacement teacher. The reply should have concentrated on this point. Or at least state it more explicitly that the school is able to draw upon replacement teachers. By putting the point that the ministry cannot hold Miss Tan's position for her while she goes to study was totally irrelevant. The ministry sees this as the most important point of Mr. Tan's letter. However, if Miss Tan were so concerned about her position in school, she wouldn't have quit in the first place, she could have just taken the no-pay leave.

This letter just proves that most people usually emphasize the wrong points which results in the letter being not as effective as it could be. It's also quite frightening to know that a reply given by the Mini*stry of Education can be so... argumentally (no such word!) ineffective. No wonder kids these days whine instead of reason.

readings...

Tuesday is my free day. I look forward to my free days. I usually get quite a few things done today. But today's kinda different. Today I just feel so lethargic. Tried getting a reading done today and now i have a couple of things to say.

The reading in question is by Dav*id West*erlund about Islam. Firstly, I would like to say that for an academic paper, it sounds really bias. And I didn't really get anything out of it. I think it was suppose to have been chronological, but it seemed to be skipping here there and everywhere. No offence to Mr. D*avid, but it was really one of those things that kinda wasted my day. I could have spent my day much more productively by searching for the corresponding page in my lit text.

old wives' tales...

The old wives' tale that I will try to debunk today is the one about white hair. The tale goes that if you have white hair, you shouldn't pluck it. If you do, you will end up with 3 more white hair in the place of the one you removed.

If you don't know, I have an area at the top of my head which grows specially white hair. Currently, it's the only place that grows white hair. God willing, it'll stay that way. Anyway, back to the story. Today, I tried plucking one of the white hairs. It was straggly and it was just so tempting. However, in the process of plucking one white hair, I also managed to remove 2 black hairs.

In conclusion, it's not that you will grow more white hairs, but you will lose too many black hairs in the process, therefore making your white hair look more obvious.

the jumping song...

Went to planetshakers worship thingy on Friday. It was better than the one that I went for about 2 or 3 years back. It was less rock and more worship. Ti*m Hu*ges was good as well. Both of them had a song that had "Jump" as a central theme, the planetshakers one more than the T*im H*uges one. Derr*ick made the comment, "They all have a jumping song."

exchange students...

This was the very first thing that I wanted to blog about. There was something else, but unfortunately, I cannot really remember it. So it'll have to be just this one incident.

Exchange students seem to have a really different culture from local students. This morning, I had a guest lecture for the South As*ian module. Well, it's not like it's an uncommon occurrence. but what happened today, it's still the first time I've seen it.

One of the exchange students in the class came in and he sat behind the lecturer and the guest lecturer. He was initially talking to the usual lecturer and the next thing he did was ask the lecturer who the guy sitting next to her was. He then proceeded to shake the guest lecturer's hand and banter.

I guess it's just a case of different cultures.

asking too much?

It's nearly 2am, but apparently I still awake. Compiling a ton of information isn't easy. It's not made any easier when people tread on your nerves.

Do we do too much? How much is too much? If I'm not supportive because I'm absent so be it. I'm absent. I'm not supportive. But I get it, I get that by being absent I'm not showing support. What's with all the SHOUTING on msn? Will I understand better when stuff are written in capitals? You might think that I don't understand, and maybe I don't but I'm not as hell deaf.

Anyways, people don't do things because they feel bad, they do things because they want to.