Reformasi
POSTED AT 12:32 AM

My workplace has undergone a mini-revolution of sorts. No longer do I do research projects and prepare catalog listings for my boss; instead I've gone back to customer service and answering queries. Well, it was pretty fun while it lasted - much more interesting and challenging than telling customers when their orders are scheduled to arrive - but I plowed through all the projects pretty quickly and all too soon there was nothing left to do.

A change in the shift scheduling system means that I now only work two days a week. I like this arrangement, because working two days give me a base income which I can survive on, and it leaves me a lot of time for me to pursue other interests, such as to sign up for another more interesting but probably less well-paying job. I'll probably spend the next week poking around the classifieds and explore who is willing to hire this semi-employed, A-level qualified worker.

Speaking of A levels, the results were released on Friday, as you probably already know. I didn't read the papers on Saturday, which means that I am extremely ill-informed on the outcome - there was no mention of it in Sunday's papers. I tried searching online on the Straits Times website, but strangely one needs to have an account on the site in order to be able to view any articles.

As someone who gets his fair share of news online (Guardian.co.uk, Nytimes.com), I was rather surprised to find that our premier (and only) local newspaper, The Straits Times, which prides itself on being THE newspaper of the South East Asia region, has no proper online edition readily available to the masses. I can't even read the top story without a username and password. Somehow it seems so Singaporean; perhaps they're worried about diminishing the readership of their print version.

Since I was on the website, I thought I'd have a look at STOMP, the apparently wildly popular forum started by the newspaper. I like the interactivity of online forums, but this really isn't my type - perhaps if you like typing in singlish you might find it a little more palatable.

But I digress. A level results - I wonder how they turned out. Last year I gave tuition to an A-level student for about 2 months before her examinations; I certainly hope she has the results which she deserves.

Last Thursday, on the recommendation of a classmate, I went to see Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), the recent Oscar winner for best Foreign Language Film. My German's not good enough to be able to watch the movie without subtitles, but I was pretty thrilled to find that I could understand the dialogue when I read the subtitles - OK that sounds stupider than it is; I could recognise the words they were saying with the help of the subtitles - the hints they provided were enough for me to make the translation connection.

It's pretty good, not perhaps the most exciting or entertaining, but I think it provides a very good view into Cold War era East Germany. Poignant, but sad as well (sehr traurig, my classmate told me). I think it's a better film than the best picture winner, The Departed, which actually isn't really saying much when you think about it.

A new week ahead, perhaps with a new job in store for me?

Boohoo.
POSTED AT 12:37 AM

The New Paper ran a rather snide article (electronic edition here) the other day on students from my alma mater who were devastated by their less than perfect A-level results (read: anything short of 4 As). Splashed across the spreadsheet were photos of a girl in tears after receiving 3 As and 1 C, being comforted by her tutor (who, incidentally, was also my tutor, but didn't comfort me when my results came out).

In the "philosophical" words of one of her batchmates, "Being in this JC has warped our expectations of what is average."

Oh, please. Spare me the philosophy.

Sure, the expectations are pretty warped. The same results that a student from another JC might be overjoyed to achieve would be received considerably less enthusiastically in my school. Not to appear snobbish, but that's a real phenomenon.

However, don't blame it on the school! If anything, it's the students who place themselves under pressure to perform. It's the students who are enticed by the prospects of prestigious and well-paying scholarships, as well as the lure of overseas universities, and are compelled to deliver impeccable results. Peer pressure may be very strong, but the school itself does little to create such a mentality.

I suppose I can understand the origins of this trend. It is widely known that past students have a good record of obtaining scholarships, many of which are served at high-profile overseas universities. So naturally the junior students start to believe in themselves; they start to dream big, of one day matching those much lauded achievements of their seniors. Clearly, however, reality is much crueler, for not everyone possesses that kind of calibre, or examination nerve, to go out and get those top-of-the-line results.

Our philosopher also offered these pearls of wisdom: "I know [my friends from other JCs] will get average scores, and as long as those scores get them into the university, that's enough for them."

Wow. That's not a very nice way to look at the people you call your friends now, is it?

In any case, is it really such a bad thing to aim high? I think many of the students here are being vilified to add a good dose of controvesy into the news story. If I didn't get the results that I set out to achieve, I would have fallen short of my goals. And I would be pretty disappointed, especially if I knew that my results don't give credit to my true capability. It really doesn't matter how good the results are in absolute terms, because to me it would mean that I'd let myself down. It's really not a case about crying over the "tiny blemish", the missing scholarship or even not being able to go up "on stage", but simply the disappointment of having let oneself down. What's wrong with being devastated by that? In fact, I would say, letting oneself off the hook simply because those results are considered to be super by other people's standards, would be worse. Isn't it loathsome, to live one's life according to other people's standards?

Sick...
POSTED AT 10:31 AM

And feeling terrible.

What a damper. Bleah.

Now you know you're qualified, You're in the pole position, Put it in first gear, step on the pedal and drive ... fast
POSTED AT 01:18 PM

I crashed my Mom's car yesterday.

See, it wasn't that hard to say it, was it?

Well, 'crashed' might be too strong in the context; perhaps 'nudged' might be a little more euphemistically descriptive.

The car was parked in our porch and my Mom wanted to move it outside so as to leave the space inside free for my cousin to park her car. And who better to do the dirty work than the innocent son - the one whose driving test was so recently over that his photocard licence hadn't even arrived yet.

Who, me?

As the car crept out backwards through the gates I checked that both sides and the rear was clear of any danger, and turned the wheel full-lock to the right for the car to swing out to the right side, my intended destination. Dutifully, the front left side of the bumper swang outwards and connected solidly with the left gate.

屌.

Now the poor Cefiro has a bunch of ugly-as-hell scratches all over the left corner of the front bumper, and the bumper itself got a bit displaced. Or a lot. Or a bit.

On hindsight, it was an accident waiting to happen. What really irks me about this incident is that I wasn't being reckless or anything. On the contrary, I was trying my best to be quite careful about it. Unfortunately, the odds were stacked against me. I learnt how to drive in the Honda City/Civic kind of car, so the larger Cefiro was really extremely unwieldy and unfamiliar to my inexperienced hands. Plus, I didn't realise the danger of the car front swinging outwards when making a reverse turn, because I'd hardly ever been in such a situation before. Usually it's reverse back-in into the lot and then make the forward-facing turn out of the lot. In fact, I did the exact same manoeuvre the other day in an Altis with no mishap.

Ack. Does it sound like I'm self-rationalising here?

In any case, the damage has been done, and I can only hope the repair costs aren't going to be too hefty. More worrying for me is the amount of goodwill on the part of my parents that I burnt away doing something like this.

The Illness Diet
POSTED AT 12:28 AM

I've lost 3.5kg over the last couple of days from being sick. It's pretty scary, because I'm not really the sort whose weight fluctuates all over the charts - in fact it has stayed constant within a 1kg range for as long as I can remember, during my competition season, army and all. I have to pull my belt tighter than normal to prevent my trousers from slipping down my waist. It is noticeably different.

This is scary stuff.

Buying DVDs
POSTED AT 09:34 PM

I went to my neighbourhood VideoEzy today to look for Sophie Scholl - die letzten Tage. I've always enjoyed watching foreign films, and my recent exposure to Das Leben der Anderen has motivated me to seek out more German films. They're much more enjoyable than your average Hollywood fare, plus it's a good opportunity for me to get exposure to the language as well.

It wasn't available, though I did find another title Goodbye Lenin which looked pretty good. I would have gotten it, except that I was a bit put off by the high rental fees - $5 per DVD. It's really hard to spend so much money on a DVD rental when I know I can get to watch all these films online at those streaming websites.

It wasn't a wasted trip though, because there was a couple of rental DVDs on sale and I chanced upon Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. I'm a big fan of Zhang Yimou, so much so that even the abomination that is Curse of the Golden Flower couldn't put me off his films. So I came back with $10 less in my pocket, but feeling rather proud to at last not be getting my films through bootleg means.