prayer to the gods of (lazy) commerce students

Oh Smith, Kenynes, Hicks and Hansen, distinguished and most annointed gods of economics. i humbly submit myself before thee, as a reformed procrastinator. grant me the brains to comprehend thy convoluted wisdom. i promise to live life as an upright, grade-fearing prudent undergrad who will read till i can recite and reproduce every IS-LM, AS-AD, models and what-not from your holy scriptures, if you would just let me pass my mid-sems with decent grades (assume reduce procrastination, and hardwork cetris paribus). This i ask in your most holy names. Amen.


' The path of the undergraduate is beset on all sides by the insiduity of procrastination and the impotence of crappy lecturers.
Blessed is he, who out of industry and perseverance, sheperds his tortured being through the valley of academic obscurity, for he is truly an expert mugger and the finder of missing examinable chapters.
And I will strike upon thee with crappy grades and supplementary papers on those who attempt to ignore and undermine scholastic priorites, and you will know that my name is The Lord when i lay thy failures upon thee.'
--- Tarantino 25:17

the devil's incaranate

i read an entry from donaq's blog where he posted an entry describing an anecdote about how teachers are not neccessarily the most inspiring people we meet in our lives. i have a little anecdote myself. it happened when i was in sec 1.

it all started when i brought this joke book into class. it was sorta of like a compilation of jokes found in the ancient cyberspace then. being the cyberspace joke book that it is, the contents wasn't exactly in line with the singaporean perception of humor then , especially with its many jokes involving sex and religion which certainly didn't go down well with the puritans, as i would soon find out to my own detriment. here's an example of one of the jokes found inside the book:

" Four nuns died in a car accident and they soon arrived to heaven in front of the Pearly gates. St Peter who was in charged there, got the 4 nuns to line up in a straight line and went through the usual pre-heaven entry procedure interrogating them one by one. St Peter then asked the first nun 'Have you ever had sex before?' And the first nun replied 'No i haven't, but i've seen one before though'. St Peter then said, 'good, wash your eyes in this basin of holy water and then proceed to enjoy eternal life in the kingdom of the Lord.' The first nun did as she was told and gleefully went through the Pearly gates. St Peter then asked the second nun ''Have you ever had sex before?' to which the second nun replied 'No, i haven't. But i've touched a penis with my hands before though.' St Peter then told her to wash her hands in the basin of holy water and then proceed to enter heaven. At this point of time, the fourth nun immediately jumped ahead of the third nun ahead of the queue. St Peter, clearly irrate at the fourth nun's behaviour scolded her. 'Hey, what do you think you're doing!' To which the fourth nun replied pointing at the third nun 'i'm sorry about that, but i would want to gargle in the basin before she puts her ass in it....' "

my form teacher, Mr David Chen was one of those old-school prudes who probably derives pleasure in telling the entire class about his lifestory during what was supposed to be English lessons. interestingly, Mr Chen has a frienster profile btw, probably done up by one my juniors who's being taught by him. his stories ranged from the ego-trips describing how he was an former ASP in the policeforce, a master degree holder (which he felt sorta makes him a cut above his peers during his time and hence his decision to become a teacher seemingly an act of self-sacrifice), or how he is on close terms with some members of the upper crust of singaporean society (such as a certain Dr WC Chen or something who was supposed to be some big fuck in Thomson medical centre). to the grandfather-ish stories about how life was so tough in his teens, and how he managed to improve his english by carrying a little notebook which he uses to jot down words which he din know while reading readers' digest. and to the outrageous such as that recalling how a student sought counselling with him after the student was ass-raped on his way home during his first year as a teacher at New Town Sec sch, or perhaps my personal favourite: his embellished description of the old Toa Payoh riots (which i dun even think he was involved in), in which women in the slums or villages there who refused to be vacated from their homes when the government wanted to reclaim the state land to build flats and then stripped naked to taunt the riot police and challenged them to crawl under their legs.he was a very staunch christian as well, which probably will explain what happened to me.

so during one of his usual ego-induglence rants, i was sitting at my desk, quietly reading my joke book which i discreetly placed under the book compartment below the desk. somehow Mr Chen found out, and was pretty peeved at the fact that someone in class was not interested in listening to his stories and then confiscated my joke book and gave a few usual scolding and then promptly went back to his story-telling. well i thought that was that and the lesson ended.

and when Mr Chen came back to class for another period in the later part of the day, he was suddenly inexplicably pissed. apparantly some other teacher complained to him about our class's misdemeanors, and started singleling students out for punishment because in his words, 'u bloody fools, u disgraced me in front of other teachers'. so after Alywin and Dunyi was singled out to stand outside the class, i suddenly found his attention directed at me. he then slammed my joke book onto the teacher's desk and said i was an 'undesirable influence on the class'. to make his point, Mr Chen then read out a few random jokes from the book to the rest of the class. instead of serving to reinforce whatever point he was trying to make, that actually tickled the whole class off and everyone started laughing - except Mr Chen himself. he grew even more pissed started shouting at our whole class and called me a bloody idiot whose mind is corrupted by such dirty, blasphemous book. i mean come on lor, during recess time or free periods our entire class always had our own mini porn website exchange symposium or PCC 101 discussion as any other classful of young pubescent boys would and somehow I AM supposed to be the only one with a corrupted mind? I tried to argue with him saying that it was only a joke book, and that it was nothing at all. somehow that pushed him over the edge and before i could even state my point of view, Mr Chen lost the plot, and cut me out while pointing his finger at me in words that i will always remember: 'YOU! You are the Devil's Incarnate which Satan sent to destroy the entire class!!!' and then went on ranting about how it was the devil's insidious work of how i'm am sent to undermine God's teachings blah blah blah. shortly after, i found myself joining Alywin and Dunyi outside the class. i was like WTF? Alywin was there because he was wise-cracking and hence pissed off our bitch-of-a history teacher Agnes 'square-jawed' Lim, Dunyi cos' he never ever does his homework and was the mastermind in locking our chinese teacher outside the classroom during the day we were supposed to have our chinese test. and me, all because i was reading a joke book during lesson?!
after the lesson, the 3 of us were marched off to the teachers' room and stood outside there. Cheebye, those kaypoh students and teachers who dun even teach our class who would walk pass and make stupid comments or ask us what was our crime are just so fucking irritating. i just din know what to answer so i just said i wasn't paying attention in class. Mr Chen then asked us for our house numbers and started calling up our parents one by one. i thought that was IT. at thirteen, it is a huge taboo to have a teacher calling up ur parents. strangely, as i found out after going home that day, my parents were in fact, pretty bemused by the whole incident and just got off with some token scoldings. and for the rest of the year, i was known by the class as the Devil's Incaranate, as some sort of a term of endearment fortunately. most of the class didn't ostracise me at all though according to sow chen -whom i befriended later on in sec 2 - at that point, being the good-2-shoes that he was quite convinced that i am a negative influence and thus shouldn't talk to me.

the whole shebang actually seems quite amusing in hindsight, but at that point of time, it was considerably traumatic. but through it all, i never really resented Mr Chen. Sure he wasn't exactly the best teacher around, at least he was entertaining. that was in fact the only time when he described me as the devil incarnate. in the years after i graduated, he was still one of those teachers that i would always look for for a chat whenever i return to my alma mater for a visit. oh yes, he was also endearingly nicknamed 'Bulldog Face' by our class then. somehow he eventually found out about it when someone bao tohed to him and Dunyi was again under the brunt of his wrath, another story for another day.


Mr David Chen, AKA Bulldog Face.

for honour and glory, and the dearth of fresh undies....

... i shall go commando. or so i thought.

i swear, nothing pisses a person off more than putting up all your laundry while wearing the same boxer shorts for the second consecutive day only to see a drizzle pouring on it minutes after you step into the house. u curse your luck, and then ur stupidity in not having the foresight to either do your laundry before you run out of fresh underwear or at the very least, check the weather report before putting out the clothes. when one stares at the possibility of wearing the same wretched underwear for the third day straight, going commando is certainly a very tempting option. i must say, ever since the time when i started wearing underwear as a kid, i have never gone a day without my trusted balls-carrier whenever i'm outta home. there are two main reasons why i would NEVER go commando even if it means not changing underwear for the rest of my life.

1. apart from serving as a shield for one's family jewels against the trecherous force of gravity, more importantly, an underwear serves as the last line of defence to any potential embarrassment. either when one's fly is open. or worse, during random inexplicable moments of arousal. as u can probably see from my moniker, unfortunate ppl like me tend to *ahem* hormat senja ta for even the most innocuous reasons like perhaps weather being too cold, fabric too itchy etc etc simply because we never had the benefit of actual combat training.

2. i had a rather traumatic experience with my pre-adolescent experiment with going commando which i WILL NEVER wanna go through again. i was probably 3 or 4 years old then and i was out shopping with my aunt in the neighbourhood shops opposite my house. my aunt was busy doing the grocery shopping while i indulged myself in looking at the fishes in the aquarium shop next door. for some reason, staring at the acquarium made me wanna pee. so thinking that i'm a 'big boy now', i din wanna bother my aunt about such issues what wouldn't bother big boys (i assure you that is by no means a pun nor an equivocation of the description of a certain part of my anatomy...sadly.), i proudly went towards the drain, unzipped my pants and did what a big boy's gotta do. after finishing the deed, confidence got the better of me and in a swashbuckling motion i zipped up my pants. suave as i thought i was, i soon realised that i forgot the most important part of the peeing drill, that of erm...erm.. rescinding the turtle back into its shell so as to speak. it was a very painful lesson. the turtle's skin got stuck with the zipper and i was actually bleeding. i had to call my aunt for help and not surprisingly, that attracted alot of kaypoh spectators too. the worst part of it all: the only way to unjam the zipper was to first zip it down before it could be zipped up again. so it happened, my agony just got doubled. for that reason, i figured that if i had worn an underwear, it would at least have reminded me of the crucial step which i missed in my arms checking drill. i cannot understate how grateful i am to my parents for NOT opting to circumcise me when i was an infant...

fortunately, the drizzle remained just a drizzle today and by evening, i happily welcomed long awaited reinforcement of fresh undies. it was probably also for these reasons why even our elite commandos do not actually go commando. and even if they did, the SAF slacks are all button-flyed for a very very good reason...

an effluent's lament (journey through singapore's academic filtration system)

just read through blinkymummy's post on the bureaucracy's lack of creativity and donaq's post on his annecdote about how the singaporean education system actively detracts students from creative thinking. both posts struck a chord in me. my take on the reason why the singaporean bureaucracy has such an overly placed (and arguably 'misplaced' in the light of bureaucratic debacles like the Suzhou Industrial Park) confidence on purely academic indicators is that it lies in the entrenched societal mindsets that preaches the trumping of academic over other holistic developements. it's 3 in the morning and i'm just too lazy to type out what i really feel about the whole issue so i'm just gonna reproduce the comment i posted on BM's blog:

' as perhaps one of those who in your words can be described as a 'defect' of the system i can empathise with what u're saying. beyond the systemic factors which you described that discriminates against the less-academically inclined, i believe however that it is our entrenched societal mindset that really contribute to our singaporean brand of organisational dogmatism. and the root of such entrenched dogmatism i believe, lies in the family.

right from the time when i was a kid, i was indoctrinated into thinking that the only credible measure of one's success is neccessarily one's academic achievements. when i was in pri 6, i did well enough to qualify for a SAP sch and my parents were proud of me and i was the shining jewel in their possession. at sec 4, i screwed up for my Os and thus enrolled into one of the Crappiest JCs whose only claim to fame was perhaps its (allegedly) highest abortion rates among all JCs. and all a sudden was the bane in my parents' eyes, the perennial source of embarrassment which they sought to hid at every family gathering. it sucks when you feel betrayed by of all people, your own parents. and for years after that, i could not forgive myself for my mediocrity. that was afterall, the the only yardstick i knew to measure my self-worth.

it was only after going through more in life and especially during army having served in a hokkien peng unit, that i could reconcile myself with the fact that academic performance is arguably the worst yardstick to measure anyone's intrinsic worth. yet through it all, even till today, i still hold no grudges against the very system where i emerged as the effluent through singapore's filtration of meritocracy. the only regret i had was simply being unable to trump the system and play the game to my best advantage.

to be discarded, and yet at the same time not hate the system. i guess that speaks alot about the degree of dogmatic entrenchment which i believe many others of my age were subjected to. '
the perception of betrayal from my parents as illustrated in this post as well as eventual long chain-causality of events after the O level fiasco continued to haunt me in the subsequent years - and still sporadically even now.

fun, friendships and guiltless procrastination aside, the JC years was emotionally, the unhappiest phase of my life (and i'll be glad to keep it this way). it was a time of coming to terms with my own mediocrity as well as the pain in self-loathing, self-pity and eventually convincing ourselves (several classmates felt the same way too, and it didn't help that we collectively indulged in such ludicrously negative mindset then) that we were the scum of the college system, whose only purpose of existence was to provide statistical fodder to prop up the students from better colleges up the bell curve. it's ridiculous in retrospect, but at that point of time, there simply wasn't any culture within my group of friends to just take the rational step to study hard and put past academic disappointments aside and shape up for the A levels. to us then, the stigma attached to being a member of a wretched college was irreversible and there simply wasn't any incentive to do anything cos' we're so convinced of the fact that being associated with such a crap college = lifetime of mediocrity. it was no surprise why the downward facing dove, pigeon or whatever bird in our college crest was often intepreted by the students as 'a fall from grace'

to explain myself, and to be fair to the alumni from the same college, that was purely what we (subjective notion) felt at age 17-18. for those students who were keen and motivated to learn, the teachers were in all honesty, extremely helpful. if not for the maths teacher Mr 'Sexy' Foo who most willing responded to my desperate attempts at damage limitation by giving me post-prelim consults and for never not giving up on me even after all the times where i skipped his tutorials and verbally embarrassed him in class by being really disrespectful, i would almost definitely have flunked maths c. and so it was a self-fulfilling prophesy. we all screwed up our A levels though it was in fact a pleasant surprise relative to my low expectations. it was indeed by all counts, a miracle that i actually qualified for a place in a university.

national service marked the real turning point in this nadir of my life. for it really broadened by perspective towards life, and provided a much need respite between the persistence of memories and a new start in university. and it is for this reason, that i'm really grateful that i had the chance to serve as a footsoldier in 35 SCE. it was there where i realised that academic indicators are not the end all. at 35, i met many hokkien pengs who are so infinitely more streetwise than me or any other A level guys in my platoon. when shit hits the fan, it was always the hokkien pengs who gets the problem solved and never the A level guys. our whole platoon kenna plus 2 minus 2? fret not, tan joo heng would be there to put up a most eloquent argument in flawless hokkien to cham siong with the platoon sergeant that would probably put even hokkien orators like lim chin siong or tan liang hong to shame. stores got lost during outfield training and whole platoon kenna sign 1206? nothing to fear, cos' gaya and murali would be there to perform their contortionist act in squeezing between the gates of the condemned store to 'borrow' some double bollards (yes that's the real name of an Engineer store) just to save the pockets of us, their poor platoon mates from paying 1206. nevermind the fact that they each have to sign 5 extras when the PS found out about it.

gary who prior to enlistment worked as an ah-long once tried to explain to me the compound interest as well as the re-financing of loans pricing model (or gua siao) which ah-longs use. while i could sorta comprehend the former in a half fuck maner (cos' if ah long take deduct the first interest payment from the principle at date of loan, would it then be an annuity due or normal annuity with deducted principle or what?), even till today, after 6 weeks of attending Introduction to Finance, i still have no idea how the fuck gua siao actually works. if gary was brought up in the right circumstances during his formative years and had not dropped out at sec 2 to chup 18 siao, he would certainly make a brilliant accountant or banker someday. in short, we the A level ppl in the platoon are always the clueless followers. it was there at 35 where i learnt the value of integrity, of friendships, and street-wiseness. and it was also there where i made frens like bingquan, murali, teo, and jessel, ppl whom i can safely say will be my lifelong brothers.

there just seems to be a compulsive need for singaporeans to just rank and evaluate everyone and everything from schools, to hawker stalls and public toilets by its form and not its substance. and even if that was really neccessary, there're just so many facets and dimensions to human behaviour, so why do we have to be just so pre-occupied in assessing one's self-worth by academic yardsticks?

attempt at hokkien cover of j-kwon's 'tipsy' (WARNING: VERY VERY N.S.F.W)

boredom drives people to do stupid things. some attempt crazy stunts like what you see on ebaumsworld.com. here's my own way of dealing with my bored shitlessness. it all started when i was trying to fathom the dozens of weird hierographic-esque algebric equations for my finance module while grooving to the beat of j-kwon's tipsy on my ipod mini which was somehow strategically placed in between some hokkien songs in my shuffle playlist. the result is what's below. if you can't understand hokkien or at least my attempt at anglicising hokkien, then that's just too bad. if you do, all i have to say is that, i'm REALLY NOT into scat... Here it goes:
























Tipsy - Hokkien Mix

1, here comes the 2 to the 3 to the 4,
bai lak wa nah chu boh tai ji zor
peng yu jio ke cheong, lim kao wa ai bang jeor
bo bian, wa kah kin cheong ke qi soh
ke liao siang zai qi soh long zhong tio sor
wa wan ‘kueh meng!’ e lang long zhong tia boh
lim peh lan lan cheong ki club wah kao eh bay lor
kek liao jin koo eh jeor bang liao si zai sibeh song

here comes the 3 to the 2 to the 1,
wah beo tio wu ji eh chiobu ji eh lang
tao ji ku e tiu meng wa ‘ai em ai sio kan?’
wah! wa buay siong sim jit bai an neh ho tan!
siang zai e kong e kin jit lai ang,
buay sai eng cheebye kar wa sio kan
e yar kong e eh pooi pee liao jin pang
na si mai hiam, wa eh sai pu e a kar chng kang


Chorus:
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)

2, comes the 3 to the 4 to the 5
siao chong nao eh wa siew ‘mai hiam buay pai’
chiobu meng wa ‘ai mai?’ wa kong ‘ai’
wa tiu kar e tng choo, tao liao ke bang kian lai
wa eng ji lar e a cheebye
lar kao jin zuay zhup lao chut lai
siang zai e high gao sai toh lao chut lai!
hai wa tio poon suan bin long zhong toh si sai….

hokkien, seng si, seng gao sar, seng gao ji
tio poon sai eh wa kan pua seng kee
chiobu gong ‘paiseh, zar jit wa jia liao pai eh kway ji’
kio wah ‘mian kia, zang zui liao wa lang zai si’
mm zai an zua char boh high liao anneh ti kee,
lai ang tia kao ai see, dan sio kan si tiu boh tai ji
eh sai bia chiobu wa e sim eng kai si jin hua hee
dan si sai eh ba woo pee liao an zua eh sai kee!



Chorus:
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)

si, seng kao sar seng kao ji seng kao yo
zang zui an zhua sway, ba woo toh si sway bo ho
wa kua teo, sai lai wu yong tau foo, fishball kah kio
wan lan! kay zui liao, machiam si sai zhup zoh tng eh juan loh!
siew tio sai tng, lim peh buay tahan kar kin tor
tor chut lim eh jiu liao kua liao mee kia jin chin chor
zang liao zui wah eh sai kua tio chiobu chin chor tam por.
ee yer!! guan lai eh kah, qiu kar armpit long zhong wu moh!!!

here comes the 4 to the 3 to the 2,
machiam chewbacca anneh kuan eh char boh toh wu
bak chew tak chiam eh wa, lim liao jiu si zai hoo tu
mai tu liao, cheng sar liao, kah kin zhao tng choo!

Chorus:
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)
long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui
(long zhong eh lang kar wah lim gao zui)

35 eh ginna PAH BUAY TOH!!

i was surfing around googling and for some inexplicable reason stumpled upon the link for the award winners for SAF day 2005. lo and behold!! i just realised that the 35th battalion, Singapore Combat Engineers won the best combat engineers unit for this year!! this is only the second time since the award's inception where the bridging folks at 35 SCE managed to break the strangehold 36 SCE have on the awards.

alright, perhaps the joy seemed somewhat over-rated considering the fact that the honour was attributed to the hardwork of the junior batch of bridging pionners from Alpha coy after i ORDed and not us from Bravo Coy. but it's just that kind of joyous empathy you have when you see your alma mater jumping a gazillion notches up the school rankings and 35 is in every sense, a place where i received the defining education of my life. it is in every way, THE school of hard knocks.

i would dare say that the sense of identity for each individual combat engineer unit probably is much stronger than battalions from other formations such as perhaps the infantry for the simple reason that unlike the infantry or artillery, each individual engineer battalion is defined by its specialised role within the diverse functions of the combat engineers formation. those from 30 will only do field pioneer stuff and those from 35 will stick to our bridging ricebowls, seldom will the twain shall meet. and for this reason, regulars and even NSFs tend to be stuck within the same camp and personnel movement are more often than not an internal affair rather than through external posting-in.

this camaraderie was perhaps best accentuated during the inter-unit soccer matchs and the title of the post was the result of a spontaneous cheer the almond guys gave to our own platoon mates who were on the team when we were watching the match between 35 and 30 SCE. and jessel, the solid centreback of the team eternalised that ever since. that year (2003), 35 SCE and AETC -armoured engineers training centre - met in the final of the engineer formation inter-unit soccer tournament which was held in our homeground in seletar camp. the stakes were high, as our CO, 'bai-kar' leong was quite a diehard soccer fan (he was at a point of time temporarily downgraded for tearing his knee ligament after a soccer match, hence the nickname), the entire unit could conceivably get a long weekend should we win the match. it was by no means an easy match even though 35 were 2 goals up after half time. tensions were mounting on the pitch and the AETC guys were getting more and more physical. jeering and swearing from the homecrowd grew louder by the minute. and since most of the team was made up by bravo people, and since the pitch was just beside bravo coy, the rowdiest part of the crowd was in fact, also from bravo coy. man, it was great fun trying to intimidate the opposition shouting and cursing the entire lineage of any AETC player who dared to make a challenge regardless of whether it was fair or not. for that one day at least, the pitch in seletar east camp was our nou camp, our santiago bernabeu, and perhaps more befittingly, our ali sami yen stadium

the catalyst came somewhere in the late second half after AETC pulled a goal back. AETC was getting more aggressive, and one of the AETC players made a challenge on raymond pong, our star striker who was also from bravo, candace platoon. that was in fact the second consecutive time in a span of minutes where raymond pong was singled out for rough treatment by the same AETC player. that probably got to him and so rayomnd squared up to the fucker and the fucker shoved raymond pong. soon the both teams gather around the 2 players and there was also some shuffling between some other player. that gesture made the bravo crowd turn mad, and New K Yaw, Raymond's platoon mate (that is most unfortunately for him, his real name) the ringleader of candace, shot up with a resounding 'NABEH PUAH CHEE BYE!'and lept forward charging on the pitch. and that was the moment, without and sychronising, all of us who were around New K yaw shot up ready to charge into the pitch with our water canteens in hand. we were already stepping into the pitch and ready to throw our water canteens towards the AETC ppl until the one of the warrant officers from ARMCEG shouted at us to shift 7 steps behind the pitch. fuck, that killed the momentum for a spontaneous pitch invasion and till this day, i would love to think about how it would be like should we have charged into the pitch and if not beat up, at the very least scare the shit out of that AETC motherfucker....

' We the Engineers of the SAF
A force to reckon with, support role that we play.
Training as one for the SAF.
Striving for the best, for our dear motherland.

We do the work, you cannot do without.
We do the work, you cannot but be proud.
Oh! Combat Engineers of the SAF,
a force to reckon with in defence of our land!

We the blue berets of the SAF.
A force at the frontline, a force that fortifies.
Whereupon we stand, unwavered by no man.
That's the way to defend to success.

We do the work, you cannot do without.
We do the work, you cannot but be proud.
Oh! Combat Engineers of the SAF,
a force to reckon with in defence of our land! '

-- The Engineers March

advice to bryan/ random indulgence in nostalgia

i was browsing around aimlessly when i surfstopped at bryan's blog. apparantly the dictators failed to break at the hwa chong invitationals championships this time round and he's feeling pretty upset about it. and he probably has every right to feel so. back last year when i was coaching them and as such having followed the sec sch debating circuit, i can objectively say that he is by far in my opinion the among the top 3 secondary three school debaters of his year, and arguably the second brightest sec 3 debater, just marginally behind sam cheam. despite his somewhat retarded rants, bryan is perhaps the most precociously developed talent in the history of gong jiao debating and with proper guidance, together with sam cheam and awyong, we're looking at what's probably gonna be three-fifths of the singapore world schools' team in 3 years time. i'm am no outsider to debating disappointments myself and i find it ironic for me to motivate and advice bryan if you were to just read my previous post-australs entry about a month ago. but anway, i had my fair share of languishing in secondary school debating mediocrity back in my first 3 years at gong jiao, and with that i really hope to encourage bryan for there's no greater pity than to see someone so talented in what he does, turning his back on that very gift in embitterment. i'm too lazy to type so here's the comment i dropped at his blog:


'... i can totally empathise with how u feel. back in my lower sec days, when debating was still in the archaic 4 on 4 style, where motions were bloody crappy, we were the whipping boys of the debates circuit, avoiding defeat every year in only 1 of the 8 debates we were involved in for the british council debates. adjudication was even more dodgy. why do i say that? cos' back in 1998, in a debate against ACSi, after an hour and a half of deliberation by the 2 (yes, 2 not 3) adjudicators who were in fact teachers from each school, the debate was declared as a draw! this has to be the most classic moment in the history of singapore sec sch competitive debating cos' i dun believe any other debate at a competitive level has EVER ended with a draw. u can therefore see how far debating has progressed since. we had huge reservations about our own abilities, and each subsequent debate seemed nothing more than ego battery. but despite all odds, we desperately yearned to achieve something in our final year in CH. and with nothing more than sheer determination and faith in ourselves, we managed to break into the grand final and away from the label as the also-rans. cat high debating has never looked back ever since. and i can proudly say, that you guys, the 2005/06 dictators are indeed the living legacy of this institution. while there'll always be the intrinsic fear of not being able to measure up to our own expectations, the postivity of it all is that it is the bold and ambitious who are often disappointed by the temporal inability to achieve perfection, for it is also something that the also-rans who are willing to settle for much lesser things, can never appreciate. all i can say is that, keep the faith, have an industrious attitude befitting that of someone who deserves to win, and regardless of results, u can justify to the restless inner being in you, that you are a chum-peon ('champion' pronounced ala dictator fashion) in your own right.'


to say that the first three years of my secondary debating career was spent in mediocrity is simply an understatement. (well, in fact, make that my entire debating career for that matter). cat high was indeed the proverbial whipping boys from 1996-1998. here's the record:

1996: 1 win outta 3. only win against victoria school

1997: 5 defeats outta 6 (3 rounds per team) including my fateful competitive debut against nanyang girls' where we proposed the unbelievable motion 'That songs sound better in showers'. The only reason we avoided a total whitewash was the fact that dunman high who we were supposed to debate at the last round inexplicably withdrew from the round and we gleefully just assumed that they chickened out.

1998: 5 defeats outta 6 and 1 draw !?! (refer to above). this was the year where ridiculous motions are THE new black. here're some from the top of my head: 'That Men with Moustaches have evil intentions', 'That i would rather be a sparrow than a snail', 'That snail mail is better than email'

what's more interesting was that we did have 2 guys who were in name our 'debate coaches', greg and neil who has since craved a career in journalism and writing books about ang mohs living in singapore (yes, he is that Today/Newpaper watever journalist neil humphreys) from some speech teaching centre called Juliet McCully or something. but what greg and neil taught us had next to nothing to do with argumentation, since they basically just focus on the way to project our voices, inntonation, how to put the correct stresses on which syllable of a word yada yada yada. so it probably wasn't any surprise why we had such a woeful record.

the turning point came in secondary 4, which was also the defining year for secondary school debating as well as catholic high's debating society. 1999 was the inaugural year for the new Julia Gabriels' secondary schools debating championships where rules for debating governing that of the defenitions and other technicalities was formally institutionalised and the World Schools' format of debating was adopted. No more ridiculous debates about men with moustaches or sparrows and snails. it was also the year where against all odds, the cat high also-rans broke free of the shackles of mediocrity to make it to the grand final. it was really a fairy tale in more than one ways. firstly, we broke into the semi finals by the skin of our teeth, defeating RI (our bishan local nemesis) in their own school, and CHIJ TP and losing the 'derby - of - school - shorts' to chinese high. with 2 wins outta 3, we made the break as the 4th (and final teams) to the semi-finals (back then there were no quarter finals). only to be informed that we were in fact the 5th placed team and that we broke because of a mathematical error. so we had to see off the challenge of another IJ team (the rightful semi-finalists) and then exact sweet revenge on chinese high in the semi-final before succumbing to RGS in the grand final. not too bad for a school who quadrupled its cummulative number of competitive wins over the past 3 (maybe more) years in just one season. and for that, our teacher in charged Miss Teo - better known as the Faith Teo who writes for Newpaper nowadays (it's interesting how people who had anything to do with cat high debates eventually turn to journalism) - and our esteemed coach and senior Benedict were truly the inspiration behind this fairly tale after all the nights we spent prepping cases in school up till 11 pm at night. which also brings me to the second reason why 1999 was the year of the fairy tale. it was the year where Ben met Faith through debate coaching, where the 1 hr prep time taken for us prep cases provided a decent excuse for them to retire to god-knows-where in the school compound to frolick hahaha. it was probably a realisation of fantasies for both of them since Ben was then in the army therefore wore his uniform to training sessions and well Faith was a teacher, and when u add up the female's uniform fetish with every guy's fetish for school teachers (probably the result of an unhealthy dose of japanese role playing porn the internet generation is fed on), u have a romance. and before u dismiss this as just some kinky random whim and not a fairy tale of sorts, well as of 1st of Jan this year, Ben and Faith are blissfully married.

so random indulgences in nostalgia aside, what i really hope to tell bryan is that, persevere and put in the hardwork - there's no alternative to the path of glory. while there're many factors beyond our control, strive for the best, and we can look back at the past with the fondest of memories and not the embitterment of underachievement. we have a good team this year, with bryan, andre, zeyi and ang tze kai (yet another sec 2 prodigy). i'm not too sure about andre and zeyi but i really hope their attitude and mentality towards debating has improved since i last saw them. with sheer hard work and due dilligence, i cannot and refuse to believe that the only acceptable conclusion for the individual fairy tales of these 4 young men neccessarily has to end in underachievement. Who Dares Wins. Dare to dream.