I've not been blogging here for a long time. I guess one of the main reasons is that I realised that students who need help in tuition might not be the most motivated to actually want to post questions here to learn more, despite it being free.
Oh well, that is something that is totally unexpected. I thought that if I had an online portal for students to connect with me when I'm not there physically to teach them, it'll be good for them. Never really expected that they won't be come online to post anything, haha! If life is so predictable, we'll are be millionaires, won't we?
I'm also not blogging because I'm not so sure about the direction of this blog. Who am I writing to? What am I writing for? What is my aim of having this blog? All these questions are not so clear to me at this moment, and hence my lack of purposeful marketing and therefore the lack of motivation to carry 'talking' to myself here.
Anyway, I wanted to come here to lament about certain students I've encountered. It really pisses me off because of their attitude towards their own future. In the next few months, they will be sitting for a major milestone exam in their life, but I seem to be more worried than them regarding the lack of preparation. It's not as if I didn't warn them what will happen, since I've basically saw hundreds of students going through the same route as them (not discounting my own personal experience too). Do they think they can handle it without so much as lifting a finger? Do they think they can even pass without putting in even meagre efforts?
WAKE UP! Get real!! The real situation outside is worse than they can imagine, especially those who take A'lvls. The A'lvl is such a brutal examination that I dare say a big majority of those sitting for it (esp in the 2nd/3rd tier JCs) are NOT going to pass well enough to enter university. Good for you if you have your own parents' sponsorship to send you overseas to study, but for those who are not, where are you going after jc? Have you ever seriously thought about it?
I've students telling me they all sorts of excuse for skipping tuition. Some student even gave me this very lame excuse of being sick every other week. Bacteria or viruses love attacking you in a clockwork manner, so precisely making you sick every fortnightly? What are they trying to tell me? I hate students are who not forthcoming. Especially LIARS. I've dealt with enough of them.
Another one is supposed to have tuition twice per week. But that had been reduced to just once per week since last month. Why? Here are the reasons - birthday (need to go party), sick and not feeling well, remedial in school, after exams already etc etc etc. Hey, if you want to have just one tuition per week, don't waste my time slot by giving me lame excuses. You know what, I just fired you - from now on, you'll have your time slot taken by someone else. The most frustrating thing is that I wanted to tell the parents about this sudden turn of events by that student, so I asked for the parent's email. But guess what, they didn't seem to want to give me and ignored my request. GOOD, save me my efforts. I'm not exactly dying to tell you about your child's impending doom in O'lvls anyway.
When had I started to become so short tempered? Ever since I realised that my time on Earth is limited and I will try my best to help those who help themselves. With irritating students who didn't want to help themselves taking up my precious time, I'll have less time to help others. It's just plain irresponsible. I'll do the necessary cut-loss to my students, as I've done in my equity investment.
Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
This Fri, 8am, will be the release of the posting results for the Joint Admission Exercise (JAE). This means that after the posting, you'll be allocated a place in one of the 12 choices that you had chosen since a few weeks ago.
Good luck for those who participate in the JAE! Hope you get where you wish to go :)
That being said, sometimes, one do not really know where one wishes to go. You know, after choosing a place, you might think about what happens if you had chosen another place. There are some people I knew whom wishes to go to top 5 JC, but after going there, things are not going as smoothly as planned. The future is always uncertain...
The O'lvls results are out yesterday at 2 pm. A stream of sms flowed a few hours after that. I never had the habit of making a record of my students' grades because while I can tutor them, I cannot take the exams for them. So what if they get A1 or F9, I can't really control that, can I? I also do not know how much of their grades are attributed to me, so really, what's the point of keeping a record?
Some tutors guarantee A for their students, haha, but I will never do that, unless I can take the papers for them. That being said, there is a point to record - and that is purely for sentimental reasons. It's like when I'm old and dying, I can look back at all the students I've taught and say, hey, so and so got this grades. Haha! Ok, enough grousing, here's what they got:
1. MY - Pure Chem B3, Pure Phy B4. L1R3 11 pts, L1R5 16 pts - Taught MY chemistry mainly plus a bit of physics towards the end. One of the students that I worried the most for, but very happy for him in the end.
2. BL -Combi Sci C5, L1R4 17 pts - Taught BL science, esp the chem part. My most worrisome student! Considering that he always fail his science and I took him in like 2 months before O'lvl, I think he did very well! I hope I gave him some hope to carry on striving for the best in his life, academic or otherwise.
3. ML - E.maths A2, Pure phys B3, L1R4 12 pts - taught E.maths and pure physics for ML. My third most worrisome student, in the end he got it good. Very good, I'll say - so pleased for him
4. WYT - Pure chem A2, L1R5 8 - taught her chem. She's the 3rd of all her siblings whom I've taught. Don't expect any worse from her, so it's kind of expected.
5. TLC - Pure chem A1, L1R5 7 - together with WYT. One of my best students. Enough said.
6. DY - L1R5 6 pts - another of my best student. Don't understand why she need to take tuition at all. Taught her bro in A lvls in the past too. All did exceedingly well.
7. MC - A.maths A2, E.maths A2, Chem A2, Phy B3, L1R5 13 pts - taught her a variety of subjects because she's weak in application, not in theory. Not so confidence too. She's not happy with what she got, but seriously, not such a bad score.
8. JP - Combi sci A1 - L1R5 16 pts, L1R4 12 pts - taught him combi sci. Was pleasantly surprised he got this grade. A little lazy but must say that he put in effort towards the end. Happy for him
9. R - C6 English, B3 Amaths, A2 Emaths, B3 Geo, B3 Phy, A2 Accounting, C5 chem - L1R5 16 - I'll say that to finish 2 years worth of work in 1 year, plus to cope with a new language - it's amazing that he got this kind of results. Well done!
10. D - B3 E.maths, A2 A.maths, L1R5 12 - Too quiet to interact with him much. Still, am happy that his A.maths did well. In fact, I think his mum will be very happy with his results.
11. ET - B4 Chemistry, L1R5 16, L1R4 12 - Quite disappointed with her chemistry results. Should be able to get higher than this, I expect.
12. BQ - C5 Chem, L1R5 19, L1R4 14 - This is the ultimate disappointment. Really expected her to get much much better than this. Chem C5? Shocking to me.
First post of the new year, 2009.
Not exactly in a happy mood. Nah, nothing particularly bad happened to me. I've got a bad debt to chase after, but 2008 is a pretty good year for me in both my investment (not profits though) and my career. Good health too, really nothing to complain about.
It's just that I do not understand what's so happy about the new year. I personally detested countdown, with all the crowd and people finding a reason to party. For me, 31st Dec is a good time to find a quiet time to reflect upon what had happened in the past year and what challenges we can expect to face in the coming year. As far as I can tell, I always hated the January. Perhaps it's the drill of waking up early in the wee hours of the morning from my secondary school days that make me find January repulsive.
So many things to do...what will the coming year be like for me?
Question: Is a worthless life worth living at all?
The more astute would ask what is deemed worthless. Who deemed it worthless? Well, if one believes that a person should have full rights over his own body, then that alone should answer the 'what' and 'who' part. Each individual have no control over the circumstances that he is born into the world - you can't choose your parents, your country, your financial background, your skin colour too. However, if there is just one shred of thing that is important to us and that we can control, that must be the way we choose to end our lives.
This is not a morbid article, in fact it is a liberating one. To stare at death with your middle finger is perhaps the bravest thing that a mortal man can do. When the very thing that remind us of our mortality is no longer feared, life takes on a very different tack. The man, having entered the world with no choice of his own, will have the freedom to end it the way he chooses it. Is it so hard to empower an individual the decision of when and how to leave this place?
Euthanasia - mercy killing - had been in the newspaper for some time. Different religious heads came forward to condemn it. Well, I beg to differ. I believe no person will choose to end their lives willingly if they see any value in it. But whose value are we talking about here? It must and should always be the value perceived by the person who is contemplating thoughts of suicide. No government or religion should step in to interfere, in my honest opinion.
But would I ever take my own life? I think not, I'm very much pro-life. However, I would rather let the individual take the choice rather than be forced to take it by parties who have an interest in prolonging your life.
I had the opportunity to see a soft copy of the pure chemistry paper 1 - MCQ - for the O'lvls 2008. Here's the answers:
1. D
2. A
3. A
4. C
5. C
6. D
7. B
8. A
9. D
10. B
11. C
12. A
13. C
14. A
15. C
16. C
17. D
18. D
19. A
20. B
21. A
22. B
23. D
24. C
25. D
26. A
27. A
28. B
29. B
30. D
31. C
32. B
33. B
34. B
35. D
36. B
37. D
38. A
39. B
40. B
Personally I feel this MCQ isn't that easy. It's O'lvl standard no doubt, but definitely harder than Physics. Hope that you get at least 30 out of 40 :)
Got to do another composition for my student. This time, it's not a descriptive or narrative one, it's an argumentative or whatever you call it these days. I opted for a neutral stance, because life is full of grey, and not a lot of white and black.
I did it in 1 hour under 'exam' condition, which is during tuition time while my student is doing other work. Surprised myself when the word count is just 3 words short of the maximum word limit of 500 :) Looks like I've not lost my touch yet.
My hands still ache from writing so many words. Ouch. Computers make my writing hand less muscular, should have written it in, haha :)
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Computer is a menace, not a blessing. (Write within 300 - 500 words)
It is hard to find a household without any computers or access to the internet. In fact, even for those families who are not well to do, buying a computer might be one of their main priorities. Just what is the allure of the computer that makes it a common fixture in every home worldwide?
Since the invention of computers, these gadgets had been used by us to do a myriad of complicated and obfuscating calculations. With the invention of the silicon chips, a small personal computer these days has more computing power than the giant Cray computers which filled entire rooms in the past. With this explosion of computing power accompanied by the exponential decrease in size, each of us potentially have the ability to do calculations right at our fingertips. That surely is a blessing for us.
However, with this increasing reliance on computers, there is a fear that we might lose our ability to think independently. With the aid of computers, it is easy to crunch numerous data in a split second, but we still need a thinking person, all flesh and blood, to analyse the outcome of the calculations. Most people who use computers do not know how they function. All they know is that if they key in certain inputs, they can get the outputs. Are we putting in garbage into a black box and getting garbage out of it?
Internet makes the world grow smaller. With each person potentially able to connect to another person in another part of the world instantaneously, information can be relayed as the events unfold. During the first Gulf war in Iraq, reporters exploited this information technology to relay the latest news to viewers globally. Gone are the days we listen to delayed radio telecasts after the events had happened. With the use of internet, information is transmitted when the event is happening, not after it had happened. Knowledge is power, as the saying goes.
With this power of information at our fingertips, we must temper it with responsibility, otherwise chaos will reign. There had been cases of hackers infringing on the privacy of individuals and institutions and causing a host of mischief ranging from stealing, vandalizing to sabotaging. As the world grows smaller, our private space becomes smaller too. Skype, a popular internet voice calling software, had its lines tapped by Chinese government recently. Who is to safeguard our privacy when all we need to find out about a person is to ‘google’ him or her?
Computers, like all technological advances, are neither inherently good nor bad. There are always two sides of a story, and which side one chooses depend heavily on the individual. Computers increase our computing power, but would increase our reliance on it and make us less skeptical of the calculation results. Computer makes the world smaller through the inter connectivity of the internet, but it also infringes on our personal space. As such, computers are both a menace and a blessing.
(497 words)
