I'm sad that with the end of the exams, most of you will not be studying literature anymore; perhaps 90% or more of you will not read the subject for the rest of your life.
But I think reading literature can still be a part of your life! So long as you carry on reading, whether it's the newspapers, storybooks, or even reports and essays, and you think about them critically and carefully, you are doing literary studies. You examine the language to see what the author wants to make you feel, try to guess their intention, and analyse the issues that the reading talks about the standpoint that the writer is presenting.
And ultimately, that's what I want you to bring away from your literature studies - to read with an open and questioning mind. Be empowered by knowledge, think about everything yourself and make your own conclusions. Be aware when people are trying to persuade/coerce/influence you,and be an independent judge of things. These skills are useful everywhere and for everything you do.
I love literature so passionately because I'm amazed at the eloquent way the classic literature writers can express their ideas so well, whether in essay or story forms. They make me think deep and hard about life and all the tough and complicated issues, and it always make me realise how complex and interesting the world is. It keeps me curious and makes me a knowledgeable person.
And I hope that through my lessons, you will feel a little bit of all these feelings too...
Friday, May 22, 2009
Putting things into perspective...
Anyone out there enjoy your chicken rice?
It's quite a nice dish isn't it? Thoroughly Singaporean too, though it supposedly come from the Hainanese or wherever - I'm surprised I haven't seen a poem written on it before. The best chicken rice I know of is one beside Bishan bus interchange, with a long snaking queue always.
So I was at Bishan Junction 8 shopping mall just now, and I bought a piece of pandan-kayak cake from Bengawan Solo - $2 for a small piece! They could have cut 12 pieces of that from one whole cake! And I was thinking to myself...this small piece of cake costs the same as a plate of chicken rice!
So the humble chicken rice becomes a symbol of thrift - People buy it as a cheap but good and very satisfying meal, and now when I buy things I always think about how many chicken rice lunches it cost.
If we adopt this thinking whenever we want to spend on something that might not be useful after all, perhaps it could save us all quite a bit! Ultimately, thinking with such a perspective helps us understand people whom are less fortunate than us and can't spend as carelessly as most of us do, and that's a very humbling thought!
It's quite a nice dish isn't it? Thoroughly Singaporean too, though it supposedly come from the Hainanese or wherever - I'm surprised I haven't seen a poem written on it before. The best chicken rice I know of is one beside Bishan bus interchange, with a long snaking queue always.
So I was at Bishan Junction 8 shopping mall just now, and I bought a piece of pandan-kayak cake from Bengawan Solo - $2 for a small piece! They could have cut 12 pieces of that from one whole cake! And I was thinking to myself...this small piece of cake costs the same as a plate of chicken rice!
So the humble chicken rice becomes a symbol of thrift - People buy it as a cheap but good and very satisfying meal, and now when I buy things I always think about how many chicken rice lunches it cost.
If we adopt this thinking whenever we want to spend on something that might not be useful after all, perhaps it could save us all quite a bit! Ultimately, thinking with such a perspective helps us understand people whom are less fortunate than us and can't spend as carelessly as most of us do, and that's a very humbling thought!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Doing well in Literature!
A disclaimer first - For my Express classes, I did not set your exam question, so I can only prepare you the best way I can and you'll have to give your best show when the big day comes on the 14th of May. For my 2N3, you know my papers are usually rather difficult, so you be prepared for it!
What I can tell you all is this - I will be marking more than 50%++ of all the Sec 2 lit papers, so that means chances are that I'll be marking yours. I have strict standards, and have no qualms about failing people who do not put in effort. I repeat - ignorance is most often due to a lack of effort to find out, and a lack of effort is inexcusable in the exams.
So, a few tips.
BTW, here's a good resource for studying Macbeth, which is arguably the more difficult play to read.
What I can tell you all is this - I will be marking more than 50%++ of all the Sec 2 lit papers, so that means chances are that I'll be marking yours. I have strict standards, and have no qualms about failing people who do not put in effort. I repeat - ignorance is most often due to a lack of effort to find out, and a lack of effort is inexcusable in the exams.
So, a few tips.
- Write as much as you can. Your marks depends on it. You wouldn't be penalised for writing wrong things, at this level anyway. The more you write, or the more your brainjuice flows, the higher the chances of you getting some points right.
- You can write as long as you want, but at the same time keep to the essay format. That means you use separate paragraphs when talking about each different point. If you confuse me by writing nonstop in a chunk of text...just don't confuse me la huh.
- Know your stuff. Know the names of your Shakespearean characters, what happens when, and how the stories end. These are the basics. If you get them wrong, your whole essay will be in danger.
- For unseen poetry, highlight key words and scribble related ideas/images/pictures to them. Use your imagination, and you will be able to understand the whole poem better. Put yourself in the poet's shoes, and try to imagine what the poet is thinking and feeling. Read the poem silently, and see how it sounds like. You got to live it!
- Finally, many questions will ask you for your opinion, and when asked so, you will not only have to 1) give your opinion, but also 2) list down the reasons why you say this, and then 3) have good evidence from the text/poem to prove that each of the reason is correct.
BTW, here's a good resource for studying Macbeth, which is arguably the more difficult play to read.
Watching sports live!
These days, I have been taking time out every weekend to catch some live floorball action at the Tampines Sports Hall, where teams from the floorball league will play each other on all of Saturday and Sunday.
It's exciting to watch, the action is really fast, and you can see amazing skills exhibited by the players throughout the match, glimpses of brilliance amidst the mad rush for the small white ball. Watching such great games, I often wonder how long they take to master these skills to be able to use them fluently in competition.
Except for the really talented, most of us will need to put in hard work to learn just about anything useful. Lots of effort during practice, lots of practice sessions, and also, lots of mistakes need to be made before you can do it well, whatever 'it' is.
Then what's the difference between the good and the not-so-good? The desire to master the skill perhaps - how much do you really want to master 'it'? A few years back, I played canoe polo, and I try my best to achieve the target of being the best in my team. Back then, I really can't understand why some team mates will want to play in competitions even though they don't turn up for training much. To me, there's only 2 options - try hard to be good, or don't do it at all if you don't really want it that much.
So do you want 'it' (whatever 'it' is to you) bad enough to want to put in your best effort?
It's exciting to watch, the action is really fast, and you can see amazing skills exhibited by the players throughout the match, glimpses of brilliance amidst the mad rush for the small white ball. Watching such great games, I often wonder how long they take to master these skills to be able to use them fluently in competition.
Except for the really talented, most of us will need to put in hard work to learn just about anything useful. Lots of effort during practice, lots of practice sessions, and also, lots of mistakes need to be made before you can do it well, whatever 'it' is.
Then what's the difference between the good and the not-so-good? The desire to master the skill perhaps - how much do you really want to master 'it'? A few years back, I played canoe polo, and I try my best to achieve the target of being the best in my team. Back then, I really can't understand why some team mates will want to play in competitions even though they don't turn up for training much. To me, there's only 2 options - try hard to be good, or don't do it at all if you don't really want it that much.
So do you want 'it' (whatever 'it' is to you) bad enough to want to put in your best effort?
Monday, April 20, 2009
Go green!
Here's a picture of a plant I got about a month ago from Ikea. At the time I bought it, it was really cute; all the leaves were standing uniformly tall like the beansprouts we eat, with mostly identical-sized round leaves.With some tender loving care from me, it has now grown bigger. Some stalks are standing much taller, some extending to the side beyond the small pot, and the leaves are definitely larger. On Fridays, I will water it a little more, and put them in this conference room behind my office table, where it can get some sunlight during the weekend.
Isn't it ironic to know that this plant, this life, costs only $1.50? That is exactly the same price as the saucer below the pot which I bought together with it. Humans are really filling the world with cheap and useless things, consuming endless resources in the process, while neglecting to treasure those things that are alive and precious.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Congratulations!
...to our Dance and Concert Band for clinching the Silver medal in the SYF competition!
The awards show that we are really improving in our skills through the years, and it's good to know that we are developing ourselves as better dancers/musicians as we become better students too through our CCAs.
I got a silver in the SYF too when I was in the concert band during secondary school. It was a let down considering that my seniors managed that too, but somehow in my heart I knew that perhaps a year is not enough to go from silver to gold. Even I could tell that technically, my band is not able to pull off this difficult piece that our conductor choose for us then.
Nonetheless, I really treasure my experiences with the band, and my secondary school life memory revolves around my CCA's activities mostly. In the years to come after you leave PHSS, I hope you have great memories of being in your CCA too.
Love your CCA! My biggest regret is that I didn't carry on playing the trombone when I was in NYJC; that will have changed my life a lot.
(You can hear my band's choice piece Canto Forma from TRN music.com)
The awards show that we are really improving in our skills through the years, and it's good to know that we are developing ourselves as better dancers/musicians as we become better students too through our CCAs.
I got a silver in the SYF too when I was in the concert band during secondary school. It was a let down considering that my seniors managed that too, but somehow in my heart I knew that perhaps a year is not enough to go from silver to gold. Even I could tell that technically, my band is not able to pull off this difficult piece that our conductor choose for us then.
Nonetheless, I really treasure my experiences with the band, and my secondary school life memory revolves around my CCA's activities mostly. In the years to come after you leave PHSS, I hope you have great memories of being in your CCA too.
Love your CCA! My biggest regret is that I didn't carry on playing the trombone when I was in NYJC; that will have changed my life a lot.
(You can hear my band's choice piece Canto Forma from TRN music.com)
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Poetry
I really hope you guys will end up loving poetry as much as I enjoy them!
Truth to tell, poetry is often hard to 'understand' but it will bring rewards to the patient reader who reads it over and over again. Like most good art pieces, it takes a while to learn to appreciate them - after all, there's nothing interesting about something if we 'get' it completely the first time! Simple poetry have a message, good poetry simply reflects on things, so there's really nothing much to 'understand'.
Think of poetry as verbal painting - let the words suggest different pictures to you, and put these pictures together, and let your imagination wander through all these images. Daydream with the words, think of the place, the time, the events described. That's what good poetry do, help you dream and imagine.
Just an example of a poem that I like, the kind that makes me think and dream...
Gift - Czeslaw Milosz
A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on Earth that I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forget.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening, I see the blue sea and sails.
Truth to tell, poetry is often hard to 'understand' but it will bring rewards to the patient reader who reads it over and over again. Like most good art pieces, it takes a while to learn to appreciate them - after all, there's nothing interesting about something if we 'get' it completely the first time! Simple poetry have a message, good poetry simply reflects on things, so there's really nothing much to 'understand'.
Think of poetry as verbal painting - let the words suggest different pictures to you, and put these pictures together, and let your imagination wander through all these images. Daydream with the words, think of the place, the time, the events described. That's what good poetry do, help you dream and imagine.
Just an example of a poem that I like, the kind that makes me think and dream...
Gift - Czeslaw Milosz
A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on Earth that I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forget.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening, I see the blue sea and sails.
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