forever

Saw a friend go. left. his life would never be the same again. shattered dreams shards of sculptured intricately designed glass. wriggled out of hands and fall headlong onto the floor, scattering away. Too err is human, yet erring has boundaries. socially unacceptable errings and forgivable errings; both unwittingly, impulsively, stupidly, yet one barring you for the rest of your life.

10 days have passed

10 days have passed. In these 10 days I've done quite a lot: chem cct (done well :). english showcase portfolio (good). RE interim report (not that bad), mostly repackaging into something somewhat appealing... Maths TA (screwed). And best of all, my last debate for interhouse debates, which was much better than expected.

THBT the environment belongs to rich-- We were opposing. Preparation for the debate was less than intense--Ern Xu turned up for 2 prep sessions thankfully, me and Dewin once, Jie Min none. We were against the secondary 1 debaters.

I think what allowed us to win was not the usual "determination", "teamwork", "effort" etc, it was that we had nothing to lose. We've lost 2 matches, and in order to get into semi-finals, we need at least 2 wins. Evidently there is no chance at all for ever qualifying. I guess this was the defining factor which led to our victory. It was the lack of pressure from our side and the subsequent confidence to go out there just for enjoyment, for the sake of speaking out that did it. At least for me, I was less nervous and did what I had to do. I didn't commit any mistakes of disjoint argument--not linking back to the yardstick, motion, and "how our side wins"--to my teammates' and my own surprise. It was just me and Ben Mark, my friend, nodding his head away at what I have to say as I reason my case.

I received my first compliment in debating. Ashish said that if I smoothen my speech, minimise little bumps, had a good conclusion (when time's up and the bell's ringing incessantly, I just said "go with the opposition" and sat down :), I would actually be school debater standard.

Thanks teammates Ern Xu, Jie Min, Dewin for being such good buddies; Ashish for being such a wonderful and pro debater and teacher; fong for prepping; Ms Cho for showing up at debates and supporting us...

We went celebrating after that, just Ashish, Choon How, and me. It wasn't celebration per se. It was an excuse to go to Ashish's house to watch "House". All the while Ashish rants about how Hugh Laurie's an amazing American though he's British in real life.

Burned a Friday night. Now I've only 1 1/4 days for physics cct and lit laputa peer teaching on monday.

workworkwork

RE work: not looking good at all...
Chem work for CCT: 1/4 done
Physics work for IJPO: bad bad bad; don't even talk about it
English Portfolio: thought of theme, but haven't really sat down and slog it out...

I wonder (aloud) whether wenjie has a blog-- his list would definitely be longer

impromptu debate

Had an impromptu debate with 1h prep time... did really badly, only finishing my rebuttals at the 5 minute mark, and that's seriously overtime, which leaves me 1 min for my tenuous substantive. The other 2nd speaker (right after me) was so good that he pushed the odds against us, and by the time Dewin came, it's as though they've won already. So it was sort of my fault that we lost, as was the last time.

Surprisingly, I was able to talk for 6 minutes non-stop, an amazing feat for someone who speaks hardly 1000 words a day. I ended up feeling proud of myself even though we lost.

1 last debate- I'm going all out to win this!

Updates

Interhouse debates- Thought we could win, but oh well, we lost to Jaryl's team in the debate, THW privatise all public transport services, which we were opposing. Good experience- nerve-wrecking, and Jaryl was fairly intimidating- and hopefully, in the next debate, which is impromptu (1h of prep), we'll triumph over the other team. What is surprising is that I didn't feel any sadness at all upon losing, which is very unlikeike myself.Congratulations to Yongsheng and team to have won the debate :)

Physics: somehow, I have to squeeze out at least half of my time to prepare for sjpo... There'll be so much competition, and I know I won be as good as physics RA +science club and the like, so I decide to just try my best and hope for more (than the best). Meanwhile, it's an uphill task to find time to learn more...

Portfolio: almost everyone in my badge's worried about this: showcase portfolio's due soon and really, I don't know what to do... want to tie in chem porfolio with showcase portfolio, but since I'm not sure what to do for showcase, I cannot do chem portfolio, which is due last week. I'm ruminating: the war of attrition against the massive edifice of the portfolio is ongoing.

Interhouse debates

OK, I'm not a debater, and can never be a debator. My approach in life is to accept things at face value, and check if they work in general. I do question, I do argue, but not vocally/ outspokenly. Just a quiet assessment of the pros and cons, internal contradictions. That's why you never spot me debating with other people. I do argue when they don't argue with logic, but this can only be considered a "personal attack"--disapproval of that person, not a debate.

But debates are useful. It teaches you English because you neeed to construct arguments which are grammatically sound and persuasive (which requires vocabulary). By the way, is debates singular or plural?
More than that, it trains your oratorical skills (persuasive speech :) and public speaking ability. That requires confidence, and through debates, hopefully I will truly gain confidence.

That's why I never regret joining inter-house debates. The stress and excitement I'm experiencing right now... unbelievable. Even a highly-charged rugby match cannot be compared to this.

As Ashish said, "When 7 new and logical substantives are being brought up and you sit there, stunned, not knowing how to rebut... that's what I call intellectual stimulation." (quote based on impression)

complain: too much holidays

There’s something wrong, wrong, wrong about school. As our very much revered TPH rightly puts it, “这个学期有十个星期，你说上几个星期的课?” Although that was a rhetorical question, he answered it anyway, “我看有足足有三个星期放假！” (exasperated wry smiles). It’s a nail on the head, though. School’s so “in and out”, brief and not at all intense, like a stuttering engine which would extend its insistence and existence way past the start of our traditional holidays. School-going is no longer a continuous, flowing process of learning, or rote-learning, or spoon-feeding, it’s highly interrupted, slack and almost non-existent.

The very purpose of school lessons, I feel, is to teach us societal conventions and conventional information in as quick a way as possible. So it’s chop chop information cramming in school, and after you’re left at home at your own devises. There you can engage yourselves in independent, critical thinking, read out of curriculum, explore the world… do whatever your heart tells you to!

But now they’re placing so much holidays in between that there’re no lessons—then where to get the teaching and learning done? Do it myself? A good solution… precisely what I’m doing now. But I want to be able to do whatever I like, so either I don’t care much about the tested topics or I care about them and try to get all the information I require. Let’s say I’m a good boy and commit to the latter, the next question to ask is: what do I look through? Which fact do I concentrate on and mull over? Which one do I just take at face value and gloss over? Unless you’re a genius (which I’m not), we would want structured lessons that tell us all these so that we’re not that tied down to exams, and can do whatever we want easier.

Perhaps I’m being too reliant on spoon-feeding, rote-learning. Or perhaps I assume that lessons are in fact very useful. I’m assuming wrongly, lessons aren’t useful. Many teachers don’t teach properly, they don’t give enough information, they don’t explain and enlighten. Nowadays there’re “peer-teaching”, “discussions” (useless unless it’s lit), creative and “thought-provoking” videos and slides which seem educational but never convey new insights or information. Lessons aren’t that spoon-feeding anymore too.

I’m ranting. It shouldn’t matter whether there’s teaching, there’re lessons or lack thereof. I just have to accept things and move on.