jap babe jap babe

Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Chee Peng desu.

はじめまして。わたしは チ一 ペン です。

Nanyang Riko Daigaku no gakuse desu.

ナンヤン りこう だいがくの がくせいです。

Senko wa suri kagaku to kezai gaku desu.

せんこう は すり かが と けざお がくせいです。

Malaysia jin desu.

マレ一シア じん です。

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

よろしく おねがいします。

I miss my little baby

I left my heart in Vietnam (Part II)

The bird’s eye view of the city was my first glimpse into the very soul of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. It was an unruly sight, resembling a Lego-town hastily put together, with random structures carelessly plopped on unoccupied land. My anxiety only magnified when I landed. Never before had I seen so many people headed in so many different directions... and all on mopeds!

Saigon was no longer Saigon. The cultural capital of Vietnam is officially named Ho Chi Minh City. But the change ran deeper than that. After all, “a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.” This rose has been stripped of all its petals, with nothing left but the savage thorns held together by a bare stem; a carcass and a grim reminder of the beauty it once held.

Environmental conversation and education are why we are in Vietnam. Over the course of the 2-week community service trip, we, a team of 19 bubbly undergraduates from the International Service division of Rotaract Club of NTU, conduct basic, conversational English lessons for students of a local school at Gia Bac Village. Besides this, our team also plant saplings at a vacant land owned by the Vietnamese government and along the road outside the school.

There is so much that goes into ensuring the growth of the little sapling. Other than the initial stages of clearing the weeds and digging the hole in the hard soil, there is the watering that is required. And even when we leave Gia Bac, the little sapling still needs lot of care and support as it matures into a little plant and finally a tree. But I am proud that we helped that little sapling take that proverbial one step in a journey of a thousand miles.

At Gia Bac Village, I was completely independent for the first time. I had come because I wanted to become; I wanted to feel that independence and I wanted to see a change I was helping to create. The opportunities to challenge myself were everywhere – in leading a class, in forming friendships with people who knew only three words of English.

At night, we would sometimes lie in the dark, wait for shooting stars to appear. There is so much wonder and mystery in the sky, only barely perceptible to the naked eye. For once in the longest time I could remember, I see the distant stars; I see the constellation Orion, the star cluster Pleiades in beautiful splendour.

Dalat is an intellectual playground and Saigon is rich in romance and art – but not the disappointing reincarnation I had witnessed firsthand. One day, I shall return. Maybe not to the romanticized country, but maybe, just maybe, to something even greater and more spectacular.

I came back to Singapore with photograph and memories. I have a picture of the students happily singing ‘Barney’s I Love You’. I have memories of us enjoying the sound of falling soil when we first planted our very first sapling under the hot sun. I have the hope and the conviction that I will go back to Gia Bac Village in the future.

I also brought back a new level of confidence; a place within me that I have slowly been creating throughout my life and that, like the sapling I’ve planted, has been finally taken root. I can stand on it now, even jump, perhaps, and stretch my arms to the sky. Each day brings new promise, giving a glimpse into the future of what I might well reach.

Related links:

1. http://projecto2.tumblr.com/
2. http://atntu.ntu.edu.sg/People/Pages/People_p2.aspx
3. http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=353055&ChannelID=7

I left my heart in Vietnam

Time

Imagine there is a bank which credits your account each morning with $86400, carries over no balance from day to day, allow you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever amount you had failed to use during the day.

What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course!

Well, everyone has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever you have failed to invest for good. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.

Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the records of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.

There is no going back. There is no drawing against ‘tomorrow’. You must live on the present on today’s deposits. Invest it well, only then will you get the best in terms of health, happiness and success.

The clock is running; make most of today.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who has failed his exams.
To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a pre-mature baby.
To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of ONE DAY, ask a daily wage labourer who has ten kids to feed.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lover who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who has missed a train.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who has survived an accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask a person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.

TIME IS GOLD

Xin Chào Vietnam

I will be off to Vietnam from 8/12-21/12/2009 under the International Service division of the Rotaract Club of NTU with

the Rotarians.. :)

tạm biệt :)

i flunked my papers

I burned my dawn oil every day. Studying at the eleventh hour till three in the morning. Trying very hard to understand and write reasonable, understandable answers.

I don't know - it might have been

a) the lack of sleep

b) the incredible consumption of caffeine or

c) the tense atmosphere in the room

But after months of suffering in agony, I’m pleased to inform you that my exam is OFFICIALLY over. I repeat it's over! No more pile of lecture notes, draining tutorials, highlighted textbooks and pass year papers. WOO HOO…

I need not to integrate this and that anymore till i crack my head

Thinking about it I don't even know whether I can obtain fabulous results or not. Macroeconomics and Chemistry were bad. I rushed like crazy through them and made a lot of erroneous mistakes. Well two hour and 30 minutes is insufficient for dumb people like me. My maths was okay. Not too bad and not too great.

It's really annoying because one mistake can cost you a bomb so you can go from an A to an U (Ungraded) without even trying. I can't really tell how well I did until I get the results back, which will be out in this December.

After I got my ass out of the exam hall, everyone was saying things like 'That question about the Explosive A! What did you put?' and 'The derivative of the function? Sin of course. You put Cos ah? Wrong la!' and 'What about the protein structure?' and 'I put abnormal proteins!'

Total silence.

I’d stop elaborate about it no more.

Help needed.

Exams: A Case Study

...via Lawrence Teoh

‘Exams’. How much we students fret just upon hearing that word, let alone when we are forced into the exam hall to do our exams. How we wish there were no exams, and how some even go on to the extent of cursing the poor guy who started something called ‘school’ which led to the existence of exams.

Like many events in life, there are pro’s and con’s to exams that are not only held in schools, but in colleges and universities throughout the world as well. Based on my opinion, exams are rigid and it is of no good to unearth the talent needed to drive the nation forward. Exams measure one’s textbook intelligence primarily, and that is an important point to be noted.

At the same time, I would say a good many students would not care about their studies if it were not for exams. Therefore, in a sense, exams pushes students to study. Otherwise, students will just go to school with the intention of disrupting law and order.

In truth, exams are not a prerequisite for success in life. Many, for instance Bill Gates and Albert Einstein, did not do too well in their exams in school. The reason why many study hard for exams is because it will offer them a stable job in the future.

Say, for example someone scores brightly in school, and carries on that form into college and university; it is highly likely that that person would become a successful individual in their career thereafter. One who studies biology well in school, does pre-medical in college and medicine in university with distinction, will inevitably be a good doctor.

However, the odds of that person being a multi-millionaire, or someone to that tune, would be nigh unimaginable. That is because since exams are most of the time based on textbooks and ‘confined’ knowledge, hence those who excel would most probably have limited soft skills needed to start enterprises and businesses among others, and also shallow general knowledge.

This is not always the case though as I know of some people who are academically strong as well as posses abundant soft skills in addition to being articulate general knowledge wise. This is a rare breed, one which I respect and wish to emulate as I feel it is simply superb to be always able to get results towards the top end of 100 while at the same time being holistically intellectual.

No offence, but I am sure we have come across many people who get top marks in class yet they cannot speak an intellectual conversation. These are the sort of people that are branded ‘nerds’ who mug their textbooks all year long. Do they serve themselves and humanity on the whole any purpose?

Another con of exams is that those held especially in the East are typically harder than those in the West. Instead of being an advantage, this has backfired on countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. This is because for Easterners, the emphasis is placed on detailed theoretical knowledge, while in the West, it is on hands-on practical knowledge.

No matter how hard we try, exams will remain a part and parcel of a student’s life. The best thing is to adapt and try as hard as possible to get good grades. However, there should not be a state of paranoia whereby you keep staring into a textbook all day long. Therefore, keep this in mind that you should excel not in exams by virtue of being a ‘nerd’, but as a holistically developed individual.