No. This isn’t one of those posts where I fill up the black screen with reasons why I didn’t blog messily scribbled, or I touch up some draft post composed months back and publish it, or I explain why I like writing – as seems fashionable nowadays when there is really nothing to write.
But the holidays are here. Need I tell you that? They are sickeningly short thanks to “rescheduled timetable” policy, which is as much irritating as tiring. The lethargy is observable in students in behaviour and attendance, in teachers in zeal and real syllabus covered, and in the bougainvilleas in moisture content and colour vibrancy.
No. I’m not going to rant about lame school policy. Ranting is a custom discouraged by “this newspaper”. (Economist readers?)
The SATs are just five days away. I’ve completed a book – doing 10 practice tests remains a good way to prepare, because it makes you familiar with the questions. But that is no guarantee of a reduction in carelessness or (inversely) an increase in scores. Their math is, should we say, American. Their grammar (“critical reading” and “writing) is exacting and anal, which is probably the most rigorous part of SAT I. Their compre questions are occasionally vague and repetitive. Note, however, that the more difficult the passage, the less mistakes you will make.
No. Today isn’t the day where I talk about batteries of standardised tests carrying little significance. (But yes, my library SAT book is overdue. Library SAT books are notoriously vandalised; good Samaritans like me should be paid for the amount of eraser I use to erase wrong answers prior to taking the practice tests. I horde books to erase them of pencil scratchings. Tsk.)
On some recent shopping trips (alright I shop, but only occasionally and after some serious negotiations with my mum), I’ve observed this overt bias toward the ideal “Western” face. And the reason, I believe, is that we are inundated with Hollywood movies, Western models, and that sort of thing which influence us very much. The words “hot” and – what’s that – “cute” definitely didn’t come from over here. We tend to project these unconsciously-acquired “images” onto ourselves and the things we buy.
No. This blog doesn’t exist to discuss fashion. The trend may be Western neo-colonialism (of the mind, seeing how avant garde we have become) at play, but who really cares about these things nowadays? No one, right? Good.
Oh and work. I’ve not managed to clear up any of the files on my bay-window. It’s a load of papers shouting “WILL YOU PLEASE JUST FILE ME IN SO I WON’T FLY ABOUT.” The wind sixty metres above sea level is vicious. Photos are unnecessary to illustrate this point. (This sentence is wrong, according to ETS, the business running SAT, because it’s in an unnecessarily passive voice.)And my dad bought a new psuedo-DSLR. It’s close at least to what a DSLR can do, just that it’s lighter, more portable, and does away with all the fancy lenses you need to buy to show (i) your affluence, otherwise (ii) your photo-taking abilities.
Having a DSLR and not knowing how to take a good photograph is criminal. Take a photo of the landscape and your flash light lurches up, erect and in rapt attention. You do not know what to do, so you wait for it to subside. By then the sun would have set.
