CAP, facebook and my idiotic notion of holidays

CAP’09 leaves me with a sense of bewilderment and astonishment. I have thought for five minutes how to put this, but even writing casually about it seems difficult. We had the “academic” stuff on one hand, which wasn’t excessively mind-nourishing. My greatest takeaway was Cyril Wong’s (the local poet) comment of my hastily scribbled poem:

“A bad Sylvia Plath.”
- Cyril Wong

So much for my lit capabilities. We had Agnes Meadows as well (a brilliant performance poet, but I accidentally blurted out “Meadowfields” instead – and have been mocked quite extensively ever since). The plenaries were sleepfestes, while the writing workshops were not bad. I was exposed to poetry writing – not my can of rootbeer, but still. For the performance workshop, I was allocated Contemporary Dance. Now I want you to imagine me. Then imagine me dancing. I know it looks bad. So stop imagining and get back to this post.

CAP was much more of a social event. We meet fellow students from different backgrounds and schools not as students, but as people waiting to socialise and be socialised with. I was privileged to be part of the “4AM gangzz” clique. (Somehow groups of friends make things more endurable.)

The 4AM gangz

this one with leon

Initially it was Rachelle (self-declared tyrant-tranny from VJ), Samuel (“good” samuel from TJ) and I. We caught on almost immediately, and stuck together throughout. It’s amazing how you can enter this camp and after 5 days feel as if you’ve known the person for such a long time. We were joined by Leon/TQ/Michelle (RJ), Liying (PJ), Yishu (AC) and Isaac (NUSH) soon after. On the last night 0f CAP, we stayed up at the campus’ “Reading Room” and went from playing iPhones to naughty gossip to music appreciation to plain talk. Some person lay sprawled across the length of the large tables, and some person – worse – spat blueberry waffles onto the iPhones! Various declarations were made – from Rachelle’s “I have eight boobs” and “all my underwear is on my bed” to Liying’s so-naughty-it-should-be-forbidden gossip – that it kept the conversation going. It was havoc.

I left at around 3:30 – apparently they stayed till 4:00 until some councillors caught the rest of them. I heard the next day that the councillors even thought that they were making love. The very idea still makes me laugh.

It all leads me back to my thesis: it’s darn refreshing to know people from other backgrounds.

The subsequent uploading frenzy of facebook photos was one of the most ferocious I’ve seen – scrolling, tagging, commenting – one entire night frizzled into virtual bits of colours joined together to represent friendships made. Camwhoring was another major feature in the last hour. Led by the indefatigable Rachelle, the 4AM gangz took over a hundred shots. (Facebook, we were sure, was going to crash that night, given the amount of photos taken. FB has created new purpose for digital cameras.)

And lastly, my recent invention is quite simply the most nifty thing in the World of Mugging: the Slack Quotient. It measures your work done over a period of time. Unlike IQ, it can vary at different intervals. For simplicity of use, Aaron Tang and Nigel have a moving SQ average of 1-24; while Wenjie has an average (self-declared) SQ of 180. This Wiki article uses almost humorous terms to describe IQ. On the same scale:

SQ Ranges	Slackness Classification
1-24	Profound Retardation in slacking ability
25–39	Severe Retardation in slacking ability
40–54	Moderate Retardation in slacking ability
55–69	Mild Retardation in slacking ability
70–84	Borderline Retardation in slacking ability
85-114	Average Intelligence in slacking
115-129	Bright in slacking
130-144	Moderately Gifted in slacking
145-159	Highly Gifted in slacking
160-175	Exceptionally Gifted in slacking
Over 175	Profoundly Gifted in slacking

much ado about nothing

The government’s being protective, and that’s a good thing.

Better to “err on the side of convention”. Or as Singaporean hokkien vernacular would have it, “Kiasu better than kiasi“. MOE’ recently introduced sweeping directives for schools nationwide, ever since Singapore raised its pandemic alert level to orange. I am a firm believer in mitigation measures like these. They ensure we remain prepared and resilient against pandemic threats – and I do hope my reasoning appeals to the Cynic, who might just want to change his/her mind. That would be the greatest compliment.

First off, we aren’t allowed to organise or participate in events which involve a substantial congregation of people, especially students. These include concerts which have not sold any tickets yet, holiday/bonding/farewell camps, and competitions. I was affected by a number of these – for one, RECAS June camp (our very first camp as a club) has quite effectively been cancelled, and now we cannot send school teams to SMU Hammers, an open debating competition that we did look forward to. We can’t have morning assembly either – not that we want to in the first place.

I firmly believe we should, and can, do more. For one, I say we ban lectures of any subject – be they science, humans, or math (especially). It is definitely wrong – and almost immoral as well, come to think of it – that we should allow potential incubi of viral plague to converge into an air-conditioned, enclosed lecture theatre. I don’t think it is right, as social responsible citizens, for us to hold congregations which carry high risks of spreading the virus that may reach our shores.

It is quite shocking that some concerts should even be allowed to continue. RProject, in my opinion, should also be cancelled. The organisers should withdraw immediately, and pupils should ask for refunds. It is inconceivable that the school allows these events to continue, and really quite hilarious to boot – our lives are under potentially grave threat, and here we are, sitting on chairs facing the runway, admiring some kind of fashion! The guy beside you might have caught a cold, or worse – the models, who will walk through the entire section of audiences, could have a whopping cough and a cold. Ultimately we should seek a balance – on one hand, we see the weeks of dedication, time, energy, sweat, tears that some of our promising friends put in; on the other, we stay safe at home, taking our temperatures twice daily as well. Any sane person – you and I – know for ourselves that we should protect ourselves from unnecessary harm.

I also support the MOE’s directive that no one should enter the side gates after 8 a.m. In my opinion, we should do away with the arbitrary time limit. All students should enter through the school’s main gate, regardless of what time they wake up or where they live. In these moments of darkness, that little inconvenience of walking a little to the main gates should be of less consequence than ensuring that all students are kept safe from this potential national threat. It is high time we band together in solidarity for our common good.

It is admirable that parents are not allowed to exit their cars when they drop their children off at school. Our parents could well be the next carriers of this potential pandemic; allowing them to get out of their cars might leave respiratory droplets which may affect other students in the entire school compound. The older generation should set us a good example as well; they should avoid getting out of their cars upon reaching their offices. It is only right that they practise what they preach – they should create office workspace in their cars, to minimise risks. Workplaces are notorious for the amount of bacteria that circulates in the stale air-con air; consequently, closing down offices should be one of our first steps to reduce the spread of this potential flu.

Factories should also stop production, at least for the next month if the flu has died down, or at least a few months until the pandemic drops in risk level. Just as our school in Bishan ensures that students reduce congregations as much as possible, so should the factories over at Jurong. It should be a nationwide effort involving all citizens against this potential pandemic.

On a national level, I also believe that the WHO should stop holding expert meetings involving scientists and researchers from all over the world. So far, they have held 3 of such meetings, and as far as the we are concerned, they are playing with fire.  And as we speak, top health officials from ASEAN+3 will be meeting to come up with a solution to battle this potential pandemic which may potentially ravage Asia. What’s worse – I see no reason why our Singapore Parliament should continue to convene. Our countries MPs and cabinet ministers are responsible for the proper functioning and well-being our small, vulnerable nation-state. Allowing our political leaders to meet in these enclosed settings is almost bordering on irresponsibility – and flu virus does not discriminate between gender, sex, political position, wealth, race, language, or religion. These people are our national assets, allowing the top brains of their country to be exposed to this pandemic is quite outrageous.

This should be true for other nations as well, especially those with confirmed cases. Ministers and bureaucrats should avoid contact with each other as much as possible. Congress, for instance, should hold their sessions and voting online, if any bill is to be passed. Obama should realise that these senators are the ones people voted into power; allowing them to meet might pose a threat to their health and ability to serve the country fully. Fundamental tenets of democracy may be breached if we continue adopting such nonchalant attitudes to a potential worldwide pandemic.

We stand to risk much if we fail to follow mitigation measures – not just as a school, but as nation and as a world as well. Obeying directives should be our first step towards responsible citizenry.

Who’s with me?

ObamaGirl

The second most popular US election video of 2008, with about 10.6 million hits. (The first was an illogical and fallacious American veteran’s message about McCain.)

Sexy and (hence) objectionable content inside. Please watch this in a more…. informal location.

Yong Sheng dislaims all responsibility related to you watching this video.

He also thanks Obama for winning. He also thinks that facebook is the next biggest distraction to the US elections.

how to (actually) adjudicate a debate

course the title is a bit of an exaggeration, but you can more or less sum up the subject of this discussion.

This post is about the Interhouse Debates 2008, organised mainly by the sec3s in the Raffles Debaters. I’d like, through a factual discussion of what transpired today, publicised a possible flaw on their part in terms of adjudication.

Naturally it must be said, as with everything else, that my perceptions are limited. What one experiences most certainly does not equate to what everyone experiences. Hence only those people mentioned explicitly below will be brought into question over their actions.

Let’s begin.

The purpose of adjudication

( BTW here’s an extensive list of debates from Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate)

What is the purpose of adjudication? What is an adjudicator there for?

I’ve identified three things the adjudicator must not do in any debate, with accompanying reasons:

• Be biased. This completely disintegrates the integrity of any debate. This would make the entire concept of debate redundant – we might as well just sit down on a table and say, “Ok, the Opposition has won.” But, being biased with the points themselves is an even greater offence. People can do this rather giftedly without realising it themselves: by simply being inclined towards a certain stance, they have a greater tendency to listen out for its validity, whereas they would choose to ignore or discount the opposition’s stance.
• Be illogical. This removes the integrity of any adjudication or judgement call, by virtue of its in-compliance with what is right.
• Form a premature judgement. These adjudicators have the amazing propensity to discredit the entire skill of debate.

In particular, I’d like to touch on the second point – being illogical.

The advantageous thing about speeches is that you get to quote them, in context of course, word-for-word. It’s even better that you get permission from the person who said it, to quote him! Buckley Team 1’s past two debates were judged by Matthias Chia, a member of the cross-country as well as the vice-chair of Raffles Debaters.

The motion today was “This House believes that the environment lies in the hands of the rich.” We were prop.

I do have some resistance to what his perception of debates.

In the discussion that followed the debate today, I started with the suggestion that both teams should get a tie, instead of the very narrow half-mark with which the opposition team won. I went away from the discussion not only believing in this more firmly, but also feeling almost “cheated” that the adjudicator had such an unacceptable view of debates.

N.B.: Please note that ultimately, the adjudicator’s decision is final. My act of making the suggestion by no means suggests that I, in any way, am forcing the adjudicator to reverse his decision – it is entirely up to the adjudicator and I respect that. (otherwise there’d be chaos and discord with just about every single debate)

Firstly, there was a little problem of opinion. In the post-debate discussion (in which I led him on a roundabout loop towards the conclusion), he consistently cited that the reason why the opposition was superior (and therefore ultimately won by a half point), was because they were consistent. Matthias argued this, by saying that the opposition were very clear in their stance that responsibility of the third world was present.

But what he really has to understand, and he still refuses to, is that we already acknowledged this point from the very first to last speaker. I mean, you’re an adjudicator. You have the responsibility to listen to a point, and determine its soundness and validity in terms of relevance to the debate. But when the opposition has disastrously failed to prove why their point is even relevant as a point of clash (since the 1st proposition stated it, followed by a string of 3 other prop speakers).

Perhaps Matthias should listen better. Every adjudicator should do that.

(But it’s just a suggestion, ya’know. It’s not compulsory for him to do so. Just that it helps in making a fairer choice. Which is, like, important on most occasions.)

If Matthias (a debater in his own right) who has adjudicated a number of debates, proposes that illogical points which already have been proven wrong can be accepted as a valid point, I strongly suggest he should really reconsider his perception on a debate. It’s grossly indecent.

And perhaps the adjudicator(s) may like to consider basic debate rules? For example, when Ashish Kumar said that “six POIs per minute is not barraging”, I was at a loss of words. If we were to average it out (in reality the intervals aren’t consistent and they could be a lot closer together), we see that every 10 seconds I get a POI.

At the last minute, in particular, the opposition revealed an ugly face. Whether it was intentional or accidental is a totally different issue. Their blatant audacity (translated roughly, rudeness) reached its climax, when three of them threw up POIs simultaneously. In particular, Andrew Tam, (perhaps a little intent on winning the debate), jumped up, and screamed, “Point, Sir!”

Of course this elicited laughter from the opposition. I was distracted from making my speech, due to their rowdiness.

To have the adjudicator not even raise this (or possibly selectively forgotten), is disgusting and in a formal context, can be interpreted as biasness.

In conclusion, I’d like to commend Matthias on his effort to trace the logical flow of the debate. While his reasoning might have been unfair, I applaud him for making the conscious effort to listen and justify his opinions. A draw could have been offered with such a narrow margin in the first place. If the rules didn’t allow it, then our team very clearly had the right side of the House.

However, he should make a conscious attempt to realise that consistency cannot be used as the major yardstick of the debate, especially in cases like these where the wrong arguments have been consistently repeated.

These do not present themselves as strengths in a proper debate where logic and rhetoric go hand in hand. These are only weaknesses. And they are nothing more.

A credible adjudicator should understand this.

Oh, Exxon!

Very, very good imitation of Barry Manilow’s “Oh Mandy”.

nus geog + wsc seoul

P1: Posting takes up time. P2: I don’t much time to spare. C1:Therefore I seldom post.

But two things have been rather important developments recently.

Hence, I post.

I will promise (omg) to post on my trip to Seoul at a later date, with photos. Anyway for those who still aren’t informed, the GAY team (gerald andrew yongsheng) got 8th out of 50+ world final teams in the World Scholars Cup. Which is not too bad. We also got 4th team for essay! Which is not that bad either.

My main intention is to post about yesterday’s NUS Geography Challenge 2008.

If there was to be any common sentiment, it would be that it was poorly organised. But we will not start with such sweeping statements – that’d be unfair – and I’d slowly disect what happen.

There was a prelim stage which advanced the top 25 teams to the Finals.

Then, 30% of the final score would be devoted to GeoAd, and 70% would be obtained from the final score at GeoTrail.

GeoAD

We come from a school which doesn’t really provide spare time to create videos. So, we discussed the plan over at nigelfong’s house, and decided on using dominoes as a way to demonstrate how if we were to stack up them one by one (one more ton of CO2 into the air, one more acre of rainforest cut down, and so on), eventually the tipping point would be reached, and the dominoes would, well, fall. This was somewhat inspired by the movie V for Vendetta, which featured V flicking a whole series of dominoes and chaos erupting at the same time.

(obseve the domino effect:)

We met up about 1-2 weeks later to do the dominoes of the whole world. It was arduous. I leave it there.

Europe collapses, AGAIN!!!

Many continents were built up, then collapsed due to the poor quality of the dominoes (some had uneven bases). So we made gaps in between, although sometimes these failed. North America stood for the longest, but eventually someone (i forgot who) walked over.

You can imagine the pain.

Especially once when we didn’t get Central America (the yucatan peninsular) part constructed correctly. When North America fell for the second time, the entire South America collapsed. (which is quite true in reality, anyway)

Australia kept collapsing, but LockLeong kept putting it back.

Nigel did Europe quite nicely but was thoroughly insistent about putting the dominoes there especially close together, to possibly indicate density? Or possibly intricate continential landforms. But it kept collapsing.

We kept struggling with Africa, which collapsed the most number of times, and caused the most frustration, where:

Law of Domino Frustration

Frustration = No. of collapsed dominoes X rate of collapse X effort spent on construction X effort spent on reconstruction

I love these laws.

Anyway, the Middle East was eventuallly reduced to a lump protruding from the joint between Africa, Europe and Central Asia, because its collapse once again led to the collapse of Africa (they are really quite close, you know).

Asia was possibly the most tedious. We eventually decided to reduce Asia to Russia, China, and SEA. Singapore was represented by an interweaving red-blue dot.

Collapsed dominoes.

GeoTRAIL

It was held yesterday. It rained yestreday. Some arguments why the Geotrail was far from ideal.

Argument #1

There was no wet weather plan. That means that since all stations required getting outdoors, we were thoroughly soaked. Yes, you advise to bring umbrellas. Let’s run around with them, shall we?

Argument #2

All questions at all stations were based on cultural allusions and historic landmarks. In addition, we were not told to go into many of the buildings. But how do you read up on the buildings if you don’t enter the buildings?

Argument #3

I think we all understand the importance of time management. When there are five stations to be visited, five tasks to be completed, you’ll surely ensure you have time for all stations. From station 1 to 3 we completed the tasks as quickly as possible – to strike a balance between quantity and quality. We gave up on quite a few questions because we thought that we didn’t have enough time.

At station 3 we were given the clue to go to station 4 – UOB bank. We were then told at that station that the race had ended.

Tell me, how will you feel when you’ve had 1 entire HOUR to spare? (the competition is 3 hours long)

Not very nice, isn’t it?

And then pray enlighten me, do you think it’s fair to entertain other teams which slumber their way through the stations, with less sense of time management? Is it right to let the teams which arrive late have the same scores as those who weren’t informed of the 3-station-only-instead-of-5 arranagement?

And for the Grand Finals – we had the top three teams – RGS (raffles girls), Queenstown and Dunman High. RGS ended up with 70 points. We tried the questions ourselves, and got a higher score than the Grand Finals champion, RGS. Isn’t this laughable?

But mostly, this has taught me the lesson (and so has the Interhouse Humans Quiz), that the credibility of the quiz is by far the most important thing to maintain. This year, the NUS Geog Challenge organisers might just have compromised quality for added popularity – with the general thinking that “to encourage schools to join, we should have a more fun programme”.

But I looked again at the competition goals:

“to demonstrate the releveance, dynamism and diversity of Geography as an academic subject and stimluate student interest in this dynamic discipline”.

Quite frankly, having students run about (in the rain, although this couldn’t be helped) to get answers related to heritage sites makes this competition become a Tourist Challenge or Heritage Challenge.

(and don’t tell me that heritage = cultural geography, because heritage facts don’t give the sense of place, space and time. far from it.)

What I learned

Anyway, in the end, I must say what I’ve gained from this competition, beacuse people who google this blog might think this is a sour grape who doesn’t have the capability to maintain RI’s hold on the top three positions for the past 5 consecutive years.

First I found quite a lot of fun doing the Geotrail recee that we had – and I thank the Geog teachers (esp Mrs Chee and Mrs Ong) for organising that.

And I got to know new people better, like benjamin mak, lock leong, and martin lim. All sec3s, but very bright indeed. In particular, Lock Leong reminds me of (huang) renyong – they have very similar characteristics, traits, including a sense of optimism, humility and intelligence. (haha, meet them to believe!)

Of course I re-mugged Nagle. Good opportunity anyway.

Ah well. I’ve got it off my chest – posting about Seoul when I have the time. Will post some nice pics, not only of smiling people and large places. I’ve rediscovered a love for photographic perspective, symmetry and order.

Haha.

[Note: A reader has asked me to clarify what position RI got. We got Top 10 for all categories. That's all.]

june hellidays

Holidays.

Holidays!!

HOLIDAYS!!!

The hellidays are here, and it’s been one week of blissfully doing nothing. (well at least close to nothing)

Of course reading only one chapter of the Book (the one for the chinese review) for the past 7 days is a considerable achievement, considering that I sleep at 2-5am on a daily basis watching rented DVDs. Not forgetting completing SocialAdvoc.

You know how deadly, how sinful, and how addictive they are.

I know you know. Completely.

My daily schedule, of course, would include YouTube-watching marathons, chinese serial watching marathons as well as Tetris marathons. (which reminds me, I’ll be posting some videos below)

Yesterday, however, was different.

I had a problem with Office XP – which could not open, was entirely corrupt, and could not be repaired, upgraded or removed. Naturally I didn’t bother to search Microsoft’s Knowledge Base for help, because I knew Microsoft is Microsoft, what would you expect?

(Which I did eventually, but I was proven correct.)

After this problem had perpetuated for the past 7 days, I got fed up and started a tedious, tiring and divinely boring search through hundreds of vapid, outdated”Microsoft support forums”, I found a single website with a single post on the entire World Wide Web telling me how I could remove those programs!

(Which I did eventually, by deleting 5 registry keys with the name “Patch”. It could work beautifully after that)

Anyway next week is clearly the beginning of working holiday.

Therefore I shall make use of this scared weekend to mug.

Thank you very much.

Found these amazing videos:

Endless Love (Central Park) - Diana Ross [the famous Central Park performance when it rained]

Endless Love (studio) - Diana Ross & Lionel Riche

The Prayer - Celine Dion & Josh Groban

I’m Alive - Celine Dion

That’s all for now.

cross country, aq and a wound

We had cross country today.

I had AQ biking after that.

I fell down, therefore I had a wound on my elbow.

Such is the terribly stimulating life of Yong Sheng today.

busy busy busy

Haha. Apparently from the blog stats, some one searched “wincy tsang +teacher” on google search and came to my blog. I really don’t know how that happened.

(to those who don’t know who wincy tsang is, you’re missing out on a lot)

Today was a busy day (as most days are). It’s only 9:50 and my eyes are falling apart. I really don’t know why. It could be I was so used to sleeping at 3am watching amazing movies on dvds and waking up at 11am during the hols OR there’s much more stress and energy in sec 3.

The pressure is here to stay.

I made a few blunders in school already, and I really wish I could apologise to those people whom I’ve offended. But maybe they don’t know I’m saying a sincere “sorry” to them. I don’t know.

.my teachers.

My teachers are quite ok lah.

English: Ms Kuang (lit RA teacher also). She’s quite a nice teacher/feminist.
Maths: Mrs Ho. Approach is a little boring, otherwise it’s fine. (update: she’s nice!)
Chinese: Mdm Su. Quite strict lah but hopefully will help me IMPROVE MY CHINESE!!!
Geog + SS: Mr Yuen. He’s interactive, humorous and approchable. hurhur…
Phy: Mr Wee. Damn enthu.
Chem: Mrs Kua, who’s like semi-retiring for 4 months. Heard that she’s a great teacher.
Bio: Mrs Lim. I hope she’ll just pause for a moment during her lesson sometimes. She speaks like a bullet train, non-stop. But I guess she produces results?!

If you have any of those teachers before pls tag me here and let me know at my shoutbox. (you’ll see it at the menu when you scroll up) It’s intersting to discuss what amazing teachers we have @ Raffles Institution. Haha.

.my friends.

Mr Yuen (form teacher) did an arrangement of our seating arrangement today. Good if you saw the mistake in the last sentence. I’m so sleepy now. <yawn>

I’m currently seating with the one-and-only great nigel fong. Contary to popular belief and malicious rumours, he’s acutally quite a generous nice guy. He doodles during lessons. OMG. And somehow, we have exactly the same height (164 m) . We’re sitting right in front of the teacher’s table on the first row, meaning that we are the taller people in 3C. (it’s just that those behind happen to be the tallest, that’s all. i’m tall, ok?)

Kristian is a little pissed with me because of the chinese project, but i think i’ll partner with him for future projects to come. He’s very bubbly and lively, but a little more slack.

There’s some friendly disorder in 3C, I dont’ know what but we’re a very co-operative and less quarrelsome class with fewer conflicts than most classes. I called it a disorder because very very few classes have the 3C-atmosphere. But it’s a disorder I’d appreciate and really like for the next 2 years.

.homework and etc.

I’m in 2 RAs (phy and geog), so it gets a little stressful sometimes. Plus the high demands of AQ and other family time commitments like eating durians, I become really tensed up at times and just snap very nastily or make random nasty comments about things. I hope the people around me can understand that. Comment if you do.

Feeling a little discouraged right now, and I’ll be praying. Pray for me too! I really need His touch.