Ho hum...

I just found another category in the web-filtering company's arsenal.

Tasteless.

This should also apply to their own site.

Education, schmucation...

Recently I have been reading quite a bit about the state of education in Singapore.
Most are from the view of educators, and people who are not having said education being applied to them (the adults).

The environment has changed indeed. When teachers are being appraised by everything else but the thing they are actually supposed to do - teaching and interacting with their students - something's definitely off with the system. I could agree that measuring the growth of students as a teacher's main appraisal criteria is no easy task. However, when the other appraisal criterias takes up so much of a teachers time - time they could have used to help their students learn and grow - that they become overworked, it does not make sense.

Thinking about this brought me back to my own days as a student. I remembered starting out very slowly in Primary 1. That was when I first started to really learn my A B C's and numerals. Here nowadays, most kids already have to know how to read by the time they enter Primary 1. My "class ranking" did not pick up until I entered Primary 5, only to fall again when I entered Secondary 1 in Singapore. It went up again, and remained in the upper percentile until I entered University (personal hindsight: lousy choice of a degree).

My University grades really sucked. Not a single 'A' in my core subjects and plenty of 'F's. (Knowing a few someone elses who can get 'A's in their core modules without breaking a sweat does not help :P). Somehow, with minimum study, I managed a few 'A's in my electives. As I think about what I learnt about in University, and trying to recall some of the examination questions, I wondered how on earth I managed to graduate in time.

There is one common factor though. It is easier to find "fun" and therefore "excel" in something that is enjoyable. Even the "perception" that something as enjoyable is usually sufficient. Unfortunately, being able to switch perceptions and maintaining them is a difficult skill to practice.

Murphy's other facet...

"Stuff" always come to you when you least need it. (Remember that namecard you needed desperately to find last week? Viola! It is sitting there right on the television. It was not there when you looked last week!) When you really need it, it will be running away from you at warp 9 speed and hide in a meteor field.

I just had an offer to apply for an interview, and it seems that the company is pretty desperate to hire someone competent in the languages I work in because they are not placing any background requirement even though the position is in a quite specialised field. I do view it as an opportunity, and I am very grateful to the person who thought that I am probably good enough to apply for the position. It's just that this came at quite an inopportunate moment. Although I gripe about my work sometimes, I like what I am doing, and I also like it that my current company is pretty flexible with its office hours. Plus, I have just signed into a permanent contract with them.

In the Singapore's "everybody for him/herself" environment, the correct move would have to go and apply for an interview. But silly old fashioned me believe that I should at least justify my current company's recent "trust" in me. (It may also be that they themselves are trying to retain "talent" in the improving job market, hur hur hur...) Plus, I do not want to waste the other company's time and resources if I have already decided that I'm most probably not going to take the job. I think I know at least one reason why they are finding it hard to get experienced people. The Japanese who are already doing similar jobs would be paid much higher back in Japan (and the pay in Singapore was hinted to me to be pretty good). Although I wonder why they did not turn to well reputed agencies like JAC if they are that desperate, and would there be enough time for in-house training since they seems to be that pressed for time.

The interesting timing is... this opportunity did come at the end of my current contract. So if I had not signed on, I would have applied for the interview. (Whether I get it or not is another story.) It is after all, in an area that is expanding tremendously in Singapore. Time will tell if I made a big boo boo out of this opportunity. But it is good to know that linguistic capabilities can command quite a demand. Now all I need to do is to sharpen it further! (Which is hard to do in Singapore... gah...)

On a matter that might be related... I have gotten 2 friendster request from people whom I can't for the life of me recall knowing. One of them at least had a familiar name, but the face in the pictures is not the one I remembered. And both are ladies. Weird...