Dinosuar eggs
Music: [Hotel Rwanda]- Million Voices
Book: Eugene Ionesco- Rhinoceros
If you had thought Beckett was absurd enough check out this fellow. Check out, in particular, The leader.
One peaceful morning in school Mrs Leong Wen Choo, civics tutor for my class, msged me to go find her. I did in the first break that came along. She handed me a few pieces of paper, the first of which had the heading The Pennsylvania Governor's School for Global Entrepreneurship. Scholarship...4 weeks abroad...July...think through it...were the words that got through to me. One shouldnt attempt to think too much on a peaceful morning.
In essence it's some course for entrepreneur wannabes; not a full degree course but still some sort of certified, advanced placement program for high school students. It would be held at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA. There's nothing prestigious about this whole thing, both the program and the university, but it IS a course for entreprenuers. Which means that, to quote directly from their files, "students are assigned to a real-world company where they will spend Monday afternoons working on a project and problem-solving for that organization. Students prepare a formal business plan and presentation for the company executives.", and they "meet global entreprenuers from major TNCs..", and "In small groups, students tour a variety of local companies and organizations, to observe entrepreneurship in action and meet with executives and employees."........
Right. I know it sounds all so typical and stuff but the key temptation for me, out of this entire package, is the fact that you're actually going abroad. You're going abroad to witness, first-hand, what life is like over there, how businesses work, you can get to see things from different perspectives, get to make some global friends.
We see a parallel of this in the NUS thing Im in now. The key thing Im gaining for myself from that course isnt academic knowledge/skills, but information, information to aid me in life-sized decisions Im going to make in the near future. Similarly, the course package for this overseas thingyi isnt of foremost importance; by committing myself there I would be able to make more informed choices in the future--like where to study or work, would the USA be a better choice than UK, and most important, the life experience (friends, experience of a different environment, etc) obtained.
I talked to VP2 on that very same afternoon. It is very important to discuss matters of such gravity in the afternoon. She told me she had shortlisted two other students besides me, and told me it would be good if I could go, presumably because it would benefit the college in various imperceptible ways (it's not like this kind of things get publicized or anything). I have got to admit here that I do feel a certain nationalist feeling within self--to have such attention, even if it's filtered attention (from the university over there to the local authorities over here to the college itself to the VP to me) as opposed to direct attention from the source itself. When I studied for 4 weeks last year I had no idea it would open such avenues for me (there are, incidentally, a couple other presently petty things that might receive mention in due time).
Unlike the NUS thing however, I must admit I dont feel any tendency to give in to the temptation of novelty, at least not immediately. Several reasons. The NUS thing is down HERE, in singapore. That thing is over THERE, dunno where. And that thing is right smack in July, meaning Im going to miss 4 weeks of lessons in a crucial period. Am I about to screw up my A levels the way O levels screwed me up just because I couldnt resist the temptation of gaining an arguably unique life experience for myself?
Serious thought is required here (unlike, again, the NUS thing, where being comfortably placed far away from November there was no real opportunity cost in going for it).
Already I can see some interesting arguments forming. A friend pointed out that even IF my A levels get sacrificed as a result I might still have whatever scholarhip thingyi they are giving. The issue here then would be weighing the cost of foregoing a potential avenue of "scholarships" (or at the very least, a decent certificate) versus the potentiality of their scholarship. A more encouraging thought would be that hey, the A levels might not get affected in the way I perceive it would. The primary issue here then would be weighing the probability and extent to which my A levels would get sacrificed versus the real benefits of the program.
A more encompassing line of thought would be the self-perceived intrinsic value I would obtain from this new life experience. The logic goes as follows: we (or at least, I) remember our happy childhood days more than we remember our results then. I mean look, how many of us bother holding a decent sec1/sec2 report card versus those times we spent playing a fool in class, those sunny afternoons spent gaying about with friends etc. Now project that on a larger-scale: years down the road, how many of us are going to hold fondly our O/A-level certificates the same way we would hold fondly our memories obtained from the life experiences we got from secondary school and college respectively? In this line of thought the fundamental belief is that ultimately, as some people always like to say time and time again, studies isnt everything, what matters most is that we have a good life.
Think I'll have to go discuss this with tutors and friends.
Totally unrelated to all that has been said, I notice there's no point indulging a friendship when you can't maintain it. All this while I've been talking and talking (and occasionally whining) about the lack of quality and quantity friendships in college. It gets rather refreshing, then, to think of it on the other end: when you've got too many friends. The only outcome that could come out of this would entail a sacrifice. Friends are indivisible goods. Surplus consumption (but in relation to who?) would by default result in a partial loss on another side.
To hell with economics. There's nothing we can do.
We're playing squash for PE. Sigh. Everything goes against you.
Book: Eugene Ionesco- Rhinoceros
If you had thought Beckett was absurd enough check out this fellow. Check out, in particular, The leader.
One peaceful morning in school Mrs Leong Wen Choo, civics tutor for my class, msged me to go find her. I did in the first break that came along. She handed me a few pieces of paper, the first of which had the heading The Pennsylvania Governor's School for Global Entrepreneurship. Scholarship...4 weeks abroad...July...think through it...were the words that got through to me. One shouldnt attempt to think too much on a peaceful morning.
In essence it's some course for entrepreneur wannabes; not a full degree course but still some sort of certified, advanced placement program for high school students. It would be held at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA. There's nothing prestigious about this whole thing, both the program and the university, but it IS a course for entreprenuers. Which means that, to quote directly from their files, "students are assigned to a real-world company where they will spend Monday afternoons working on a project and problem-solving for that organization. Students prepare a formal business plan and presentation for the company executives.", and they "meet global entreprenuers from major TNCs..", and "In small groups, students tour a variety of local companies and organizations, to observe entrepreneurship in action and meet with executives and employees."........
Right. I know it sounds all so typical and stuff but the key temptation for me, out of this entire package, is the fact that you're actually going abroad. You're going abroad to witness, first-hand, what life is like over there, how businesses work, you can get to see things from different perspectives, get to make some global friends.
We see a parallel of this in the NUS thing Im in now. The key thing Im gaining for myself from that course isnt academic knowledge/skills, but information, information to aid me in life-sized decisions Im going to make in the near future. Similarly, the course package for this overseas thingyi isnt of foremost importance; by committing myself there I would be able to make more informed choices in the future--like where to study or work, would the USA be a better choice than UK, and most important, the life experience (friends, experience of a different environment, etc) obtained.
I talked to VP2 on that very same afternoon. It is very important to discuss matters of such gravity in the afternoon. She told me she had shortlisted two other students besides me, and told me it would be good if I could go, presumably because it would benefit the college in various imperceptible ways (it's not like this kind of things get publicized or anything). I have got to admit here that I do feel a certain nationalist feeling within self--to have such attention, even if it's filtered attention (from the university over there to the local authorities over here to the college itself to the VP to me) as opposed to direct attention from the source itself. When I studied for 4 weeks last year I had no idea it would open such avenues for me (there are, incidentally, a couple other presently petty things that might receive mention in due time).
Unlike the NUS thing however, I must admit I dont feel any tendency to give in to the temptation of novelty, at least not immediately. Several reasons. The NUS thing is down HERE, in singapore. That thing is over THERE, dunno where. And that thing is right smack in July, meaning Im going to miss 4 weeks of lessons in a crucial period. Am I about to screw up my A levels the way O levels screwed me up just because I couldnt resist the temptation of gaining an arguably unique life experience for myself?
Serious thought is required here (unlike, again, the NUS thing, where being comfortably placed far away from November there was no real opportunity cost in going for it).
Already I can see some interesting arguments forming. A friend pointed out that even IF my A levels get sacrificed as a result I might still have whatever scholarhip thingyi they are giving. The issue here then would be weighing the cost of foregoing a potential avenue of "scholarships" (or at the very least, a decent certificate) versus the potentiality of their scholarship. A more encouraging thought would be that hey, the A levels might not get affected in the way I perceive it would. The primary issue here then would be weighing the probability and extent to which my A levels would get sacrificed versus the real benefits of the program.
A more encompassing line of thought would be the self-perceived intrinsic value I would obtain from this new life experience. The logic goes as follows: we (or at least, I) remember our happy childhood days more than we remember our results then. I mean look, how many of us bother holding a decent sec1/sec2 report card versus those times we spent playing a fool in class, those sunny afternoons spent gaying about with friends etc. Now project that on a larger-scale: years down the road, how many of us are going to hold fondly our O/A-level certificates the same way we would hold fondly our memories obtained from the life experiences we got from secondary school and college respectively? In this line of thought the fundamental belief is that ultimately, as some people always like to say time and time again, studies isnt everything, what matters most is that we have a good life.
Think I'll have to go discuss this with tutors and friends.
Totally unrelated to all that has been said, I notice there's no point indulging a friendship when you can't maintain it. All this while I've been talking and talking (and occasionally whining) about the lack of quality and quantity friendships in college. It gets rather refreshing, then, to think of it on the other end: when you've got too many friends. The only outcome that could come out of this would entail a sacrifice. Friends are indivisible goods. Surplus consumption (but in relation to who?) would by default result in a partial loss on another side.
To hell with economics. There's nothing we can do.
We're playing squash for PE. Sigh. Everything goes against you.
2 Comments:
I noticed you've been going around with a glare, or rather (to exaggerate), a slightly disfocused maniacal look. Maybe I was imagining things, but you do look distracted. It might do you good to relax your mind a bit and not squash yourself out? ^_^
When I don't get decent grades, I don't even get to enjoy a life where my grades dont come back to haunt me in cumbersome ways. Am even deprived of things cos of my studies. Geez.
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