Vigil Guard for the late S Rajaratnam

What appeared in page 4 of the Home section in The Straits Times on 25 February 2006...

(With apologies to SPH!)

Tutorial 2 for DSZS2121

Guess where I am!??! In room 5.39 of HQ Block in SIM University!!! Kewl...doing SPSS for Windows...Mag is bringing us through the internal workings of SPSS...

TMA 1

Woke up at 0400hrs to finish my Tutor-Marked Assignment 1 (TMA 1) for EDZS2091 Child Psychology...original due date was to be 21st Feb but our kind tutor pushed it back to the 23rd instead...thanx Dr Yeap! You're a doll...

Question is...
"What are the images of childhood and how have these images shaped our views toward child development? What are the implications for childcare practices? Discuss."

1500-2000 words...no sweat...I hope!

Next up is my TMA 1 for my DSZS2121 Exploring Psychology on 7th March...

And also the Engineering Subject Self Evaluation (ESSE) @ NUS on 10th March for entry to the Graduate Diploma in Defence Technology and Systems (DDTS) in the middle of the year...gotta revise those A-levels Physics and Maths in between completing my TMAs and reviewing new lessons and tutorials...

Words words words

In Delifrance @ Lot 1 having lunch with the wife. As usual I ordered my café mocha. That’s my SOP beverage in the coffee houses. So far I like those made by McCafe the best followed by Delifrance’s. Anyway, was talking to the wife about kids in Alisha’s class. She commented on how the boys in the class were higly hyper-active. “Nge-le-nya!” she said. I asked her if she didn’t know that word to describe the boys, what Malay word would she have used. “Tak tahu duduk diam?” she enquired. Hah…that didn’t have as much impact as the original description! So I have decided to start a series of unique words I grew up with! I shall call it the UWIGUW Series…

Nge-le-nya

1. Tak tahu duduk diam


2. Macam bulu sehelai – usually shortened to ‘macam bulu selai’!


3. Hyper-active?

I'd like my dear 'readers' to try help filling in some of the rest...

Nge-le-jat

Te-ngah-ngal

Haram-jadah

Nge-loh

Te-nih - This one from Rina...never heard before!

Names names names

In Starbucks @ United Square now…doing my TMA – can you believe it!?!? Ahh…the sacrifices one makes for continuous learning… First time in the Starbucks here. Usually I would be at McCafe on the ground floor. It’s kinda small and there’s a lot of people today so I decided to change venue. Bumped into Raz, one of my LAW gunners in the Spartans back in 2000. He’s a shift manager here. Only remembered his name after one of his staff hollered it out across the room! I’m not very good at remembering names… Most of the time when my former trainees and men meet me they would just address me as “Sir” and I would be left wondering what their names were after that. I know that I should just ask him for his name but you know, it’s the same reason why men don’t ask for directions…ah well, back to the books…of Vygotsky, Skinner and Chomsky…

GRE Results

I received my official GRE results from Education Testing Services (ETS) from the US of A. Henceforth are my results:-

1. Verbal : 580/800
% below: 80%

2. Quantitative: 580/800
% below: 41%

3. Analytical Writing: 5.5/6.0 converted to 750/800!
% below: 86%

Not bad for the Analytical Writing huh? I guess the 2 years of doing TMAs (Tutor Marked Assignments) came in useful! Oh well, according to the entry requirements set forth by the Temasek Defence Systems Institute (http://www.tdsi.nus.edu.sg/), I apparently qualified for the Graduate Diploma Programme in Defence Technology and Systems (DDTS) whose minimum score is 1600. Mine’s 1810…now I just gotta wait for the ESSE thingy by Mindef…

Was at Singapore Botanical Gardens on Sunday morning. Superb weather for the girls and for photography! This was taken at the Symphony Lake. Forgot to change the ISO setting. This was taken at ISO 1600!!!

Reflection

"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it" - William Faulkner (American Writer, 1897-1962)

This quote which I found while reading the foreword of Pointer Vol 30 No.1 (2004) reminds me again of the importance of reflection. Our fast paced modern lives leaves us little precious time to engage in this simple but important act. Whether thinking about how our actions have affected others and how we can improve ourselves after what we had done for the day, reflection helps us to consolidate our thoughts and actions. It helps reflect on our mistakes, our achievements and what we can learn from them. And nothing does this better than writing it down be it in a 'traditional' diary or the ubiquitous blog.

I therefore tell myself to set aside time everyday to engage in a bit of self-reflection...

Who knows, others may actually learn something from them...