Mistilteinn – the wisdom of the mistletoes

I have decided to publish such a controversial article in my blog instead of facebook for once, full knowing what may happen given past incidents.  The reason is simple : I want people to read it ( not just my friends) to think about what I will write, and to create your own impression of it instead of the very typical “left wing, right wing” thing, because often in life some things are not in black or white, but maybe in various shades of gray which you will not be able to differentiate which percentage of black and white are mixed together.

I am writing this to establish my stance and line of thought towards the incident. I am not siding for the principal, nor am I siding for the year 5 or the year 6. I am writing this to show that unlike people who have yelled blindly at Jeffry’s speech or people who have hated the principal because you simply think he is trying to pull his weight as an authority in the school; I am not one of you.  We might have the same stand (somewhat), but we are not the same.

I shall deviate from the main points and speak about my actions of cheering Jeffry alone even when the rest of the Year 6 was keeping quiet. I did cheer him on, and I am not afraid of saying it. I did it because I was happy someone intellectual enough could step up, and point to some of the grey areas which was potentially obfuscating.  Of course, I stopped cheering after the 1^st few lines he said for very obvious reasons.

One thing I would like to say is that unlike what some have proclaimed, and arguably in a better way than Jeffry, the principal’s speech has sense, and an awful lot of it to be exact. I’ll list them out in plain English to prove my point.

• O level HCL results not conforming to school expectations to the point of being 13% below national average.
• Hair issues   (Now, this rule has been here since we were all born. If you are unhappy with this rule and sees this as one of his unreasonable rules that he has mentioned. I think you need to do your own self reflection on this and stop being biased on the principal.)
• Canteen being dirty
• Personal Leadership and values, which was a carry on from the canteen being dirty.

These concerns have been addressed before by various other teachers at one time or another, and they are part of school rules and admin issues that a school should be concerned of. It is not surprising, nor offensive. It is normal.

With regards to the HCL results, I am not a Year 5 student, so I cannot understand how they feel, and hence I will not bother to. I quote a friend of mine to justify the reason why I believe he should use the word “烂” despite the extreme negative connotations associated with this word: “Its 13%, it’s a lot!”

What I am expressing extreme concern of however, is the new rule of adding an HCL grade A criteria into the eligibility of selecting 11 units worth of JC modules for those in lower levels. While there are people who are very well capable of obtaining straight As such that they are unrestricted in any way, there are many more who are unable to do so, as they often have a weakest link. The catch here is that, is the school going to deprive potential talents in getting a ordinary 4 H2 course simply because of HCL, which they will not take as long as they pass the requirements of D7? This is extremely important as having an 11 point module potentially affects scholarship requirements and to some extent even University requirements. Is the school going to wreck someone’s future in the process of heightening our standard of the Chinese language and culture? This is what I am very concerned of, and that is what he did not address.

Now,  the canteen. I did bother to get down from my tutorial room in a lunch break instead of holing myself in the library today. Well, it is dirty. I saw cups and a few pieces of rubbish strewn here and there, the concern is legitimate. Oh, shame to the black sheep who thinks your maid is going to help you clear that paper cup in the canteen bench.

However, I have heard stories that the incident was also catalysed by the flood two days ago. That is something perhaps the principal has not considered apparently, and given that the canteen is possibly only done by a few black sheep who is unable to exercise social awareness and empathy towards others, many of us feel maligned and unjustified for being scolded for no good reason. That, I understand. What I am frowning upon in this case is the outlandish use of the term “你不是人“– citing us as lesser beings. As humans, we all have a intrinsic sense of pride as a human, as a higher order intellectual creature, as a creature that is able to exercise morally correct judgments. For an issue so trivial ( as compared to the insult. It’s like the hongkong bus uncle parody), he claims we are not fit to be humans because of our lack of empathy towards the workers, without understanding that he has also packaged the following insults with his true meaning: that we are unable to think rationally, morally and act impulsively with survival in mind, that we cannot perform functions that humans can do, especially in a mental sense. Now that is a gross insult for most of us, who are clearly level minded and intellectually capable, and mostly humane and fully capable of feeling guilt. He could have expressed his meaning with more appropriate words, but he chose not to since he had an initial intention to spite us. I will talk about this together in the next section.

I had no problems with him expressing his own ideals of leadership, but what I was disappointed in a minor manner was his somewhat belief that leadership had only one definition. Given the chance, I am quite sure everyone has different perspectives towards leadership and an ideal leader. He could very well share his perception of one, and he could discredit historical figures based on his definition, (which was much to my annoyance because I don’t share the same ideals as him, but it is his rights to voice his own perception; it’s freedom of speech)

Then came his generalization that RV students have little leadership and leadership values, which I did not agree with. At some point or another, we have all been leaders; we have delivered some form of results to the school. We have dared to propose outlandish ideas and set up new CCAs; we have taken little children to school tours and organized events for the general public, to criticize us blindly without considering all those would be a rather nasty thing to do. Then he came to his point: The President Scholarship. He cited that he has seen no RV students obtaining any president’s scholarship for the past 3 years, while he has seen 3 people getting it in the 3 or 4 years in HCJC. Now, that is a very interesting comparison and I will look deeper into it.  Despite the fact that HCJC gets better facilities ( teachers, professors, facilities, students, workshops, funding and the likes) and better quality students to begin with, they also have an intake of approximately 3 times over level. Looking at the numbers, I would say we are very disadvantaged to begin with. Hence, I felt his justification that RV students not getting the president’s scholarship was very wrong to begin with. This is to complement the fact that our first JC batch has not ended; it is simply not fair to assume that we will not get it.( although I will say the chances is slim at best, near impossible to be exact) As such, generalizing the fact we RV students lack leadership was another “uncalled for” insults. He had alternatives, he could have better phrased his words by saying he thinks our moral education needs tweaking and likes, but he did not.

At the end, he gave a challenge to the Year 6, challenging us to get the scholarship if we are unhappy about what he said to prove him wrong. I am quite sure at this point of time, most people would have understood that it was really an attempt to spite us to work. We get that. The issue here is, is there a need to kill our pride and demoralize our souls in order to achieve that? Could the same results be similarly achieved in a less psyche damaging manner?

I will end off this post with a clichéd GP Question which I beg everyone, including the Principal and school staff to think about: Does the ends justify the means?

I am the bone of my sword.

Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.

I have created over a thousand blades.

Unknown to Death.

Nor known to Life.

Have withstood pain to create many weapons.

Yet, those hands will never hold anything.

So, as I pray – “Unlimited Blade Works”.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

(No, i assure you. I don’t get a strawberry shortcake nor a blue haired cute girl to ogle at while eating cake.)

Continue reading 抒情闲谈 #9…

As I continued to do the integration questions, I got increasingly frustrated at myself for how I never get the correct answer one after another. At that very point, I was teaching people about Sec4 Organic Chemistry, which i did it so effortlessly as though I was eating hazelnut chocolates ( Interestingly,hazelnut goes better with chocolates than almonds, cashews, Raisins or Macademias)

It was suddenly at that point where i felt the sense of ….. darkness.

What will happen if  I couldn’t get calculus right? What about Chemistry and Biology then? What about Literature then?

I took a look at some of the blogs of the senpais and peers, they’re always esoterically filled with happy events and interesting posts.

It struck me too see how they are coping so well, It’s as if they’re dealing with it as easy as eating hazelnut chocolates.

And here I am, struggling with the basics. Here I am.

Sometimes I wonder if I am overrating myself, If my aim of Imperial was all talk and bull, If i can even survive. If  I’m just another sacrifice of the world like Angie and Joyce.

All of a sudden, I feel so alone and helpless that I can feel my heart crying. I get this impression I may need to see a doctor in woodbridge soon.

Soon, I think I’ll start feeling the tears on my eyes too, instead of my heart. It’s shameful to see how the one who used to call himself the emperor to fall into such a muddy swamp just trying to even stay afloat. It really is…saddening.

When you’re disempowered, you start to wonder if you can even win fate and its never ending cycle of eugenics and culture capital in the first place.