Great uproar over death of Taiwanese actress… What about her assistant?

A great uproar consumed many online forums following the accidental death of Taiwanese actress Hsu Wei Lun (or someything like that…). She was killed in an automobile accident while riding shotgun alongside her assistant who was driving the car. The assistant escaped with minor injuries.

Hsu managed to live for about a day before succumbing to severe injuries. In the torrent of sympathatic words, the assistant was forgotten. Due to the popularity of Hsu, the assistant is likely to come under great pressure from the fan community. While most of the fans I have seen seems to be quite reasonable and understanding, I have seen one too many times cases of fans getting overly worked up over something and commit something they will regret later.

In addition, Hsu’s assistant will likely be living in the shadow of this incident for most if not all of the rest of her life. The prospects of that, I think, is even more daunting that being killed fast and hard in a car accident. Given the right amount of pressure and circumstances, a suicide attempt is probable. She seriously should undergo counselling or something of the sorts.

My message is that, while mourning the tragic death of the beautiful actress, maybe we should pay more attention to the assistant, who is quite likely to meet with a bad end, be it by her own hands or the hands of some hardcore fans of Hsu.

Literature lesson. A unique experience.

Today’s Literature lesson is very very different. It was more spritual than academic. More emotional than intellectual. Miss Ngo discussed the diagnostic test yesterday with us. Yesterday, the rowdiness of some students caused her to “lose it”, quoting her. She said that she is “a bit emotional”, as if it was something bad. Is that so? I think not. Literature is the study of literary works, not as a scientific specimen; Instead, as a work of art. How it affects the reader is far more important than anything else in the work! How human beings respond to Literature is more significant than what happend in the reader’s mind! Literature IS emotional! So is it bad for a Literature teacher to be emotional? No. Not always at least. Emotions released when appreciating a text is good. Emotional reflexes when you read the text is good too. Emotions when disciplining students, not exactly beneficial. But even a teacher is human, how can anybody control emotions fully? Nobody. Even the best disciplined monk will erupt in rage when provoked enough. Unless you get a robot to be your teacher, which cannot possibly teach the emotional aspect of Literature, this cannot be resolved completely.The fact that Miss Ngo did spend time reflecting upon our Literature classes have completely convinced me that I like her, as a person. Even if she utterly failed in teaching us (which everyone knows she didn’t and most probably won’t). She had earned my respect. Our teacher tried her best to resolve conflicts between students and teachers, even if it involved public apologies. To cultivate a passion in us for Literature is her goal. Nobody should dislike her for that.Second chances. Do we really have to resort to them to solve our problems? Why can’t we get it right on the first try? That is as simple as adhering to instructions and according others the proper respect. We should all try to do that. Don’t stage “riots” in class. Objections can be raised in a civilised way instead of vocal uproars.

First Day of Serious Studying

Today was the first day in 2007 we had to really go to school and “study”. The one and only 邱老师 remains our form teacher. We had a seemingly young but in fact quite experienced Mrs. Ooi for a math teacher. She is obviously a good teacher judging from the way she explains things and asks whether anybody doesn’t understand and the fact that she is very particular about the traditional greetings of Hwa Chong Institution, formerly The Chinese High School. She used two periods to make clear to us her expectations and requirements.

Another teacher we met today is Miss Melissa Ngo. She is new in Hwa Chong Institution, according to 邱老师. The first thing she did with us was tell us to introduce the person sitting beside us. A variation from the normal self-introduction I guess. Nicholas Yeo was sitting beside Adrian and he stated that Adrian was cute. Haha. I definitely agree, but thats not the best thing of the day.

When we came to Foong Wai, which was sitting beside Nicholas Foo, one of the most hilarious event of 2007 happened. He said “My friend is Nick Yeo, and he doesn’t like to bathe.”. The entire class burst out in hysterical laughter. Apparently, he said the wrong name. Miss Ngo asked Foong Wai to repeat himself as what he said was drowned out in the resulting laughter and she didn’t hear what he said properly. This time however, Foong Wai said, “My friend is Nick Yeo. Oh I mean Foo. And…er…He likes to bathe.”. Our Literature teacher replied with “Oh, so we have a very clean classmate there. Good”. And once again, the class erupted in laughter. I, for one, laughed till tears came to my eyes.

The last thing I have to mention is that we have a new English teacher this year, Miss Tan Yew Hui. Not a bad thing, I have to say. In terms of this subject, she suits this job better than our teacher last year. But other than that, Mr. Jeffrey Lim is as good a teacher.

An Uneventful Day

28th December 2006. Woke up quite early in the morning today, went for breakfast straight away after bathing. Went to play a little bit of soccer with friends after breakfast. It was a short game, more like practice. Had some fun there. Unfortunately, it started raining soon and we had to go back. I went to the fitness center for some workouts. 2 sets of 10 for leg extension and 2 sets of 10 for the shoulder press.

Was quite tired when I went back to the room. So I slept for a little after bathing and changing out of the sweaty clothes. Woke up to find the twins back already, from band practice or something like that. Spend the afternoon watching the television since I can’t access the Internet and it was raining. Went down for dinner at about 5.45 pm.

They were serving “Fried Crispy Fishes” which was simply small fishes deep fried, without even the need for sauce of any kind. The fish was “risk-free” when compared to the other things they serve. Fried fish is fried fish. You can’t do much to influence the taste or texture save for burning it. Compared to the normal food they serve, the fish was relatively okay.

Our music teacher and her husband, the boarding school director came and sat down with us for dinner. Their son was only 2 years old but he consumed plain rice with an intensity unmatched by many of us. I looked on, dumbfounded when he gobbled down almost the entire plate of rice.

I was reading The Straits Times when I came across an article about a comment by a Malaysian politician from DAP. Mr Teng Chang Kim. He commented on the issue of the Malaysian economy losing out to Singapore. He said that many local talents have went to Singapore. This is not a new issue, it had already been brought up before by some other people. But the distinction is that this politician did not say that “Malaysia’s talents have been poached by Singapore”, instead he said that the “brain-lost” was due to the fact that “Malaysia attach little importance to talent.”, to quote his words. After all, who would want to go overseas, away from home to study if there wasn’t much difference in what he gains? If the education system in Malaysia had been better, more emphasis been put on talented people, would Singapore have succeeded in getting Malaysia’s local talents? I think not.

The Tenth Circle- A book Review

27th December 2006. All right, now for the book review I promised. This will be a post based fully on my personal response and emotions. After all, thats whats Literature about, how the readers respond. So fellow lovers of Literature, please feel free to voice your thoughts too, via the comments. The book is “The Tenth Circle”. The book’s title is inspired by a work about Hell by somebody named Dante.

Firstly, about the author. Jodi Picoult. I had read a book of hers, entitled “The Pact”. The works of this author is predominantly the product of crime thrillers combined with love stories. An excellent combination. The plot of a crime thriller is usually already complicated enough without the addition of arguably one of the most powerful human emotions. Love. A quote from the book “According to Trixie, the woman at the funeral had fallen in love. And like any accelerant, love will change the equation. Add love, and somebody may do something crazy. Add love, and the lines between right and wrong are bound to disappear.”. In short, the combination makes high quality reading.

With a father from Alaska, with a violent background. A college lecturer as a mother. A girl hovering between childhood and adolescence for a daughter. A potentially volatile mixture. As trauma of the daughter’s rape adds pressure to the already tense relationship between man and wife. As an extra-marital affair rocks the family. What will happen to these people?

The story is sad but filled with suspense. Constantly keeping you on your toes. That factor is what made me read the book for a few hours straight until I finally finished it. A tale with an obviously sad atmosphere AND a lot of suspense is not common. What sets this book apart from the generic “lives happily ever after” story is the stark showcase of the fact that justice does not always win.

One more thing, the plot of this book is extremely complicated, and I really mean VERY. Not a book to pick if what you want is to have some good laughs and end up with a cozy feeling. Its a very sad read. After all, with adultery, rape and murder for main themes, what did you expect? I really like this kind of heavy literature, maybe I am eccentric or something. Hehe. Like Chern Yuen said.

The author has include a short but revolutionary comic in this novel. She even concealed letters which form a quotation the theme was based on in the graphic. This is a considerate gesture from the author. A comic that complements the story provides a good break from reading a story that affects you emotionally. Overall, I like this book quite a lot.

PS: The girl on the covers looked good.

Helping to host new boarders. Earthquake damaged internet

27 December 2006. Promised to help out with the new boarders on the 31st of December. Chern Yuen called me at around 1900 hours and started gobbing off about some “Boarding School Games” and asked me whether I wanted in. I thought it was some sports event again, like the Inter-Hall Games last year. So I told him no. I am far too lousy in sports to participate anyway. But he kept on asking me “what did we do?”. So I listed out the sport events, futsal, badminton, table tennis and the likes of it. He stopped me and said he wasn’t talking about the sports. This is something like an ice-breaking activity for the new boarders, something like orientation. And asking me whether I wanted to join was asking me to help out. Oh… Since I have nothing on, I said okay, given that Chern Yuen goes too. After all, I don’t want to be doing something with a bunch of people I know nothing about except their names.

After all this confusion, Chern Yuen SMS-ed me and told me that he have just asked the OS and it was supposed to be “some simple games”, quoting him (Which I suspect he also quoted from Jenna). There will supposedly be a meeting on the 29th, which is Friday.

By the way, I just learnt from father and also Mr. Shaun Ang that a major earthquake in Taiwan has messed up the Internet connections in the Asia Pacific area big time. The international fiber optic cables got damaged badly and all the ISPs using that line got to be affected. Well, I will post this ASAP, they have re-routed the Internet traffic to other cables but it seems that I still can’t access international servers from the boarding school’s connection. So guys, I will provide the composing date for this, the previous few posts at the beginning of the them.

Herding new Scholars to their Medical Check-up

`27th December 2006. Early this morning, Chern Yuen, Mo Xiang and I met at the Function Hall to wait for the new scholars. About 15 out of 18 of them came down punctually. Mo Xiang and I brought them down to wait around the benches outside LT3 while Chern Yuen stays back for a while in case the latecomers don’t know their way around. At last, it turned out that Chern Yuen only brought 2 juniors down. So one was missing, which is a very serious matter, as they need to be present for the check-up to fulfill one of the clauses of the scholarship agreement. Fortunately for us and also for the scholar, he turned up about 5 minutes later with his parents. Apparently, they were not listening when Mo Xiang made the announcement yesterday. Or maybe he thinks he knows his way around better than us. Anyway, thats his problem. As long as he’s present, I don’t care.

After about 15 minutes of attendance taking and 2 trips back to the boarding school because of forgotten passports, we were set to go. It turned out that Mr. Lim is not going with us, and Ms. Sharon Chong, a boarding school staff accompanied us on the trip. On the bus, the new students were very silent and don’t even talk among roommates. Pretty scaring. Impossible that all of them are the “scholarly” or more commonly know as “nerdy” kind.

It was a the clinic did we discovered the true colours of this batch of new students. There were indeed some scholarly types, but most of them have considerable difficulty in behaving properly. There was a Benjamin that I suspect will be a second Joseph. He asks whether he gets rewards when you tell him to do something. And he puts on a strong mask, keeps on saying that it does not hurt at all. It is somewhat obvious that he is doing it to compensate for the insecurity he feels. Don’t want others to think that he’s nervous.

Then theres another great “personality”, his looks reminds me of Foong Wai. And he seems to find humour in what we normally see as “ordinary”. Great. Maybe he will even bring more laughter to his class. What I am worried about is him becoming more childish. And he also seems not very disciplined. Not a good thing.

Hosting of new Malaysian Scholars

26th December 2006. Today, went as promised to help Mr Lee host the new Malaysian scholars, went straight to the office after taking breakfast alongside Mo Xiang and Anthony. I was early and discovered that nobody was there yet. So I headed for the fitness center. Still having almost an hour to spare, I did some resistance training as I am not in the mood for cardio. After completing three sets of hammer curls I went outside for a drink. Saw Ms. Teh and asked her if 10 am is the correct time for us to meet Mr Lee. She said yes and so I headed in for another couple set of bench presses. Completing them and performing the cooling down, I went to the office and met Mo Xiang again. We waited on the benches outside the office and suddenly Mr Lee and some students came out. He told us to follow and we did, to the function hall. After receiving a copy of the program I was assigned a group of students from JB. He looked decent enough to convince me that he will not become a die-hard gamer. Good.

I was assigned a scholar from Johor. He looked weird, that kind of look that always makes people think that he’s saying something indignantly. Name of Shen Yee or something like that. This person seems to be quite weak in his English, he replies in Chinese when you speak to him in English. Maybe thats just habitual, but I suspect that its a trait shared by many of the previous Johor scholars. Hope that he will pick up on his English soon, that is essential if he wants to even keep up, if not excel in his studies.

After giving them about 30 minutes to unpack their things, the student hosts went up to their rooms to retrieve the new scholars and start doing what we are supposed to. They were stowing some clothes into the wardrobe when I invited them to follow me. We went through the programme schedule without much problems. But the parents seems quite worn down by all the walking around campus. The day’s programme concluded with a briefing by the boarding staff in the function hall.

The experience was a good one. Feels good to be doing what the seniors have done for us when we first checked in. The group I was hosting had a father moderately capable of speech in English, a son, which I think doesn’t fully comprehend what I was saying. Apparently, English was also not a strength of the mother. The fact that I am effectively bilingual is a good thing, although my previously strong Chinese has grown rusty. The contrary was true for English, which I have practiced through my relatively vast readings and also from processing English medium material which I harvest from the Internet. Seemingly, the family is pretty happy with my hospitality, a good thing.

Day in Boarding School

25th December. Arrived in Singapore around 2 pm today. Went and checked in at the boarding school straight away, meeting another posse consisting of sad looking parents and children who looked like they are Malay. They are from JB, even happening to live in the vicinity of my house… The dude’s going to NJC next year. After finally getting the access card for the halls (after about 15 minutes of wait for the great Ms. Pauline Yee which seemed to me as would an eternity). Shockingly, the board sporting the title “Rooming list for 2007” told me that the Lam twins and Zhi Hao will be my roommates for next year. Well, guess that the effeminate twins are better than some other people that likes to conspire (like those that I suspect were the very causes of the “You study secretly while telling others not to do so” issue).

Back to the topic now. After arriving at my cluster and finding it almost empty, I started to clean the room and lug the stuff I left in the study room back to my room and spent a little over 2 hours doing it. Upon completion of my tour of duty as a cleaner, I rested for a bit and showered (my new pink towel is cute). For the rest of the day I stayed on my bed with “The Tenth Circle” by Jodi Picoult. A revolutionary work I must say. Will review the book in my next post. Look forward to it.

I missed my dinner today as I was too indulged in the book to even notice the time. When I was finally through with the spectacular finale the novel concludes with, it was 5 minutes to 10. Which meant that I sat there for about 5 hours straight reading the book. On my way back from the office after marking my own attendance, I suddenly felt hungry, big time. Attempting to remedy that, I bought a Snickers bar from the vending machine (Blue Tea was closed) and made a cup of strong coffee to go with it. Due to the lack of milk which was in turn due to the closure of Blue Tea, I had no choice but the take it plain. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. It was not bitter, but aromatic I can say. I learned something about Snickers, they are VERY filling. A bar can substitute a meal for me. Maybe people who go on expeditions should bring a stash of Snickers or Mars Bars (which I figure will be similar).

By the way, its Christmas today, so Merry Christmas everyone.