PW

Hmm. Went to see my pasts last year and the 5 from 2010... So, I was that emo in the past? Though thankfully, i think I've become a slightly happier person, but one who still enjoys brooding on issues etc. for me, the time spent alone thinking about things issuing satisfying (this brings to mind a certain article called "the joy of quiet"... I think...)

Anyway, I received my PW results today and I was really happy! (for a short period of time)... It felt like I had this great crushing pressure relieved (如释重负）and my heart was beating really fast... Then I sat in the wrong seat -.-

But of course, there's no denying that I got a B for Chinese... So, based on these two experiences, and when my friend SMSed me a reply of "Shit." when I asked hi, how PW was, I felt like typing a short blogpost... So here I am.

I have typed this when I received my O level results, but it occurs to me more strongly now, knowing the sense of crushing defeat when you expect/ get a B (or below) especially when you know you've put in so much effort. It's so painful you're willing to block out the world, not care about other parties' concerned queries, etc. Education in Singapore seems to be a zero-sum game that requires some people to suffer in order for others to "win", in a sense, and derive their happiness.

It seems to me that this may be necessary. After all, There is a very real need for assessment of children's or any student's abilities- how good is he/she at solving math problems, for instance. But there is a trade off involved, which is that those who are not performing as well tend to firstly be classified unconsciously by teachers as weak, and this biased form of thinking would then favour those perceived to be smart, who generally live up to expectations, and disadvantage those who are perceived as less academically inclined - and they too feel that the teachers aren't focusing as much on them and hence their grades are correspondingly weak due to the lack of encouragement.
Secondly, the economy as a whole suffers. If students were graded based on how hardworking they were, the willingness to learn, and learn from mistakes, then that would be a far better skill for use in the working world. Studies have shown that whatever is left of our knowledge after graduating from school can be condensed into a short two weeks or so. Thus, what is more important is the inculcating of values such as being hardworking as staed above rather than a focusing of how well one can memorise and regurgitate content. At the very least, exams need to incorporate much more application skills rather than rote memorisation. Otherwise, discouraged students would not want to study, and would be less likely to earn a higher-paying job due to the lack of connfidence and lack of skills. In the macroeconomics lecture I just had, it mentioned that structural employment also has a "discouraged worker effect" where retrenched people become less and less likely to be reemployed after falling into unemployment, due to the loss of working skills and simply being discouraged to want to apply for a job. This could be caused by the zero-sum nature of education. Hence, it can be seen that getting rid of or minimising the association of grades with education would benefit society as a whole as individuals would be more confident and competitive, leading to an increase in national output.

Movie Review - Contagion

Okay, fine, this was an old movie, but I hadn't seen it before it was screened in Biosoc camp.

And anyway before I begin this short post, Happy April Fools' Day :D

Okay, so..

Contagion is about the horrors of what can really go wrong in our current world, increasingly interconnected via so many ways - by airplanes, ships, and cars and buses, etc.

When a virus passes from a bat to a pig, and then to a human, the virus decimates every cell it infects. But in the short amount of time it takes to kill a person, the period of time when a person is a carrier leads to many more infections happening. The movie introduces a term called "R-nought" - for example, with an R-nought of 2, the number of infected people increase like so: one squared equals two; two squared equals four; four sqaured equals sixteen; and so on and so forth. Imagine the number of people infected within just a couple of months. The movie introduces that possibility and makes it a very real threat.

The virus hence progresses rapidly from an outbreak to an epidemic, then a pandemic. An what' even more devastating is the fact that human behaviour, as it so often does, leads to catastrophe. Self-serving people who only tell loved ones what's happening cause hoarding of food. Then they tell their own loved ones, and pretty soon new media, like calls, social networking sites, blogs, SMSes spread the message like wildfire and everyone rushes to grab whatever they can. Medicines, food. A return to the basic needs. Riots happen and there is widespread looting. Anarchy is a terrible thing.

I feel tempted to discuss the movie more but there really isn't enough time... So I'll just leave it as, the husband of the original carrier is immune, is very protective of his little (teenage) girl after his son died as well, and forbids her meeting her boyfriend... but love will bloom no matter what, and once a vaccination is found by a brave biologist who uses herself as the test subject, things start to return to normal slowly, and the girl dances with her boyfriend in her house on prom night. The movie concludes shockingly with how the virus went from bat to pig to a chef to the first human carrier, the mother of the girl.

This movie, to me, is a powerful reminder of how things can quickly degenerate when people are self-serving in the midst of a crisis, and gave some insight as to how grave a disease outbreak really is. While enjoying ourselves and going about our daily lives, one must not forget to be cautious.

But of course, that's no cause for OCD and things... like being saliva consious.. (;