Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

I wish Shakespeare would visit someday. Demark is really great around this time of the year.

This has probably been one of the hardest quotes from Shakespeare to sort of nudge into everyday speech, so I think this is probably the most appropriate time I can ever use it. The irony of it all being that Shakespeare never visited Denmark, but still went on to write Hamlet anyway. In a different day and age, he’d be called lazy, but since he is ‘ole Willy, it’s genius.

Of course, I am using the line because I am indeed heading into the same country in which Hamlet was a prince. Copenhagen awaits, in about an hour half when the bus leaves. Before anyone accuses me of “literary tourism,” I’ll have you know that I shall be attending a Muse concert on Monday, rather than merely visiting the country of Hamlet for the mad prince’s sake.

It is a curious thing, setting out on a journey. A strange whiff of adventure mixed with the lingering stench of anxiety.

Why Harry Potter Went To the Tubes

This is one of those constant running battles between me and some friends. They (for reasons that flabbergast me, like “great writing”) love Harry Potter to bits, while I think that the last three novels were stuff that you could easily read for free on www.fanficiton.net. However most of the discussion never really moves on beyond “Harry Potter is great!” or “No, Rowling is a terrible writer.” Happily since I want to be distracted from the work I am doing now, I am going briefly cover the two reasons why Harry Potter by the last book was just abject garbage.

1) Shameless exposition. There’s a good reason for the last few books rivaling the Oxford English Dictionary in thickness, and that’s because Rowling abandons all pretenses and goes happily into long boring expositions explaining the story to the reader. More likely the staggering and messy plot at that point practically required these expositions to have a coherent ending. Still, one bemoans the far more natural reading that you could get in the first few books of the series.

2) The plot blew up. Part of the appeal of the first few books was the world of Harry Potter. Finding out what were chocolate frogs for the first time, and Quidditch. Even the introduction of the ministry of magic (although a thinly veiled plot device and angle for Rowling to take pot shots at the Chamberlain government) was a nice expansion of the Harry Potter universe. The problem is that by the end of the series, the plot is drowning out all of this. It is as if Rowling could not decide between the typical British boarding school novel and Star Wars-esque epic soap opera, and made the drunken decision to try and do both at the same time. What you end up with is a thoroughly gutted “school time” where often than not the school activities serve no other purpose than as a backdrop for the on going drama outside of the school. And there comes a point where it is almost ludicrous: that the most evil villain of all time had infiltrated on multiple occasions, killed or almost killed several students and the good parents of the Harry Potter universe still obligingly send their kids to what is clearly a death trap.

And as a minor quibble, was it really necessary for Dumbledor to suddenly turn gay? I mean the guy is dead, the series over and all of the sudden his sexuality jumps back out at us from beyond the grave. It is like Gandalf wearing a pink tutu and jumping out of Saron’s closet just as Frodo and Sam throw the Ring in the mount doom, yelling “hey boys!”

It ain’t a university without roman columns

NUS needs to build some of these

This is a picture of the Law Faculty building in downtown Oslo. Yes, much like old BTC, the law faculty here is apart from the main campus. You may draw whatever inferences you want from that, but a Norweigan who I had drinks with was kind enough to state what was on everyone’s mind, “Law students here, like law students and lawyers everywhere, are huge snobs.” In short, I happily note that being snobs or atas is not a problem unique to the common law, but is one of those universal rules of life.

Snobs of the world unite?

The Law Faculty is located right in the middle of downtown Olso, along a street called Karl Johans Gate. Karl Johans was one of Norway’s kings, and had goverened over a period of uniterrupted peace and prosperity. Today, he has an equestrian monument on the palace grounds, looking down the street named after him. Despite never doing much fighting during his reign, he is now fighting a (losing) constant battle against the odd seagul which likes to pearch (amongst other things) itself on top of the statute. You can only lament at how time eventually reduces even the most powerful of men into mere monuments. Better to die in obscurity than to forever be cast in bronze and affixed to one spot for the rest of eternity, with only birds and tourists for company.

Karl Johans Gate, the palace is just visable in the distance

Karl Johans gate stretches straigth through a slew of historic looking buildings and is  the main tourist stretch. Consequently you have people peddling all kinds of things that have absolutely no practical use, but for some reason a tourist will be likely to find endearing or cute. Walking down the street, there is some comfort to be had in the ornate and olden architecture. It is very much a pleasant depearture from all the glass and chrom that Orchard road practically screams your way.

Not that all of Oslo is necessarily stuck in this sort of quaint school of architecture. Move closer to the central station and the usual suspects of skyscrapers will rear their ugly heads. But perched on the very edge of the harbour is the extremely striking Olso opera house. A comparison with the Esplanade is regrettably unavoidable, since both are meant to be art performance houses by the bay. Fortunately for Oslo, where the Esplanade was designed by a madman going through a hangover after drinking tiger beer from durian husks, the Oslo opera house was modeled after that iconic piece of natural geography which has come to define Oslo: the fjords. As such, the opera house emphasises sweeping lines and is made almost entirely out of white marble (of different grades) and sweeps right down into the water of the bay.

(bigger pictures @ http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111330&id=720126995)

A Foody Interlude: Pasta Hero

Food is probably Singapore’s biggest trump card, since practically everyone who has grown up or even visited the little island will tell you that there is no lack of food. Cheap and good being the general adjectives used. So, there’s been more than a couple letters that have been sent my way that begin “so how’s the food there?”

The truth of that is authentic Norwegian food is expensive enough even with a proper cash supply and consequently almost impossible to try and sample while on a “recently-had-wallet-stolen” budget. I have had the odd meal, like a wonderful shrimp baguette for 10 SGD (it is the size of a subway foot long and then some), generally the food I have been eating has been the food coming right out of my amazing rice cooker. I guess it’s one of those ironies of life that the rice cooker doesn’t cook rice, but just about everything else.

The very first plate

For the first two days, I stuck with making safe stuff like pasta. Basically I let the water boil before putting in the pasta to cook al dante, then when it’s done drain the whole thing. Leaving just a bit of the water inside, I dump in a pinch of pesto, and some sauce out of a bottle (I can’t find creamy sauces here, everything seems to be tomato base – once this tomato sauce runs out time to experiment making creamy sauce). So essentially it’s just cook spaghetti, put in sauce, stir around.

Now with meat

The second meal I actually added in sausages and layered the serving plate with cheese so that when the pasta gets served on it, you get that nice gooey cheesy texture in the sauce.

Ballad of the Internet Memes: Oslo, the First Days

Yes you can haz

This post will be shamelessly referencing Internet sub-culture. It is not to say that normal, proper and sane English lacks the capacity to express certain moments in life. Rather, while the English language is as always eminently capable, the mishmash of things that the Internet has grown somehow manages to capture just the right amount of misery and “fuck-it-all” attitude that puts you on the road to recovery.

Fuck My Life is an internet meme that is pretty self-explanatory. You type up some horrible string of events that has happened to you and the internet has a kind of collective laugh at your misery, whilst inwardly reassuring itself that hey, at least someone out there is getting it worse. There are some pretty amusing ones to be read out there such as:

“Today, I was woken up by a loud noise, which I thought was an earthquake. It sounded like a car had driven right into my living room. Which was exactly what it was. FML”

In light of recent events, I think it’s only fair to add in my own two cents of misery:

1)      Today, I travelled from Singapore to Norway. Worried for my safety, my parents had insisted that I carry my wallet in a money pouch around my neck. Since I was not going to see them for a while, I figured I should indulge them this one time. By the time I reached Oslo, Norway, I realized I had been pickpocketed. The person had cut the string of the money pouch and had taken everything. Now I’m in a foreign country without a credit card and very little money. FML.

2)      Today, I moved into a new student dorm. I was excited to finally be able to use the internet. At the counter, the guy asked me if I wanted to use the Internet as well as an Internet Phone. I had thought that was a stupid question because if you can use one you can use the other. When I arrived at my room, I could not access skype. Students have to pay extra to use AV communications across the internet. FML.

So in short to all the wonderfully concerned friends and family, the short version of it was that my first experience of Norway was of being an almost penniless FOB wandering around in a kind of stupor and then walking into further disappointment later on upon realization that Skype does not work.

BONUS:

Since this blog post is premised on a rather vulgar internet meme, I am including (to the delight, I’m sure, of a particular friend) the complete list of “that’s what she said” moments I heard while flying to Norway.

1)      Are you sure that’s going to fit in there? (passenger to stewardess regarding overhead luggage)

2)      Is it normally this colour? (passenger to stewardess over food)

3)      Can’ we just go in from the back? (passenger on using the rear entrance to the plane)

4)      There’s so little space to put your head (complaints about seats)

5)      You can’t put your liquids in there (security)

6)      Wah, so big (Singaporean passenger)

It’s been so long

I sit here staring blankly at the empty screen, fingures poised to start typing. There are few things more daunting than the white, blank page. It’s potential limitless and yet bound to your own mortal competence. And then I realize, that it has been so long since I actually wrote something because i wanted or felt like it. Often I write, because i think it necessary. Writing becomes a means to a purpose, and not the end in itself. I want to write simply because I want to write. Not to change the world or to finish an assignment, but simple to see words crawl across the white page. A spidery script forever changing the blank expanse.

Old Dead People

Why is it that people have the vague notion that grandparents once deceased transcend from the slightly senile, child spanking and bitterly racist people that they are into benevolent spirits that watch over the house? My grandmother was possibly one of the most unashamed white supremacists this side of the planet, the fact that she herself was Chinese was a mere minor detail that never bothered her fascination with the superior Aryan race. Looking back, it was probably this fascination that led her to marry my grandfather, a really quite dashing Eurasian sailor who after several years and 4 children promptly divorced her (in true Eurasian, skirt chasing fashion) for someone presumably younger and better looking. I’ve met this other clan of the family only on two occasions, these being the funerals of my grandfather and grandmother.

Shortly after both these events, my family being the rumor mongering suspicion loving move that it is, began to attribute just about every thing in the house to “Nanny looking over us.” This is particularly chilling, since knowing Nanny she’d probably be gleefully tipping over glasses, spilling soup and banging pots rather than doing any actual “looking over.”

Birthday Letters

A poem I recently wrote to a good friend for her birthday.

Every year the mail box harbors a few,
Their spidery script rambling aimlessly
Over crumpled sheets of yellow hue.
Happy Birthday, the card says soundlessly.

How curious, this relic of bygone days,
That solace can be found in hurried writing,
Even as a child’s sure path fades away,
And in deep waters we now are floundering.

And yet while words may offer little courage
As we gaze down this precipice of uncertainty
Hope is kindled in that someone else on life’s stage
Is too, strapped into this ride towards senior citizenry.

Perhaps from now on we may all only grow old together.
But as Browning did famously wrote in ages of yore,
Growing old together may just be an endeavor
One which is well worth growing old for.

Letter to the MOE: Sexual Education In Schools

Dear Sir,

I am a student who has been following the recent issues involving sexual education in schools, and have read the latest news of a suspension of all third party programs with no small concern. I would like to preface this letter with acknowledge that a temporary suspension at very least to reassess the vetting procedure is necessary, and that I no quarrel with the wisdom of the Ministry in taking that step. I pen this instead, with the future in mind and how the Ministry shall be moving forward.

It would be presumptuous for a mere student to make calls on educational policy, but as the final product of the entire education system, I believe that students too have valuable insights in this matter. Throughout my schooling years, I have been privileged to be taught by excellent teachers to whom I simply cannot thank enough, no matter how many Teacher’s Days may pass. Quite simply, I owe my teachers for having painted colour in my eyes. As many frustrated students can attest, in later parts of one’s education very often a teacher will merely say “there is no right answer” – a notion that is almost anathema to students so used to10 year series and assessment books. Looking back, I realise that rather than simply being difficult, my teachers were are that point making me realise that we do not live in a drab, black and white world of MCQ questions and answers. We live in a world of open ended essay questions, or vibrancy and colour and at times, of murky greyness.

Such colour is really the quintessence of a Liberal education. In these recent times, many people have misappropriated the term “Liberal” as one necessarily being subversive or championing certain views that are incompatible with our Asian values. Surely they have mistaken, for a Liberal education is not premised on rights or wrongs, but rather on an openness of approaches. Just as we cannot say that green is a better colour than red, neither can we say that fiscal economic policies are necessarily better than monetary economic policies. In school, we are taught that each has their short comings and may be appropriate in different areas, but we are never told (short of something being scientifically and factually wrong) that an approach is wrong. Our education system equips students nuanced and adaptable thinking skills, rather than a blunt blanket approach that is ill-equipped for the real world.

Sir, I mentioned above that our educational system has embraced life in all its vibrant colours as well as its greyness. We are now walking in such a area of greyness, where the answer is far from clear, and the pressure to get out of such an unclear position immense. I do not for once envy the Ministry’s position these weeks, in that it must be almost besieged by a flood of letters and complaints by concerned parents. No one can blame the distances a parent would go to for their child, but I write to urge sensibility on the part of the Ministry when considering the future of the sex education program in Singapore. The Ministry cannot bend to an outcry no matter how loud from parents who may, with the best intentions, assuming that they are representing the predominant view of Singaporeans.

More than numbers, the Ministry should not step down from controversial issues simply because of complaint as this sets the unwanted precedent that Ministry policies can be swayed by popular outcry. It may be sexual education today, but one can only speculate where such a trend will take us in the future. Any JC student will relate to GP issues such as abortion, euthanasia, terrorism or evolution. Will such topics also see their removal or censor on future protests from groups emboldened by their “victory” with sexual education? The slippery slopes slides both ways, and surely all the accusations levelled at those with a “gay-agenda” as eventually pushing for gay marriage, can similarly be levelled at religious groups. One need only looks to the American experience to see lobby groups pushing for Creationism,to be taught in schools.

**this paragraph is no in the original letter owing to time constraints at the time of writing. I have added in ex post for a sense of greater completeness. The following paragraph has also received mild edits for the sake of cohesion***

There is no call from any group present now for a censure of views from a religious organisation, or for that matter any association who many think that abstinence is the appropriate method of sexual education. There has never been one, and religious groups have long enjoyed certain influences in our schools. The entire issue today isn’t whether which view is correct and hence should be preferred, but rather than one view is simply wrong and should be censured. This is a significant and weighty difference, and goes against the entire notion of a Liberal education. Just as we do not seek to censore religious programs in schools, surely the same treatment can be expected for non-religious organisations as well. Prefering one on the basis that it is inherently good and the other bad again takes away educational Liberty.

I thus urge the Ministry to take the case of sexual education on its merits, and not under the pressure of anyone. I have no doubt that the Ministry is already doing so, and write mainly to reinforce that there are people in the public who are concerned as to the future of a Liberal education in Singapore. On the facts of the issue, there are many fallacious claims being made right now, and all of them should be set aside when making educational policy. Even accepting for a moment the controversial claim that homosexuality can be influenced, there is the difficult proposition that 3-4 minutes out of a one time 3 hour workshop can truly shake the entire moral fiber of a child whose parents have certainly imparted certain moral values upon. There are no doubt grounds for abuse, and if an instructor were to exploit her position to actively “homosexualise” a student, then these instructors should be taken to task. I stress however that such instructers have to be seen as incidences of human failure rather than systemic error of the entire program. Just as how a reasonable person can differentaite between a jihadist and a moderate religious person, we must also accept that to paint the homosexual community as child predators is a mistake.

Sir, I plea to the Ministry adhere to the same policy of an open and Liberal education as it has had in the past. The task at hand is not about the censoring of views, but the facilitation of views. It is not about which view to chose, but how to ensure both views are presented to students. I write this such that future generations of students can similar see the world in all its colour and diversity. There are few greater crime than to raise a generation who only sees in monochrome.

Yours sincerely,
Leon Ryan

Ippt

So after bitching and moaning about it for the whole week, Ippt is finally over. And as if it was in any doubt, I failed. So as Robo said, it was inevitable, and as to Cheryl and Sam clearly you weren’t praying hard enough for me, or that the Guy Upstairs has a funny sense of humor. However the past 2 hours weren’t as simple as failing. In fact, a large part of the time I found myself uneasily fending off some creepy guy that kept hanging around me. And the people! My fellow dramatis personae of this horrible facet of national defence. There were the Paul Tans (for those that don’t get the reference, bring to mind your average middle aged man who is not very fit but thinks that oakley apperal can make up for it) in their sunglasses and MP3 players strapped to their arms. There were some ancient looking guys who happily ambled away 25 minutes on the 2.4km track while chatting about life. Ah Bengs and your average John Citizen (or should it be Citizen Tan). 

So as to the test itself, it started off amazingly. Shuttle run at sub 9s? With the added drama of my specs flying off at the second “touch down”, the PTI rushing in to try and pick it up, and me jumping over his hand right at the end to avoid a collison. Honestly if this were a movie the whole thing would be in slow-mo with some indie rock band wailing away with a guitar solo in the background. Then cue the jarring stop to the music as I noticed this guy giving me a look. At first I thought he was merely basking in my reflected (and very temporary, as you’ll find out) glory. But then I noticed the shaved legs, the trimmed eye browns, nails too shiny to possibly natural, and of course the skin tight PT kit the guy was wearing. Sirens immediately began blaring in my head, and the state of emergency only got worse when the guy queued up right behind me for the Sit-Up Station. I looked back, he caught my glance, our eyes met in one of those supremely awkward moments that i’ll probably remeber when i’m old, and suddenly I wasn’t so worried about failing anymore, but was going to try to get this over and done with as soon as possible.

But thankfully as providence would have it, I only managed to weeze and pant my way to 31 sit ups, 220 cm jump at SBJ and a stellar 3 chin ups. All of which effectively destoryed any sort of manly aura i was putting off. And happily I didn’t see the guy anymore until 2.4 when I over took him and noticed that under the well toned chest he had a heaving gut. (note we both failed anyway). 

So with all that over, i just hope the SAF isn’t going to try and still take $100 from me =(.