Votre Coeur

CHOPE! - The Subaru Impreza Challenge 2009
Sunday, November 01, 2009

Just came back from supporting this event because someone I know still has a hand (literally) in the competition. Woah... Jiayou! The next break is coming at 7pm and that's the 30 hour mark!

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If you can't beat'em, join 'em.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009

It's been a long time since I put some serious thoughts about issues related to education. But I have been challenged in some ways to think about such issues once again. So here goes..
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Singlish versus English

There's a lot of debate in the local papers on the issue of Singlish once again. Some see it as a part of culture and national identity, others think of it as an inadequate cousin of proper English who needs to be corrected. Linguists will beg to differ and see it as a natural outcome when languages meet, where 1 + 1 = 3. Regardless of point of view, we should start considering Singlish seriously.

Research on the penetration of Singlish, variants of Singlish and acceptance of Singlish among Singaporeans have to be conducted to devise appropriate strategies to address the issue of competitiveness of Singapore in the long run. We can't pretend that classroom teaching, sending PCK for language courses and an annual campaign will turn things around any time soon. We need to learn more about it. However, by doing so (researching on it), it is equivalent to acknowledging Singlish as a language (or creole or pidgin of English) and some people in power may not be ready to accept this yet.

Singlish is definitely more than just a simple lah or lor or borrowed terms. My brief encounter with English Language back in NUS (to fulfill some requirements) involved a project studying the structure of Singlish. The wikipedia entry does a more detail discussion on this phenomenon. The question is how do we deal with this phenomenon in Singapore such that we can remain competitive in the future (i.e. we do not produce generations of Singlish speaking citizens whom foreigners could not understand)? What can we do if the endless campaigns are not effective at all?

Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese and the spoken variant of Cantonese is very different from Mandarin Chinese. In fact, if you get a magazine written in colloquial Cantonese, I bet that you will find it difficult to understand it without knowing the language, even if the words used are Chinese characters (or looks like Chinese characters). With a few more decades of development, Singlish may become a dialect of English sharing common traits as Cantonese. It may be a matter of time before we have to deal with the Singlish-English divide like how Hong Kong is dealing with Mandarin-Cantonese in education. Perhaps we can recognise and accept Singlish as a creole of English in Singapore and incorporate lessons to highlight the differences between them.

Yes, Singlish is new and only a few decades old, people may reject them and look down upon people speaking Singlish. But the Queen's English that they are embracing started off as a 'bastard' language that is neither German or Latin etc. It's just like Singaporeans who look down upon new citizens, despite the fact that their parents or grand parents were new immigrants decades before.

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Research in Education

Like a PW project, I have to apply my case study 1 to case study 2. So for case study 2, I have chosen research in education.

Currently, research is taken as an elective or enrichment for students in the elite schools. Research skills, structured mentorship programmes etc are dominated by tops students in such schools. It has reached a point of saturation where by research mentors in research institutes are stretched in offering such opportunities to the increasing number of such programmes. Such an enrichment programme is usually offered on top of academic subjects and co-curricular activities. This will inevitably increase the pressure and workload of our students and teachers. Very often, programmes like the bicultural studies programme and research programme, are fighting over the same talent pool. To progress, there will be a need to adopt a structured approach to study the best strategy in incorporating research in education. Research can be offered as a H3 subject in 'A' levels but more can be done to start at the secondary level. It is time to end the adhoc matching of teacher mentors to projects and disorganised instructional lessons for students in research. Let's give research the recognition it deserves and provide a comprehensive and conducive environment for our students to learn and experience research.

Posted by Mastermind 7:53 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Tapping onto the Potential of a Playstation 3
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

With a new ISP service provider, after more than 12 years, I can finally set up a wireless home network. Together with Windows 7 (evaluation copy), I can now stream my photos directly on a Playstation 3 and use if for photoslide shows on a Full HD TV. How cool is that?! On top of that, there's a possibility to stream videos, musics and other stuff from my PC, surf net using my PS3 and I bought and install a classic PS1 game to play too.

Finally I'm not so behind in terms of technology. Welcome to the future!

Posted by Mastermind 10:06 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Crowd Shot - 12th in dpreview Challenges
Monday, October 19, 2009

Taken during Super Import Nights 2009 when the import models were making their rounds around the exhibitions. You get to see many dSLR in different flavours, point and shoot cameras and even handphone cameras flashing around the models.

My best ranking image so far (out of 3).

Posted by Mastermind 8:47 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Facebook is slow, Blogger is weird...
Sunday, October 11, 2009

Posted by Mastermind 1:39 PM 1 comments Links to this post

Models from Super Import Nights
Sunday, September 27, 2009

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Final Shots of Sleeping Bear Dunes
Friday, September 25, 2009

Finally the series is over....

Posted by Mastermind 10:46 PM 0 comments Links to this post

blogging with my phone
Tuesday, September 22, 2009

my first post with my smart phone. ha ha. a bit to out of tech but still. Trying to get use to tiny QWERTY keyboard. Darn my fingers too big.

Posted by Mastermind 8:31 AM 1 comments Links to this post

Mini Studio Photography
Saturday, September 19, 2009

DIY a small light tent that serves as a mini studio for small objects. Here's some of the products.

The coffee cans were challenging due to the reflective surfaces. The light source has to be controlled well to minimize the ugly reflections on the cans.

Coffee anyone?

These wooden pegs offer a different challenge compared to the coffee can. You need an even light source on the pegs to illuminate all the mini pegs since they are sort of randomly placed

Random cute stuff from Daiso

Instead of an evenly distributed light on the doggy, here's one with some shadow after a few tries to get the look of my choice.

More toys from Japan, this is a doggy made from Nanoblocks, the small version of lego. It's height is comparable to a AA battery.

The Carl Zeiss lens are the easiest to shoot with. 1 shot and I like the effect already.