Parental advisory

I'm been on hiatus for a while now, being ambitious by taking up 2 roles between teaching and event organising. Being I'm this company really made me learn, and despite the mess and chaos of the (dis)organisation, I'm actually happy.

I try to deceive myself that the cute guy in the office was not a huge factor to that happiness.
This job is peculiar to me in many ways. Firstly, it combines both my passions, education and events organising. Secondly, I grew up not going to any tuition centre or having intensive lessons like some if the students here. I mean I was a lazy bum in my younger days when manga and fiction had precedence over math.

I ramble.

There are some observations which I've made over the months, over the stories that my boss and colleagues share with me. Some hilarious, others quite sobering.

Recently my ever friendly centre manager was traumatised by a parent who demanded to see my boss for her son's ailing grades. My boss wasn't in the office (dodged a bullet there!) and she instead lashed out at him. I don't suppose customer service is something I take to very well, however if I were there, I would have bitch slapped her.

Okay I exaggerate. In any case, this parent was blaming the centre. I don't teach her son, but from the other tutors who do, her son is lazy and just plain…blase about his studies.

Standing on the other side of the fence, I can understand her frustrations. I speculate, but perhaps the situation went a bit like this:

She knows her son is not performing well in school and is eager for his performance to improve. So being the resourceful parent, you seek out your friends for recommendations and enrolled your son into one. After throwing in money for a few months, you hope to see improvement and yet, the same result happens. Any average consumer would be upset. After all, when you buy something from a supermarket, you expect that some sort of utility, or returns for the money you paid.

There's a catch.

If I were there, I hoped to tell her that education and learning doesn't quite work that way. Teaching is really more of an art, part performance, part technical and all round dynamic. Learning is not something that can be taught, only encouraged and inculcated. After all, even the most enthused teachers can only go so far within 1.5 hours in the lesson. Parents spend most of their time with their child, shouldn't that love for learning start at home, groomed in schools, and pursued at length at tuition centres?

I shudder and give a forlorn look at the centre manager who took the bashing. Does he know he is taking a beating for the rest of society that have allowed for such parents? Does he know that the problems lies much deeper. It seeds from a parents' insecurity, a society's competitiveness and unforgiving attitude to failure. It seeds from capitalism - that everything that can be commodified will be  - where humane values like learning and passion is assumed to have a monetary value.

My parental advisory, albeit a naive one, is that your child needs to own his/her learning. If there is no sense of ownership, then they will never work hard for it. Pouring in money into tuition will only give a false sense of entitlement for your child, that he/she deserves getting good grades because an external teacher will always be there to somehow make them score - give them the special formula to the A.

A distinction must be earned and gained, not bestowed. Money may buy you grades, but it can never buy you distinction.

Chemistry

Baking is all about chemistry. It really starts from finding the perfect hard preferably one that doesn’t break the bank. Then it leads up to unpacking it, seasoning the oven’s heating elements, giving the mixer a test spin.

What excites me most, is the browsing of books for ideas. I am enchanted by the various basic creaming methods, the science of balance between the 3 basic ingredients: eggs, flour, sugar. Various ratios, various temperatures, so many permutations.

Baking is a performance. The construction, the mixing and assembling of ingredients is deceptively and commonly assumed to be the “rehearsals” before the main show where the confectionery hits the shelves. Oh, what does one know about the years of trail and error, the wisdom of knowing the caramel’s temperature just by it’s colour, the play and combination of taste and colour. The actual show is really the execution of such knowledge during the baking session, the ground work of techniques and practice, like a concert, showcases when the baking process starts.

It’s all about chemical reactions. Baking, like music, is when strict method and scientific understanding meets artistic freedoms.

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Qualia

How do we know whether the red you see is the red I see? How do you know that what I call "warm" is what you experience as warm?

I suppose we cannot ever tell what each other feels, or how does it feel to have a million lens like flies since we won't ever have the physique is one.

Perhaps, the problem on the human level can be easily speed through music and still art.

The reason we so desperately seek to paint what we see, is to show others what our mind's eye see, to share our inner qualia. Music, sound the same to you and I, when we play in tune and in harmony. It's the absolute pinnacle of matching you're qualia with mine, and we CAN be sure that what you hear is what I hear, yet paradoxically we can derive different interpretations of it deep within our emotions.

I don't suppose qualia can be tested, but it can definitely be shared and expressed, albeit in limited avenues.

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The Hope invested in Youth?

Recently in my line of work, there has been a lot of talk about youth. During an interview with Dr Moeller (former ambassador to Denmark), he said that personally, he feels that his time was to make this period a better period than it was before previously. Coming from the cold war, he wtinessed the tides of change and felt somewhat bittersweet about this period, he wasn't too sure if he had made a positive difference, or have progressed very far from where he had come from.

This vested interest in youths, it would seem stems from the disappointment of one's time. Young people are often heralded as beacons of hope, an investment even, of a better future. The youths have their ideas of what they want to do, and learning from the past mistakes, they are seen to be innovative in their solutions.

Is that true? I am hesitant to call it conclusively so. While my business is one vested in youths, and true enough I do want to see that there is hope in the youths of the future. However, the concept of "youth" is very arbitrary, inconclusive and often just simply confusing.

What does it mean to be young and is this hope invested in youths something that is justified? Let me draw an example, the 'older' generation see young people potential that they themselves have achieved. The older generation have regrets, they have faced with disappointments. Indeed, how much of 'potential' they see in youths, one that is in actuality, cast upon them due to their own shortcomings? While they see unripe potential, I've come to see that youths are expected to act and to act in ways that are becoming of them - innovative but also docile, innocent but also mature. These are contradictory characteristics expected of youths - we cannot have both dichotomous natures embodied in one. Something seems to give here.

This is why I feel that youths today are not seen as the hope, but rather a form of redemption of the older generation. The youth of today are always in debt of the past generation. We are financially in debt due to our school fees/housing loans. We are constantly in emotional debt due to our lack of experience in life as we waddle through heartbreaks, betrayal and despair, we are also in familial debt, as we "return" what our parents have given us. There is much uncertainty with being young, and while one might argue that there are also plenty of choices, often I find that we take the choice that is a) imposed upon us by our elders, whether explicitly or implicitly or b) we take the path most well travelled.

As a result, we repeat the mistakes of those before us, and perpetuate this almost idealistic hope of redemption in the next generation, hoping that they don't follow our mistakes - and yet, still insisting that they do what is "right" (get a "right job", start a "right family", "settle down").

The youth doesn't bring hope for a better future, they simply serves as beacons of redemption from the previous generation. The previous generation see us as their second chances - to make the same choices, but to perform better instead of allowing us to make the choices for ourselves. We are not angels of hope, but puppets under the hands of those who are in a better financial position to manipulate.

What has human geography got to do with music?

The following article was published in NUS Geography Department Annual "Geosphere" magazine issue.

Music Geographies

I don’t know about you, but ever since I’ve arrived at NUS FASS, my eyes have been opened to a whole new world of ideas. I’ve read things that changed how I think such that I can never go back to the way I was before. There are many things which we didn’t know could be known and instead of filling up our brains, our best professors made us realise that we had one, constantly opening up new channels of inquiry.

So much of what we read is based on what is seen, and out of all our well-padded organs (exams just makes me put on so much weight), we are most aware our eyes. It’s true, is it not, since eyes are windows to the soul? Much of geographical studies are produced through observations and reproduced through texts and maps - the quintessential geographical tools. We are less aware of what we hear, smell or touch, unless it chafes what we “normally” experience.

Often we intuitively know what music is, without the need for anyone to define it. However when we actually start to define it, we find that it is difficult to do so. For instance, would you call the karaoke attempt by your neighbour at 9am on a Sunday music or noise? We then realise how music is defined is at once subjective because of where and when it is heard and the context of which it is considered acceptable performing space.

Even within spaces, music play an important part in shaping how we feel and in turn how we react to certain things. Clubs hardly play slow music without a bass, and lounge bars often do not play pop music. It seems that music can treat a place, and our socialised reactions against certain genres then in turn dictate how we react with each other in the space. Spaces also shape musical performances. From rock concerts to classical symphonies - each venue is shaped and marketed differently due to their needs and social function. We all know the raw energy that comes from pop/rock concerts where rules of propriety are suspended - it’s almost expected that loud sounds (or some would argue noises) are allowed or even encouraged. Yet the pindrop silences in classical concert halls amplifies the fool that applauds during the wrong time (between movements for instance)  which can draw accusatory glares towards your direction, if the fool happens to be you. It singles someone out as being not informed, making one feel not belonged and out of place.

Some composers have even used spatial elements to create music. Iannis Xenakis for instance, took the architectural-mathematical principles that shape spaces and used them to create works like Metastasis. While his avant garde ‘music’ to the layperson might be ‘noise’, it is without a doubt that spatial influences on music is profound - both literally and figuratively. To bring things back on simpler terms, we often associate the high strings with horror show bathroom scenes (in fact, I’ve tried watching a horror show with the speakers mute before, and the effect was hilarious) and soundtrack composers have more than once tried to evoke emotions ranging from epic (think Spartacus) to the quiet (Pride and Prejudice). Some movies are completely devoid of music and rely on the very absence of it, to create tension throughout (I am Legend). Whether it be fantasy or reality, sounds paint spaces as much as light colours our world.

Yet, can we describe music as much as how we have experienced it? Unlike sight, we cannot draw ocular imaginations based on what we are listening to, although many songs and lyrics point to specific locations in which the listeners can evoke feelings from. What about instrumentals? I find myself drawing different auditory images and emotions depending on where I am currently at. The same song or piece can become differently, based on what I am doing, how I am feeling at that moment as well as where I am. Music, despite it’s permanent quality due to improvements in technology (digital recordings etc), will always have a transient quality and is momentary, because of its audience. Therefore, like spaces, people react differently towards music depending on the time of day, and the peculiar emotional connections we develop historically. We may hear the same way, but we always listen differently.

Geographers have called for a beyond-visual understanding of spaces. Therefore, as much as our education opens our eyes, it is our ears that also need opening. Adding sound is like adding colour to a black and white television. It makes things pop - so to speak. While eyes are windows to the soul, our ears make our souls act.

Social media have revamped how we see ourselves, as well as how we see ourselves in the eyes of others. We can now gaze into their lives, without coming across as intrusive, and yet we also feel a little uneasy when someone has been ‘stalking’ us, or when someone comments on your wall a little too soon, a little too often.

However who can deny that social media has had positive impacts on all of us? We keep in touch with old friends whom might have been awkward to call and close the drift of time that puts people apart. We might even heard a love match or two between strangers who ‘added’ each other on Facebook randomly and eventually made it to the wedding altar (not randomly of course). Facebook have nudged us, with every improvement to their interface, to take our lives a little more seriously as we upload photographs, update statuses and pindrop our location.

As smartphones help us record minuscule detail of our lives, we also lose a moment in participating in our lives. We don’t necessarily realise that holding a phone in front of our friend, can create a barrier. As we record more, we also interact less with others, or is it a complementary relationship - that as we record, we stop and smell the roses more? Do people actually care that you’ve ‘checked-in’ at a train station? Do we do it for the pleasure of recording a moment in history, or as a form of exhibition to our audience that you’re living a life and have something to prove it? Who are we answering to really?

There are some that reject social media (yes, people without a Facebook or Twitter account still exist). They claim that their lives are better lived “offline”, as they value the privacy of their lives. Some have told me that they feel uncomfortable sharing too much with acquaintances - especially with issues of sexuality and religious beliefs. For instance, I have a friend tell me once that he doesn’t use Facebook because it is quite ‘bo liao’ and still relies on smses to get things done. There are those that find it a waste of their time, filling in those Profile information for friends who already know their likes and dislikes. It can also feel quite personal, if you reject a friend request from your colleagues whom you don’t feel comfortable adding. 

Social media is contentious, however much one resist, we cannot deny that it’s influence is precisely built upon sheer numbers. The more people rely on it to arrange events/meet-ups, the more people feel left out and in turn get sucked into the whole ‘online’ community. Are we becoming closer? Or are we becoming increasingly far apart?

One thing that definitely has changed for the better, is the return of photo-taking. Never in our lives before Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram, have we dabbled in photography in such a scale. It seemed to be making a renaissance. People are snatching up DSLRs of all kinds and ranges, toying with cameras and advertising those shots on their walls. What encourages such behaviour even further, is the immediate response you get from others.  Photos become the subject for a conversation and to break the ice for those whom we haven’t spoken to in a while. Photos taken by people we know makes it personal and places or things we have heard of does not seem that distant as before. Suddenly taking a memorable or interesting profile picture is all the rage. We are all models as well as photographers and our friends become critics. We never dabbled that much in photography for our own pleasure as before, and we have social media to thank for that. 

While we grapple with our ‘online’ lives between living the moment or recording the moment that has passed, social media is essential but not fundamental to our relationships with others. The importance is just to strike a balance. It’s always great to meet up and give some hugs to a friend you haven’t met in a long time.

Why is the title of this blog called a Penopticon?

A panopticon is a design by Jeremy Bentham to watch prisoners using the least amount of guards. The design exposes all prisoners to the "all-seeing eye" of the guard tower in the middle. It looks a little like this.

This design is used in almost all modern prisons. Imagine yourself as a prisoner in one of the cells, can you truly shit in peace with someone watching you all the time? Essentially, you can't do anything and not get away with it.

I chose to do a word-play on this word to incorporate "pen" because essentially that's what writing is about. The "pen" represents language and through it, ideas and how it can in turn influence us in very subtle ways. The force is not overt, much like the gaze of the guards from the central tower, where the intangible power of simply being visible, can discipline the prisoners into order. It is not perfect, and resistance does occur, however by and large - most people comply.

This blog aims to fight against the panopticon, to keep questioning and investigating the more subtle power struggles in our lives, to ground certain large social issues and make it relevant to our personal lives. I hope, this would be a fruitful project for both myself, the writers to come, and my audience members.