Skip to main content

Naming names

What do you know, there's another naming contest on now, to name Orchard Road's latest soon-to-be-built mall, which will be where Glutton's Square used to be (opposite Centrepoint). Given the names decided upon for a couple of other places, you might just want to try getting your hands on the $8,888 prize money.

If you remember, Marina Bay was very creatively re-named Marina Bay, and the budget terminal, well, Budget Terminal. I remember a contest official explaining that they chose Budget Terminal because most entries contained the word 'budget'.

So, just make a guess as to which word is likely to appear in most of the entries, e.g. 'glutton', 'Orchard', 'Somerset', 'Killiney', etc, and you might just find yourself a lot richer than the boy who won $1,200 and a 3G phone for coming up with Budget Terminal. That is, if you can get into the Far East Organisation website, which I couldn't get into for some reason.

Anyway, I do remember Glutton's Square when it was Glutton's Square. We used to live near it. Ok, it has nothing to do with this.

I dug into Mr Brown's archives and found this article he wrote last year about naming.

On an unrelated note, I read in today's TODAY about the instrument that is used to rank and assess teachers, which goes by the rather unfortunate acronym, EPMS. It seems that it's not just the teaching that matters but also 'CCA achievements (eh, what if you happen to be i/c of a CCA which, for many very understandable reasons, can't chalk up 'achievements'), courses attended and shared..., community service..., a running 3-year portfolio of self-improvement plans, sourcing the Internet for teaching resources, etc.' (According to one of the letter writers)

And the other writer stated that during work review discussions, teachers 'are encouraged to showcase what they have done. Those who can produce photographs, video clips and reflective journals (such as blogs?) often steal the show.'

WOW. Amazing. I thought teachers already have their hands full teaching kids like my son. And some more still have to make clips of themselves, etc.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

True train school

‘Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.’ How would you like to have such a headmaster? I finally re-read (read it first as a teenager) Totto-chan, The Little Girl at the Window , a ‘school story’ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, translated by Dorothy Britton. Totto-chan is the name Tesuko Kuroyanagi called herself, and the book is about her life during her school days at Tomoe Gakuen. Totto-chan was expelled from her first elementary school because of her ‘disruptive’ behaviour, which included constantly opening and closing her desk top (because she was so thrilled by it), ‘vandalising’ her desk (because there wasn’t enough space on the piece of paper to draw) and standing by the classroom window waiting for street musicians to pass by or talking to swallows. Her mother, although probably alarmed about the ...

The Secret Romantic Guesthouse (2023)

The title has an airy, genial feel and the show does have its airy, genial side, but also think of it as TRAPPED, since everyone was trapped by the past.   It was fun trying to figure out who was who, who was on whose side and how the awful king would fall.   The scholars It wasn’t too hard to guess that Kang San (Ryeo Un) is the deposed/missing prince and that he isn’t really gruff and disinterested although he’s exasperated and rolling his eyes most of the time.  Shi-yeol (Kang Hoon) has the best ‘disguise’, with the nice contrast between his highly-skilled fighting and loyalty versus his silliness.  It felt at times that Yoo-ha (Jung Gun-joo) was an extra but finally, he gets that one brave act of letting himself be captured to protect the rest.   Shi-yeol identifying himself to Kang San as his watchman was dramatic but the most shocking revelation in the show was that the Old Guy (Shi-yeol’s mentor) is the king’s watchman!  Howe...

No wonder

According to a poll of about 300 people, reported in yesterday's Sunday Times, (how come nobody ever asks me these things?) , the Seven Wonders of Singapore are (in order of merit): 1. The Esplanade (a whopping 82 votes) 2. Changi Airport (53 votes) 3. Sentosa 4. The Merlion 5. The Singapore River 6. Food 7. Mount Faber and LKY (tie - 10 votes each) Some 'offbeat choices' which didn't make it to the top 7: aunties selling tissue paper at coffee shops, Singlish, kiasuism, 4D-Toto outlets and Newater (said someone of Newater: 'We are probably the only country with branded recycled sewage.' Well said, ha ha.). Maybe it's a personal bias but I feel that a 'Wonder' must also have strong historical and cultural/social value (so I'm rather miffed that Angkor Wat didn't make it to the 7 Wonders of the World; in fact it was never in the running for the top 7). Therefore, these choices are a little too modern for me. The Esplanade, for example, is a...