Skip to main content

Revising

For various reasons, I was recently thinking about de-Stalinization, something I've not thought about seriously for more than 20 years.

A drawing by Niyaz Karim

Revisionist thinking is really quite interesting. And a necessary part of life. It is not healthy to just blindly believe in the same old sources, or worse, the same one source. It is healthy to question and look for evidence. For there always is more evidence than you have been told there is.

While I was thinking about de-Stalinization, of course I remembered how I handed in a highly nonsensical essay on the topic. Those were the days when I was almost becoming one of the 'full-time hostelites, part-time students' in my hostel, haha. It was so bad that my tutor, Dr Agnew, got me to re-do it, and very kindly gave me a list of relevant references I could look up. As I emerged from his room feeling stupid and sheepish, and filled with well-intentioned thoughts of doing all my future essays properly, I was greeted with a real hard stare by one of his groupies who was waiting outside. I hard-stared her back and went out into the corridors with my newfound academic enthusiasm.

I just googled and found that Dr Agnew is now at George Washington Uni. I remember his giving me a second chance much better than I remember any of the topics in his course. But that's what education is all about, isn't it? Lessons on life, attitude, treating people as human beings, etc.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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 ...
3 comments
Read more

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...
8 comments
Read more

He like dat say one meh?

Apparently, that 'English as it is broken' book has been topping the charts at our local bookstores. Actually, I'm not too interested in that book but this other one may be worth getting my hands on. The article about it, as published in Saturday's (1 Sept) ST: In the world of international diplomacy, the best-chosen words or phrases can leave an audience laughing, bewildered or simply lost in translation, an insider has revealed. Undiplomatic Activities, a yet-to-be-launched book by Mr Richard Woolcott, who ran Australia's foreign service for four years, points to the pitfalls of translating thoughts into different languages. Take the Australian diplomat in France who tried to tell his audience that as he looked back on his career, it was divided in two parts, with dull postings before life in Paris. 'When I look at my backside, I find it is divided into two parts,' Mr Woolcott quoted the diplomat as telling his highly amused audience. Ex-Australian prime m...
3 comments
Read more