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the boys @ 3+ months
Akmal has taken to sucking his thumb regularly. Hilman has an outie.
Time for Lime Part Deux
I’d been down for a while now, for various reasons.
My family is moving into my brother’s place. It’ll be nice to have everybody in one location again, but as nice and roomy as their apartment is the loss of space and privacy is something I’ll feel. Especially since I’m still unemployed. Which is another sore point. I didn’t get a job I’d thought I’d get (having gone through several levels of applications), although I’m not so much upset with that as I am with the fact that I actually still have to keep looking for full-time employment. Separately all these things probably wouldn’t have been that bad, but together they just compound to make things seem far worse than they really are.
But as it turns out, all I needed was to get out of the house and spend some time with my friends. I think being cooped up in the house with only my PC and a copy of the classifieds for company and surrounded by all these boxes is just a downer in itself, and doesn’t help matters at all. So last Saturday I was at the Lime Flea Market for the second time with the help of the lovely and talented Winda. For the sake of money and space, I had to let go of some clothes, CDs and comics.
The Roots - Rising Down
75 Bars (Black’s Reconstruction)
Get Busy
The Roots get incredibly gully with it. The new album drops 29th April. I hope everybody who’s going to the show enjoys himself/ herself. They’re incredible live.
And on an entirely different note, Birthday Girl. By the Roots. And Patrick Stump. Seriously.
Blue Boy - Remember Me
I’ll always get flack for owning a copy of Avex Trax’s Power Dance 7 but back in the days before MP3s you needed some way to get hold of songs you liked, and I really liked this one back in the day. I suppose there were the singles, but even back then they weren’t always easy to come by. I’m sure some of you will remember it. It’s a pretty cool video too, although the effects have dated a bit since they were used in the Matrix. The sample used is Marlena Shaw’s Woman of the Ghetto (a pretty trippy track in itself), and apparently she’s been sampled a little bit.
So, thumbs up for Blue Boy’s Remember Me.
Peace.
those who cannot
I’m still without gainful long term employment at the moment (barring a spot of freelance writing and insya-Allah a glimmer of hope for what seems like a great prospect for the future) so at the behest of my mother I found myself at Orchard Hotel for the Ministry of Education’s Teaching Seminar a few weeks back.
I’ve always had my apprehensions about teaching and I’ve always told people that while I felt comfortable with the academic aspect of it (I didn’t mind the idea of doing lesson plans and what not) I never felt quite right with the idea of having to discipline kids. I gave it more thought before and after the seminar and it struck me as to why I felt like this. I know teaching wouldn’t necessarily be a Dangerous Minds type of situation (although apparently that’s not far from the truth) but the main mental obstacle I faced was that I never really had a teacher whom I genuinely respected and whom I could say really changed my life for the better beyond textbooks and exams. To break it down, I had some teachers in primary school whom I liked because they were nice people, and I liked a number of my teachers in junior college because I was studying subjects which I enjoyed (although I wouldn’t wish the A Levels on anybody; they’re the toughest exams you can take as a student in Singapore and you only have two years to prepare for them) and they on the whole treated students with more respect, given our age and (supposed) maturity.
When it comes down to secondary school though, the pickings become much scarcer. Maybe it was because I never got into the kind of trouble that would get me labelled as wayward youth in need of a reality check. I considered that it was simply a case of my not being able to appreciate the character building wisdom I was being given as a teenager, but that wasn’t it at all. I don’t feel like I ever had the sort of positive role model in secondary school who would inspire me to follow in his or her footsteps. And that’s why it feels like it would be disingenuous of me to teach. I’m terrible at influencing other people and to have over a hundred colleagues none of whom respect you is a scary prospect for me. Both of my maternal grandparents were teachers, but they were more career teachers than anything else and I don’t think they inculcated in their children a desire to become teachers.
I’m not saying never but I guess at this point in my life I don’t see myself teaching in the near future. Maybe one day things will change for me… or maybe they won’t.
As for the above-mentioned ‘glimmer of hope’, do pray or send good wishes and positive vibrations my way. I’d really like to see it work out.
Peace.
