"The time has come," the Walrus said,

Alrighty. This is all I've been wanting to blog for weeks now. The last proper post I had was on the 17th of July... but my mind's been buzzing all the while. (:

Heavy, heavy reading.. the result of not blogging for weeks. You guys might want to do it over a few sittings to get everything in. (: not all's mine. I see this blog as a place for sharing, so if and when I do come across issues that strike me strongly, it'll be up. Rest assured, the stuff here is good [especially those that aren't mine -haha] and worth pondering over.

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We’ve been doing animal rights and environmental issues in gp class and I’ve learnt a lot. Did you know that…
· At least 80% of the developed world's diet originated in the tropical rainforest. Its bountiful gifts to the world include fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefuit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, turmeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews.
· At least 3000 fruits are found in the rainforests; of these only 200 are now in use in the Western World. The Indians of the rainforest use over 2,000.
Why should the loss of tropical forests be of any concern to us in light of our own poor management of natural resources? The loss of tropical rainforests has a profound and devastating impact on the world because rainforests are so biologically diverse, more so than other ecosystems (e.g., temperate forests) on Earth.
Consider these facts:
· A single pond in Brazil can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all of Europe's rivers.
· A 25-acre plot of rainforest in Borneo may contain more than 700 species of trees - a number equal to the total tree diversity of North America.
· A single rainforest reserve in Peru is home to more species of birds than are found in the entire United States.
· One single tree in Peru was found to harbor forty-three different species of ants - a total that approximates the entire number of ant species in the British Isles.
· The number of species of fish in the Amazon exceeds the number found in the entire Atlantic Ocean.
When indigenous peoples are lost forever, gone too will be their empirical knowledge representing centuries of accumulated knowledge of the medicinal value of plant and animal species in the rainforest. Very few tribes have been subjected to a complete ethno botanical analysis of their plant knowledge, and most medicine men and shamans remaining in the rainforests today are seventy years old or more. When a medicine man dies without passing his arts on to the next generation, the tribe and the world lose thousands of years of irreplaceable knowledge about medicinal plants. Each time a rainforest medicine man dies, it is as if a library has burned down

Source: theamazingrainforest

mmm… did you know that the opportunity cost of a land area large enough to breed one cow is protein-containing plants, enough to feed 64 people? Which means that that one cow is taking up space that can be used to feed 64 people. Talk about allocative inefficiency.
Did you know that cattle eat so much that the US and Britain cannot feed them by their own resources? So they import from third world countries such as Africa. Countries that cannot feed their own people are exporting food for cows. Why don’t they use that resource for food for starving people? Because they need to pay the debts they owe to the filthy rich western countries.
Whoopedoo.

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Well. That’s that for school. Anyway. Guess what I learnt about myself. (:

Last Monday I was labeled.
I am, according to my label, “Outgoing. But not sociable”.
The thing that caught my attention was the words “Not sociable”.
I mean, “outgoing” is a very common description but to go one step further and observe that “outgoing” doesn’t necessarily equate to “sociable” –and that in my case it doesn’t- I’d say that’s a pretty astute comment.

Outing vs. unsociable. Mutually exclusive? Guess I used to think it was. So I’d feel uncomfortable with myself when I wanted to turn away from the world. I thought I was supposed to be sociable, that I had to be, otherwise something was wrong. No wonder then when so many people tell me I come across as aloof, while I protest, I sometimes agree with them inside. Protested because it’s supposed to be bad being aloof.

I foresee myself having trouble with the last statement.

Is being aloof bad? Guess it’s time to recognize that past of my character is actually solitary, that I sometimes find most people tiresome. [note the word “most”] That there’s this independent, unyielding streak in me that some people take offence.
I’ve been struggling quite about this this year. Trying to fit in with the new class because, you know, that’s what teenagers are supposed to be. To belong somewhere.

But what if the place I choose to belong to isn’t school? I see now, that reason why my relationships outside school thrive while most of those I hold in school don’t. It’s bcz I Chose them. Or they chose me. Or, friendship so unconditionally, so lovingly given there was nothing to do but to accept. I’d have been a fool not to.

Hah. I feel liberated. I don’t have to pretend to be just like the other students in the crowd because I’m not. And if the class culture’s something I’m not quite cool with, it’s alright because we’re all programmed differently. Character clash, that’ all.

Brilliant.

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This is erica’s post. Like I said earlier.. It’s good and worth mulling over.

“Monday, July 25, 2005

This probably isn't going to sound nice, and it's probably not going to come out rightly as usual. Forgive my irritability for i'm not really thinking logically and straight after the dose of medication.

But i just hate it when people study for the sake of competing and not out of a true desire to learn and discover things anew. And if they don't make it to the very top they grumble and whine and complain. It's not a specific person. It's the whole school atmosphere. It's an ever prevalent culture. Like if you don't do well, you are neglected, left behind, the opportunities given to another person who shines academically. Same goes with scholarships. It's this special breed, this elite group, the so-called gifted who are handpicked at the age of 10 and younger it's ridiculous. If in vj already people are being nitpicked so carefully, think about the general school population in the rest of singapore. Is it fair to select only the best and give them all the attention? Sure it may be, to groom them accordingly, i don't deny that. But why leave out the average student? Doesn't he or she deserve just as many opportunities to shine in other areas less obvious?

Think about it: How unfair our society is. Measuring a person based on his or her grades. Sure grades reflect the ability to study and work hard and do well under time constraints, but seriously in the long run do those things matter? Grades ony reflect the performance of a student there and then in an exam, it doesn't say anything about the potential capability of a student to succeed in life. Grades reflect the now. Attitude reflects the future.

Maybe it's just me being sore cos 2 of our papers came back. But believe it or not i'm satisfied, yes even with geog. I met my personal targets, i didn't expect As and i didn't get them and rightfully so, i know why i deserve the grades i got, and that's enough for me and i'm happy that at least i know what's wrong and i can work on it. Instead of getting brilliant grades and wondering why i got them. i think it's more important to be aware of what you did right and wrong for the exam and hence why you got the grades. The numerical figure itself is secondary. Self awareness and reflectiveness comes first. And for goodness sake this is just the block tests. They just reflect how well you can do with 2 weeks of intensive studying and cramming, and technically if you cram all of it would have been forgotten by now.

If education wants to stay true to it's goal: nurturing a person into one who embraces life long learning, the entire school system needs a much-awaited revamp. They say that they are doing so, introducing new programmes and enrichment activities. Very well, but why reserve it only for the top 5% of the cohort? Sure they say it takes time for the trickle down effect to occur, if so why are there only changes made to the elite?

Someone once wrote in to the forum of ST, and i agree wholeheartedly. The best classes in every school are given enrichment, the weakest classes are given remedial, and what about the average classes? They are negleted.

Well done education policy planners. You have missed out the largest percentage of students: the averages.

If we as a country desire to create a future that is vibrant, and if the future lies in the hands of the young, then how can we say that we are moulding the future of our nation if we only use 5% of our resources?

Firstly it doesn't make sense, it is absolute under-utilization, and over-utilization in the form of teachers and money being channeled to plan the programmes for these elite group when in actual fact they could be used to cater to a larger student population who are straining under the lack of resources. Why are elite schools given more funding than others, are they any different from other schools?

Secondly, in the long run this is going to create a learning environment that functions on merely academic goals. If that's the case, once a child leaves school he's not going to be motivated to learn and improve himself, and the ultimate goal of education which is to encourage life-long learning will be greatly stunted. Students are going to get an absolutely corrupted picture of learning, and there will be alot of unhealthy competition going about. Is that what you truly want to create?

Thirdly, there will be an increasingly great disparity between the elite and those not of the elite. It hurts. And i can tell you that i know it, seeing it happen everyday and every hour. Snobbish students, jealousy, students separated by a great chasm of grades, it's a potentially catastrophic situation. And it's already beginning to happen. Just go to any neighbourhood school and listen to the tone of voice that arises when the elite schools are being discussed. It's not stereotyping. It's reality.

And sometimes reality pricks you rather painfully.

So to all those who are out there upset over your grades, let me assure you that you're not the only one in that situation. But take heart, there are 6 weeks to prelims, or to whatever next academic hurdle you have to cross to prove yourself. It's not going to be easy, but it will be possible if you have the perseverance and determination to reach the personal targets you set for yourself, not those others set for you, least of all the school's expectations."

Thanks dear (:

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I’ll end with this. [Is that a sigh of relief I hear? heh.]
Read it slowly, read every word. It’s… well. Food for the soul.

In 1854, the “Great White Chief” in Washington made an offer for a large area of Indian land and promised a ‘reservation’ for the Indian people.
Chief Seattle’s reply, published here in full, has been described as the most beautiful and profound statement ever made on the environment.

CHIEF SEATTLE'S 1854 ORATION" - ver . 1
AUTHENTIC TEXT OF CHIEF SEATTLE'S TREATY ORATION 1854
Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons. The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume -- good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.

There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.

Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.

Our good father in Washington--for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north--our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and Tsimshians -- will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.

To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.

Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.
It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Comissioning Ball 2005

Sunday, August 07, 2005

VERY heavy reading. Be prepared.

Sunday, July 31, 2005

to erica

Sunday, July 17, 2005

corinthians

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