Practicum.

This post aims to serve as a reminder when I am jaded and burned out that I was good at what I am doing and hope this would reignite the passion.

What is practicum?

Practicum is very similar to playing Dota/LoL. You dedicate 10 weeks of your life to just playing normal/ranked games.

Normal games are the classes that are NOT observed / informally observed.
Ranked  games are the 8 compulsory lessons observations by your CT/NIES/SCM
Promotion series are the moderation observations in the event you are close to either
1) Failing your practicum
2) getting a Distinction for your practicum

How to get a Distinction for practicum?

Similar to Dota/LoL, this is a team game. You are only as good as the lousiest person on your team. Your skills can only carry so much, the rest is up to your EQ.

How many times have you lost a ranked game before the game even started? Trolls in champ select, flaming, picking 5 lategamers with no CC etc. It is EXACTLY the same in teaching.

You can be a superstar teacher with excellent pedagogy and classroom management, all it takes is one troll in your class to act up during a formal lesson observation and there goes your Distinction.

You are 50/0/50, ganking all 3 lanes, taking objectives, snowballing the game, leading your team in a final ALL MID push to victory. Out of nowhere, your Drow/AD Carry blinks/flashes into 5 enemies and get ass raped. You lose 4 v 5 and lose the game.

"If you cannot carry 4 retards against 5 retards, consider the fact that you are just as retarded as them." - Albert Einstein

Classroom management

The beauty of practicum is you have a fixed team every day. So find out who are the trolls in your team. Find out who are the special needs children from your classes, take time out to deal with them, explore classroom management strategies that appeal and works for them. Get them to be cooperative and make them work for you.

For the potential teachers out there: be encouraging, positive reinforcement REALLY works to a certain degree. Praise your special needs children. Take the small insignificant things they do and praise the crap out of them from the perspective of VALUES.

For example,
1) When they are spacing out, praise them! Tell the class to look at how well xxx is paying attention, how nice it is of xxx to be focused and not disturbing his classmates. "Class, don't you think xxx is behaving very well? I want all of you to follow his excellent example bla bla bla"

2) When they randomly say thank you to you or their class mates. Praise them! "I think this is such a gracious and well-mannered class and xxx set a very good example of being polite and respectful!" 

3) Adversely, if you HAVE to scold, make sure you remind them that you have praised them before when they did well. Get the class to re-affirm if you want so that your class and the special needs children understand that you are a firm and fair teacher that is 赏罚分明. Scolding can also sound positive. "XXX, I have seen you behave well. Class, did I praise XXX last week for blablabla? XXX, did I praise you last week for blablabla? I know you can behave better than this. Show me how you set a good example for your classmates."

So you get the point. It is just like saying "n1" or "gj" or "thanks" to your team mates who gank ur lane. 小孩子 end of the day 还是要靠哄靠骗, especially children with special needs.

Start and end your lessons on a positive note, either by praising/encouraging them for a good lesson or give them points for walking in 2 rows properly etc.

Just like how Singapore dedicates majority of their education resources into ITE infrastructure, teachers should spend the most time on lower ability students and special needs students. High/mid ability children have better family support system, they can function perfectly fine without you. Low ability children are the ones that need your help. Build rapport with the class, build trust with your LA students and get them used to your classroom management so that when lesson obs come, you will look like you are familiar with this scenario and you will look like you know what you are doing.

Pedagogy

Just like Dota/LoL, you do not straight away go into your ranked games immediately, u will always warm up your fingers and grind certain champion mechanics in normal games first before trying it out in ranked. Try out your strategies in normal games first, find out what worked/did not work and why.

Similarly, do not be afraid to try things out in regular lessons. Always always try out your formal lesson ob plans with other classes first before executing it in your formal obs. In fact, if you can try out your formal obs lesson plan on the exact class one week before, just do it and make the formal obs lesson an extension.

For example,

Week 7 is moderation observation for Class X. They will let you know one week in advance if you are lucky your moderator is not an asshole. Else maybe you will know 1-3 days in advance trololol.

If you have 1 week to prepare, more or less confirm Distinction already since you get to run through your lesson plan with Class X during Week 6. So during your actual moderation observation in Wk 7, Class X will be familiar with what you are doing and you can play on their prior knowledge to achieve an extension of the Learning Objectives from Week 6.

If you have 3 days to prepare, just try whatever you wanna try with Class Y or Z and reflect and rehearse for Class X.

EQ

The word reflect should CONSTANTLY be on your lips and thoughts after every lesson. Write down what you did and how it can be done better. Be pro-active in seeking feedback and guidance from your CT and colleagues from N*E. Anything your CT ask you to do, just do first, question later. If you are a guy I am sure you know what I mean. If you are a girl, get a guy who gone through NS to explain. A happy CT = happy trainee.

Do not think that the whole world is out to make you fail, nobody is so free to scheme and plot against you just to make you fail. Teachers are busy enough already, be pro-active, offer to help mark/key in grades/look after CCA/relief/take minutes for meetings. (Of course only offer to help when such things are mentioned. Don't be the over achieving zealous tryhard moron. Want to por lampa also must see timing and look natural.) Every extra thing you do is an opportunity to experience. Yes it will be saikang in the future, but while you are in practicum, learn as much as you can.

I personally feel that I could have passed practicum easily even before going N*E. Simply because I have the EQ and common sense. If you are someone that worries about failing practicum even after N*E, I think you are not ready to become a teacher.

Confidence is important, the key to finding the balance and appearing confident yet humble lies in how you verbally reflect. Be able to justify your rationale for doing things and verbally reflect while evaluating the reflection in an intellectual manner with the occasional self depreciating humor. Do not understand? That is why I have a Distinction. =)

Gratitude. Contented.

I came to realize that I have been ranting alot. ALOT. in the past few months. Mainly due to being in the working world and my emotions have been pretty negative in every single post which kind of sort of gives off a vibe that I am not really enjoying myself in school. The recent posts have strayed from my original intention of "leaving memories for myself" into some outlet and platform for me to rant about stuff and I dunno if its good or bad.

Good because I get to sort my thoughts out more coherently and be a better person after keyboard-warrioring here.

Bad because its kind of unhealthy that I cannot sort out all the fked up thoughts in my own head and I actually have to resort to venting it out here to bring the equilibrium back in my life. Which is fked up in its own way.. its like a guy who has unhealthy sexual desires who watch porn alot to prevent himself from raping every single person in the streets. The root of the problem is not solved and this outlet may one day not be enough.. shit I am becoming negative again.. damn!

Anyway Bandung trip was pretty awesome =D It was much more enjoyable than what people online mentioned! The shopping was pretty decent, the food was extremely decent and the prices for everything (air ticket, accommodation, food, shopping, transport) were fking decent. I would strongly recommend going before it becomes touristy!

The trip itself was epic the moment I landed. I arranged for airport transfer from my hotel and for the first time in my life, I saw my name printed big big on a board while exiting which made me feel LIKEABOSS. Hahahaha and for the first time I stayed in a hotel instead of some cramped up guesthouse and the feeling was S.H.I.O.K. Got gym, got pool, got people opening doors and carrying ur luggage.. holy moly I am not staying in a guesthouse ever!

Anyway long story short.
We shopped. ALOT.
We ate. ALOT.
We slept. ALOT.
We spent. ABIT.

We planned for a few breakfast places but we did not wake up a single day before 11. In the end the only breakfast we ate was the hotel breakfast. which was still decent =D. This trip was much more relaxing compared to taiwan and korea where everything was planned meticulously, this trip was more free and easy and less tiring!

Moral of story: Earn more money, spend on nice relaxing holidays and explore the world! Super motivated and looking forward to the next holiday hehehe!

On the topic of earning more money, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and contentment. Gratitude and being contented are the recent enlightenment and revelation that I had regarding being a better person in general. I also realized why Zoe makes me a better person and why I am so happy to be with her. Because I am grateful to her in many ways and I am so so contented to have her in my life.

Similarly, I am extending this revelation to my job and I also realized how lucky I am in many ways. People I met in *** are actually great people. Despite the many dramas and behind the scenes politics, there are many nice memories as well =D

A relationship blossomed which I am randomly responsible.
A chance to experience being a nicer and better person, even if its maybe 50% fake, it feels nice to be the good guy.
A chance to carry others and be seen as a carry. (There are many cons obviously but lets stay positive!)
A chance to give advice and people actually think your advice makes sense when I just wanna do a social experiment and see how things turn out on the expense of others =D

All in all, I am contented with my job, my life, and I am grateful for how things turned out. I am happy =)

Alright. Enough positivity. Back to some soul searching reflection.

Regrets. I am sure everyone has them. I personally don't have many major life changing regrets except the following.

1) I know its 太晚了. But the number one regret was hall life in Uni. I should have made better use of it. After reflection, I realized I could have made my Hall life much more exciting if I wasnt that addicted to gaming. But hey.. wcg medal for exciting hall life..#worth.

2) Cherishing people. I have alot of close secondary friends that I no longer keep in touch even though I am extremely thankful to them for making my secondary school life so memorable.

3) 宽容，感恩. I should have learnt this ages ago. Makes me a better and happier person =)

Maybe its because I am listening to Katy Perry's song which made me think about what I would change and who would I become if I had a chance to be "In another life".

Distance.

To keep a distance? To go the distance? It changes everything.

Congratulations.

It is half sincere, because the other half is apologetic.
Why apologetic?
Because I feel you deserve better?
Because deep down I know that it could have been me?
Do I want it to be me? Half yes half no.
Why half yes?
Because my ego is huge and I believe the person I am right now and in the future would still be a better fit in every possible way.
Why half no?
Because if ceteris paribus, I would not have been who I am today. Which leads to the paradox of if the incident did not turn out this way, would we still be who we are today? Would I still be obnoxious and would you still be an enabler of my egocentric condescending nature?

Nonetheless I am extremely grateful and extremely extremely extremely thankful of everything thats happened. Thanks for accepting me at my worst, thanks for the experiences and emotions that allowed me to take the first step into being a better person. We were young, naive, foolish but the emotions were raw and real. You let me understand the strong desire of wanting and protecting someone. All our promises and dreams of the future, how many came true for you I wonder. All I can say is I'm sorry because I failed to keep mine to you.

I really do not like the way we left things. Blinded by my own ego, I failed to see whats important and failed to see the sacrifices you made and the constraints we had. Yes. Sacrifices that only you made, I did not make a single sacrifice and I am more sorry than ever. I was selfish, very selfish, disgustingly selfish. I really want a chance to make it up to you, but it is too late. Once again, I had all these years to do so, why only to this day I decided to reflect? Sigh.. I am pathetic..

Therefore, the decision is to keep a distance. Once again, the ego in me (that dictates whatever decision I make is the right one) is telling me to not remind you. Not remind you of what could have been and what had been. The decision for me to let go, then and now, is the right one. The difference however, was that I was selfish before, and now I am just sorry and want to do the right thing,

Congratulations.

Smoking

Within weeks of entering ***, my classmates have made an observation that I should go sell vacuum cleaners. They say I have a very good sales pitch and my demeanor makes a very convincing sales person.

Within months of entering ***, I have been accused of smoking through a group discussion and questioned if I actually read or referenced a legit journal for my assignments.

Did I actually read the journal? No I didnt. Why? Because I used materials given to me by professors. I actually bothered to listen and make connections and related the materials given by module A to be used in an assignment by module B. The prof provided the journal he took the information from, I simply copy pasted the citation.

Did I really go to the journal and cross reference the points mentioned in the journal to the prof's materials? No. Why? Because fk you. Are you really that stupid?

Did I really smoke in a group discussion? No. Since everybody was tired, I tried to spearhead the discussion and managed to settle everybody's roles within 10 mins.

One young fk had the audacity to call me at 11pm, questioning me about the journal article and where it was from, when we actually take the same modules and the prof went through them. After I patiently explained that I did not pull the points out of my ass (exact words used), but rather I took the materials from another module, she questioned the integrity of my work and whether I was "smoking" them in the discussion just now. Wow. Can she get any more dense?

Yes I know I have a very easy going nature. Yes I know I have a very lazy and "joker" personality. And it is precisely because of the drastic contrast between the serious me and the joker me, people tend to take me more seriously than others when I am serious. Because when I am serious, means shit just got real, and people also can feel that. Therefore I am astounded by the lack of EQ from this young fk who had the audacity to question my integrity regarding both the meeting and the assignment.

There is a Chinese saying that goes: 靠人不如靠己. Depend on yourself rather than depending on others.

I have a philosophy. I would depend on everyone and anyone for everything and anything. Only when everyone else around me has failed, I would then depend on myself. I personally think that makes more sense, if someone else can dabao food for you while you seat on your ass and play games/watch videos, why the fk not? Yea sure I have legs and I can go dabao myself, but why the fk would I do that if someone else can do it for me?

End of rant. Moral of the story: I really really really really really need to constantly remind myself to not show too much of my personality in the working world. Just shut the fk up, wait for someone else to do shit, keep a low profile. Just like in NS.

Reminder to self: Don't argue with people higher den myself, since they think they are always right. Don't argue with people lower den myself, since I think I am always right and it takes too long to explain things to retards.

In short, dun argue, stfu, keep calm and "fire in the hole" *psssssssssssssssss* (smokescreen formed)

I feel very ashamed.

Had an impulse to post this as a reminder that dogs cannot change eating shit. Particularly the dog in this case is me and the shit in this case is me being a fked up person. Not many people know my army stories and alot of people including Zoe has often noticed that army changed me significantly and "for the better".

While army did change me for the better to a certain extent, it taught me so so many valuable lessons in life as I finally had the opportunity to be treated as someone who was expendable/disposable/useless thrash. Not only that, the people who treated me like expendable disposable useless thrash RANGED from people dropping out of ITE (Regular specs) to people who were younger/same age as me that were going to NUS/NTU together after ORD (NSF Officers).

It made me so sick to the stomach everyday when ITE failures were commanding me to do inefficient and pointless things and punishing me for suggesting smarter ways of doing things. It made me even more sick to the stomach when officers whom I had higher expectations of, joined in the fun and ridiculed me further in a more intellectual way. Regular specs would just give physical punishment like PT or confinement, because their brains arent that sophisticated. Officers I had were much worse, they would use the things I confided in them during those mandatory talks to ridicule and humiliate me in an intellectual way. I have to keep this hate alive for the rest of my life to keep reminding myself to be a fked up person to protect myself and my loved ones. Daniel T*n from NUS dentistry. Francis L*m Jia* Xia* from some random poly. If one day I think of a perfect crime and you happen to be in my life, god bless you. (Just kidding..... Or am I?)

Which brings me back to my point, I used to be very straightforward, very positive and optimistic, very blunt with words, but never an evil thought or intention that would harm others. I would stand up for what I felt is right, speak up for people who just accepted bullshit and that really got me into alot of trouble.

After NS, I am scheming, cynical and full of bullshit. I read very very deep in between the lines, I have multiple personas when dealing with different people, I can sense danger of my welfare from a mile away. I am manipulative and cunning in such a fked up way, I would say yes and smile to different groups of people while trying to achieve an objective that was only beneficial to myself. I thought I would no longer require this "skill" to protect myself once I ORD. Sadly, every ICT would awaken this nature and refines this skill further.

I thought to myself, there would be absolutely no need for this "skill" once I enter the workforce, since if I am paid a salary to endure certain nonsense then by all means endure. Sadly, it has awakened once again and I am ashamed and afraid of myself because the people I am dealing with are really weak low level noobs compared to fkers from NS.

How far would I  go to manipulate nice people into doing more just so I can do less? How fake would I be to manipulate people into thinking I am doing just as much? How pretentious must I be to create and instill fear into people who dare to approach me to do things? How much of a smiling joker must I be so that when I suddenly turn serious, people wouldnt know how to deal with me? How cruel must I be to humiliate and ostracize people who wayang and spoil market while still maintaining a friendly relationship? How fked up must I be, if I could achieve all of the above while hiding behind a facade of smiles and deceit?

I am ashamed, I really am, and I am feeling that my fangs and claws are starting to show which is why I am writing this emergency post to remind myself to keep it hidden. The more people open up to me, the more I need to pull back otherwise I am afraid they would see the real me. This quote from one of my friends would be perfect to end this pathetic excuse of a post.

All Singaporean guys are fked up. Why?
NS is fked up, and all SG guys have to go through NS. Therefore, all SG guys are fked up.

A truthful review of Lucy that does not bash it entirely

Watched Lucy in JB with Zoe, it was honestly a very thought provoking movie for me especially the end. I was so engrossed with the ending as a myriad of thoughts were rushing into my head so I made a mental note to google a review to see what others thought. Unexpectedly, almost all the reviews on the first page were negative reviews that were so sarcastic and borderline retarded that did not provide any meaningful review and discussion. So here I am.

First of all, I just wanna raise a gigantic middle finger to those negative reviews that jumped on the bandwagon and bashed Lucy due to scientific fallacies. Every review pointed out a glaring loophole that human beings do not just use 10% of the brain. This is a freaking sci-fi movie, its NOT meant to be true in the first place? I'm sure those people must be a joy to have in parties, do we ever question the scientific facts behind gamma rays that made the Hulk? Do we question the radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker? Do we question what brand of shampoo Asgarde sold? Same goes to the scientific background of the CPH4 drug, who cares whether its really produced by a pregnant lady or whether it really forms the skull or whatever? Its just a science- FICTION movie. Please.

I personally felt that the last few minutes were the crux of the show. I was trying to understand what the director/scriptwriter wanted to tell us and what is his stand. The biggest question I had after the show ended was: Is this show trying to make us think about creationism vs evolution? If thats the case what did the scriptwriter think? What is his stand?

It seems that at 99% Lucy became one with time and could go back in time, which is quite interesting because it definitely showed evolution and the reverse big bang and first life forms were jellyfish (immortality throwback?) lookalikes and lastly crooked looking plants and finally the first cell.

At 100%, Lucy disappeared. Now everything up to this point has been a recount of the movie. From this point onwards its just what I felt after watching. It seems that the scriptwriter is leaning towards creationism since at 100%, Lucy essentially became God.

At 30% she was already showing signs of omniscient (all knowing with quantum physics, applied mathematics, memories, knowing all about another person by touching them etc), at 40-50% she was showing signs of omnipotence (all powerful, controlling objects and people at will etc)  and at 99% - 100% she showed signs of omnipresence. (Controlling time, and that sms "I am everywhere " )

So the order of 99% and 100% actually mattered quite significantly to me. At 99% Lucy saw evolution and she wasn't "everywhere" yet, furthermore she actually saw the first cell, that was only possible if God came first and created the first cell. If cells came first before God, would God still be able to see the first cell that created him? I'm not too sure about the time travelling mechanics for God. Did God proceed to create lifeforms who were similar to himself and realised that it requires too much sustenance and slowly proceeded to "dumb down" till evolution took place? At least thats what I felt the scriptwriter was trying to say or maybe I'm just thinking too much/little.

Some things I could not think through.
1) The Lucy fingering the monkey scene appeared before dinosaurs. Not sure if there was a significance with that timeline.

2) First female monkey also called Lucy. I must have missed some sort of link. So did Lucy went to the first female monkey and passed on her knowledge of evolution to that monkey by connecting fingers? No idea because it conflicts with what I thought the scriptwriter was trying to imply.

Some random closing thoughts:

Scriptwriter must have thought funny people are smarter. When the junkie snorted the CPH4 directly into his nose, he started to laugh like a manic. What if taking in huge amounts of CPH4 actually results in a being that is so humorous that nothing is funny enough to make her laugh anymore? What if Robin Williams reached 100% and was so funny that nothing could make him laugh anymore and he just disintegrated and became God?

That random thought lead to Zoe and I trying to come up with a definition for a joke. According to dictionary: a joke is a thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, especially a story with a funny punchline.

Using what we learnt in N**, we came up with a new definition of joke: A statement that engages the prior knowledge of the audience that causes a disequilibrium and results in a laughing response while trying to achieve equilibrium with the punchline.

So, "life was given to us a billion years ago, now you know what to do with it."
Yes I do indeed, party hard, overdose on drugs and evolve into a flash drive/hard disk/cloud storage.

God of Trolls really exist.

If you could only choose between having sex or eating food which would you choose and which would you give up?

A: Choose to eat. Give up having sex.
B: Choose to have sex. Give up eating.

A twisted his back the next day.

B had infected gum the next day.

Yay its June holidays~!