The Sciences.
i cant believe i had to check up the spelling of this title. thats how bad my english can get. or maybe thats just how much i hate the subject. i mean science.
uh-huh.
wait. first i just need to say this. - Hapy Bdae Sean!
how's that. my first words outside the grey-scale. haha. i'm truly sincere abt it.
a more light-hearted entry. thanks QH. you sure brightened me up.
on a side note, i'm not here cuz i got the webbie of some recommended site for history notes, nor am i here to discuss the predicted topics for tomorrow's paper. i am here, cuz i am here. u see, i've been suffering from withdrawal syndrommes the past few days of my absence here.
anywz, here's how it is so far.
English - bad. like very bad. you dont write your functional to realise your 'abstract' method is not accepted by school standards. neither do you write your essay to realise that its an awful lot of catchy phrases, power rhetoric but hoplessly incoherent. and when you thought compre was your saviour, summary had to description-based. and in all that, your pen had to run out of ink and your spare's left in the bag. T-Goh will so rip my compo apart. so dont try telling me that its 'not that bad' cuz it IS BAD. haha. got you on that one didnt i?
Chinese was fun. if only they had more MCQs. i thot my dice-throwing skills were improving. what a great way to celebrate the last day of school.
it was hols for a week and i realised how screwed my exam timetable is. 1 math everyday + written essays for 1st week and MCQs the next.
Monday:
Emath P1. not bad. had 55mins extra time. part of the math department's conspiracy.
SS. this is a great subject. i would blame it on it God and it being an 'art'.
like all art subs, a big factor of your grade comes form 'spotting' and thats one technique you gotta learn to survive.
i was just discussing switzerland with mark (like every other O'leveler would) and it dawned upon us that there was a high propensity that switzerland wouldnt come out as a full question.
'what else?' he asked. 'education?'
and to the query, moz replied 'nay, cambridge would entertain not cross-themed questions. i'd place my bets on Northern Ireland.'
so there and than, we mugged. just 5 minutes before the exam.
and poof, NI came out.
truly brilliant. arts that is.
Tuesday.
Amath P1. pretty much the norm. nothing particulary exciting.
Physics.
i hold my hands up. i know jackass about science beyond my common sense. if you want to count the colourful graphical versions of cloning in Time, you can. but it doesnt add up to much. but before i begin my crtitc, let me just lay the gohst of the arts-science deal to rest.
According to reliable sources, the sciences deal with the natural world and the arts with the human world.
Fair Enough.
No1's going to confuse a hydrogen atom with mona lisa or the french revolution with the French Revolution.
seems as if all our knowledge can be pigeon holed, or at first glance at least.
k, its obvious i mean to disagree. right.
so what's economics? or sociology?
well, they're supposed to be called social sciences. in otherwords, both science and arts.
wonderful.
its obvious that both entities exist in a continuum. the classic hard-core sciences on one end, fine arts on the other, and a million grey disciplines in between.
here's a teaser - both music and physics were seen by Aristotle as 'probable knowledge' as opposed to 'certain knowledge'.
the Greek Vinci cum Einstien cum Mozart of his generation put it this way - 'we must be satisfied to indicate the truth with a rough and general sketch.'
Math and logic tend to bend themselves to certainty. not so for physics, contrary to common belief. Newton overthrew aristotle's concept of gravity (and aristotle would have accepted it). Yet, Einstine in turn overthrew Newtonian.
This just proves to show that science isnt universal nor absolute.
The notion that art subjects promote critical thinking more than sciences is nothing but a symptom of our nation's education system. Apart from the obsession with manufacturing creativity for a knowledge based economy, it is the syllabus the science students are faced with, and not the nature of the sciences, that contribute to the false belief that there is nothing creative about the scientific process. your vaild hypothesis is just as innovative as writting an essay. Science and arts are equally creative.
although diplomacy tends to be favourable, i mite have overdone the balancing act this time round. nonetheless i must re-iterate all of the above (which i highly unoriginal, having flinched it from some website or other). so sue me.
The arts are neccessary disciplines while the sciences are not. It makes perfect sense to me that if we did not study the human world, we wouldnt quite know ourselves, and if we dont quite know ourselves, we would not be doing very well.
OK. that sounds like something vaguely from a self-help book. but you get the point.
we can live without air-con, mp3s, and we dont need an equation to tell us things fall to the ground when we throw them up.
what we do need to learn is how to spot questions.
in the arts, we learn to study a teacher's actions and infer upon the source through the minor idiosyncracies the next test's questions. that's called life skills.
at least the arts dont claim to know all. the subjectiveness of itself gives room for debate. thats the beuaty of it.
thus my interest lies elsewhere. law. free-lancing. motivational speaking? *hint* was giving it credible consideration. not really plausible till i've gained a rational amount of working years that is. but please, go be that gyne you dream to be. we still value your profesion. haha.
speaking of hints, i think hints tend to reveal more of what an individual knows. have i given myself away? maybe it wont be such a bad thing to be transparent.
so back to where i last left off, physcis was pretty much the usual. nobody gives a dime about radiation, and until science becomes what its supposed to be, its no physics in moz's R5.
Wednesday.
Emath P2. whoohoo. this was a time trial. 3 graphs in one sitting. is my ruler going to break or what.
Chemistry is a science that i would not call a science. Lee Liak Phong's a great teacher. chem's not a science, not with its numerous exceptions. but it was quite a headache nonetheless. had a dream of chromium though. that was a few days back.
Today.
Geog.
i technichally started studying at 530am. i recapped 4 physical chapters and was told that MNCs wouldnt come out. man, thats the only thing i can do in geog without muggin for it. thankfully, clement could lecture me the answer script for the paperduring pre-flag raising and during the daily devotion. no kidding. it all came out. doesnt mean its a gauranteed A1. questions were left blank. geog's alwz been a 'who-can-write-e-fastest' competition and i've forfieted the prize many a time.
yeah, and so, i was thinking - why do we study?
'so what if i get staright As, get a scholarship, get a great job and get killed in a car crash.'
'i study so that i can do well in life, have kids, and pay for them to study.'
rest assured i'm not going in that direction. i've got more a sense of purpose than that.
i was thinking, would studying be fair to those who didnt study? it wouldnt would it? shouldnt exams be a test of intellect? and not how much of the textbook you can regurgutate. thats a no-brainer. we should all go for exams unprepared and willing to take it on like a man! yes! its not my fault i'm not scoring well, its all those muggers fault. they cheated. they studied. it isnt fair that they know how to study longer periods of time more than me.
afterall, studying certainly reduces creativity. lamentably.
it must be the canadian spirit within me. i came back in P1 to Singapore knowing long division and multiplication of fractions. i was four years ahead of my peers. but was put in that class because of my chinese, which i just realised was not mandatory for me to take. was. and well, the rest just caught up with me in school work.
i always like the 'didnt try but still flared better' character. i liked it till last year when i realised it stopped working. and than, as if the devil entered me, my evil deeds began - i mugged. but without any experience, i gave up halfway. yup. that explains my current status today.
forgot what i wanted to say. nvrm.
you are from this day forward prohibitted to use any gross over-simplification of grandiloquent lexicons.
i'm not making sense huh?
sounds like an oxymoron to the degree of halal pork, or debater geeks, or even fun physics for that matter.
read my previous post and decided not to re-edit it. i actually think it was not badly written. i think i write better when i'm not too consious. when its late at night. when the logic simply flows without time for second thought.
favouritism. either that or we guys are just plain shallow. so QH said. after thorough analysis. disgusting either way. the new age metro doesnt know who turn to.
i have this gut feeling that i'm being watched. watched by foreign identities. foreign identities that leaves no trace behind. traces that have no owner.
Moderate musilms condemn extremists acts. notably in france.
Gun lobby gets ban on gun control lifted.
ramvble.ramble.rambling.
well. there's history tmr and i gotta put my spotting skills to good use. till next time than.
latin was a global language. and it broke down into all the european languages. now with globalisation, maybe a global language will be mmore pratical. lets hope its english. haha.
set policy for and against death penalty. shlda shredded team2's case than. gonna have a sapr soon. i cant stand rust.
Lets bring it back to the basics.
Got style, got substance, got say.
uh-huh.
wait. first i just need to say this. - Hapy Bdae Sean!
how's that. my first words outside the grey-scale. haha. i'm truly sincere abt it.
a more light-hearted entry. thanks QH. you sure brightened me up.
on a side note, i'm not here cuz i got the webbie of some recommended site for history notes, nor am i here to discuss the predicted topics for tomorrow's paper. i am here, cuz i am here. u see, i've been suffering from withdrawal syndrommes the past few days of my absence here.
anywz, here's how it is so far.
English - bad. like very bad. you dont write your functional to realise your 'abstract' method is not accepted by school standards. neither do you write your essay to realise that its an awful lot of catchy phrases, power rhetoric but hoplessly incoherent. and when you thought compre was your saviour, summary had to description-based. and in all that, your pen had to run out of ink and your spare's left in the bag. T-Goh will so rip my compo apart. so dont try telling me that its 'not that bad' cuz it IS BAD. haha. got you on that one didnt i?
Chinese was fun. if only they had more MCQs. i thot my dice-throwing skills were improving. what a great way to celebrate the last day of school.
it was hols for a week and i realised how screwed my exam timetable is. 1 math everyday + written essays for 1st week and MCQs the next.
Monday:
Emath P1. not bad. had 55mins extra time. part of the math department's conspiracy.
SS. this is a great subject. i would blame it on it God and it being an 'art'.
like all art subs, a big factor of your grade comes form 'spotting' and thats one technique you gotta learn to survive.
i was just discussing switzerland with mark (like every other O'leveler would) and it dawned upon us that there was a high propensity that switzerland wouldnt come out as a full question.
'what else?' he asked. 'education?'
and to the query, moz replied 'nay, cambridge would entertain not cross-themed questions. i'd place my bets on Northern Ireland.'
so there and than, we mugged. just 5 minutes before the exam.
and poof, NI came out.
truly brilliant. arts that is.
Tuesday.
Amath P1. pretty much the norm. nothing particulary exciting.
Physics.
i hold my hands up. i know jackass about science beyond my common sense. if you want to count the colourful graphical versions of cloning in Time, you can. but it doesnt add up to much. but before i begin my crtitc, let me just lay the gohst of the arts-science deal to rest.
According to reliable sources, the sciences deal with the natural world and the arts with the human world.
Fair Enough.
No1's going to confuse a hydrogen atom with mona lisa or the french revolution with the French Revolution.
seems as if all our knowledge can be pigeon holed, or at first glance at least.
k, its obvious i mean to disagree. right.
so what's economics? or sociology?
well, they're supposed to be called social sciences. in otherwords, both science and arts.
wonderful.
its obvious that both entities exist in a continuum. the classic hard-core sciences on one end, fine arts on the other, and a million grey disciplines in between.
here's a teaser - both music and physics were seen by Aristotle as 'probable knowledge' as opposed to 'certain knowledge'.
the Greek Vinci cum Einstien cum Mozart of his generation put it this way - 'we must be satisfied to indicate the truth with a rough and general sketch.'
Math and logic tend to bend themselves to certainty. not so for physics, contrary to common belief. Newton overthrew aristotle's concept of gravity (and aristotle would have accepted it). Yet, Einstine in turn overthrew Newtonian.
This just proves to show that science isnt universal nor absolute.
The notion that art subjects promote critical thinking more than sciences is nothing but a symptom of our nation's education system. Apart from the obsession with manufacturing creativity for a knowledge based economy, it is the syllabus the science students are faced with, and not the nature of the sciences, that contribute to the false belief that there is nothing creative about the scientific process. your vaild hypothesis is just as innovative as writting an essay. Science and arts are equally creative.
although diplomacy tends to be favourable, i mite have overdone the balancing act this time round. nonetheless i must re-iterate all of the above (which i highly unoriginal, having flinched it from some website or other). so sue me.
The arts are neccessary disciplines while the sciences are not. It makes perfect sense to me that if we did not study the human world, we wouldnt quite know ourselves, and if we dont quite know ourselves, we would not be doing very well.
OK. that sounds like something vaguely from a self-help book. but you get the point.
we can live without air-con, mp3s, and we dont need an equation to tell us things fall to the ground when we throw them up.
what we do need to learn is how to spot questions.
in the arts, we learn to study a teacher's actions and infer upon the source through the minor idiosyncracies the next test's questions. that's called life skills.
at least the arts dont claim to know all. the subjectiveness of itself gives room for debate. thats the beuaty of it.
thus my interest lies elsewhere. law. free-lancing. motivational speaking? *hint* was giving it credible consideration. not really plausible till i've gained a rational amount of working years that is. but please, go be that gyne you dream to be. we still value your profesion. haha.
speaking of hints, i think hints tend to reveal more of what an individual knows. have i given myself away? maybe it wont be such a bad thing to be transparent.
so back to where i last left off, physcis was pretty much the usual. nobody gives a dime about radiation, and until science becomes what its supposed to be, its no physics in moz's R5.
Wednesday.
Emath P2. whoohoo. this was a time trial. 3 graphs in one sitting. is my ruler going to break or what.
Chemistry is a science that i would not call a science. Lee Liak Phong's a great teacher. chem's not a science, not with its numerous exceptions. but it was quite a headache nonetheless. had a dream of chromium though. that was a few days back.
Today.
Geog.
i technichally started studying at 530am. i recapped 4 physical chapters and was told that MNCs wouldnt come out. man, thats the only thing i can do in geog without muggin for it. thankfully, clement could lecture me the answer script for the paperduring pre-flag raising and during the daily devotion. no kidding. it all came out. doesnt mean its a gauranteed A1. questions were left blank. geog's alwz been a 'who-can-write-e-fastest' competition and i've forfieted the prize many a time.
yeah, and so, i was thinking - why do we study?
'so what if i get staright As, get a scholarship, get a great job and get killed in a car crash.'
'i study so that i can do well in life, have kids, and pay for them to study.'
rest assured i'm not going in that direction. i've got more a sense of purpose than that.
i was thinking, would studying be fair to those who didnt study? it wouldnt would it? shouldnt exams be a test of intellect? and not how much of the textbook you can regurgutate. thats a no-brainer. we should all go for exams unprepared and willing to take it on like a man! yes! its not my fault i'm not scoring well, its all those muggers fault. they cheated. they studied. it isnt fair that they know how to study longer periods of time more than me.
afterall, studying certainly reduces creativity. lamentably.
it must be the canadian spirit within me. i came back in P1 to Singapore knowing long division and multiplication of fractions. i was four years ahead of my peers. but was put in that class because of my chinese, which i just realised was not mandatory for me to take. was. and well, the rest just caught up with me in school work.
i always like the 'didnt try but still flared better' character. i liked it till last year when i realised it stopped working. and than, as if the devil entered me, my evil deeds began - i mugged. but without any experience, i gave up halfway. yup. that explains my current status today.
forgot what i wanted to say. nvrm.
you are from this day forward prohibitted to use any gross over-simplification of grandiloquent lexicons.
i'm not making sense huh?
sounds like an oxymoron to the degree of halal pork, or debater geeks, or even fun physics for that matter.
read my previous post and decided not to re-edit it. i actually think it was not badly written. i think i write better when i'm not too consious. when its late at night. when the logic simply flows without time for second thought.
favouritism. either that or we guys are just plain shallow. so QH said. after thorough analysis. disgusting either way. the new age metro doesnt know who turn to.
i have this gut feeling that i'm being watched. watched by foreign identities. foreign identities that leaves no trace behind. traces that have no owner.
Moderate musilms condemn extremists acts. notably in france.
Gun lobby gets ban on gun control lifted.
ramvble.ramble.rambling.
well. there's history tmr and i gotta put my spotting skills to good use. till next time than.
latin was a global language. and it broke down into all the european languages. now with globalisation, maybe a global language will be mmore pratical. lets hope its english. haha.
set policy for and against death penalty. shlda shredded team2's case than. gonna have a sapr soon. i cant stand rust.
Lets bring it back to the basics.
Got style, got substance, got say.