1. In Literature, people always take certain phrases said by characters as significant, and certain events as foreshadowing etc... What if these were accidental? People do not always write just to insert literary elements, they just want to tell a story. In fact, in Secondary 1, there was this poem

    I’m nobody! Who are you?
    Are you – Nobody – Too?
    Then there’s a pair of us?
    Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
    How dreary – to be – Somebody!
    How public – like a Frog –
    To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
    To an admiring Bog!

    -Emily Dickinson

    On an 8 line poem, the teacher dictated over 80 lines of comments. Analysing commas is why I dropped Literature for Secondary 3. Well, more - I object to Lit because everything is seen as significant, when in fact, the significance may be unintended by the author

    Also see: Cat in the Hat Review

  2. Modern theatre is seemingly designed to confound all but the playwright and the judges. Presumably, understandable / non-abstract theatre is "bad" and thus undesirable.
  3. Companies always advertise that there will be "Free Gifts". Aren't gifts free? This contributes to the degradation of the language, just like the use of "Acute Crisis" to mean a crisis. A crisis IS acute.
  4. In Mid-Sept 1999, there was a series of newspaper articles on Problem Girls. Apparently, in our Asian society, Girls are seen as behaving well. Some problems cited were truancy and hair dying. However, one alleged problem was very ludicrous. It was termed Inappropriate Gender Behaviour, i.e. Girls behaving like Boys - short hair and baggy pants and T-shirts. The principals who brought up that problem seem very bored, as it does not seem like a problem to me. In some schools, the girls who behave like boys are counselled. What's the deal?

  5. I saw this advertisement:

    Advertisements
    Politicians
    Heroin
    Only one can tell you what to think

    apparently, it is Heroin which controls your thoughts, but isn't this advertisement trying to make me think that?

  6. National Education's favoured caution - 'what you can't defend is not yours', is quite silly. It would appear that they condone crime. Criminals, no fear! If you don't get caught, it's okay to steal!

  7. Many people have been to Outward Bound School (OBS), and liked it. I don't. I found it pointless. Among other things, we learnt that it's okay to break things, but not to lose them. We also learnt that it's good to emotionally manipulate and coerce people at the end of the first day when they're tired and they want to sleep by making them sign a commitment book in front of everyone. And that to save money, you adopt a 'Back to Basics' philosophy. And that they used the dead fish that washed up at the dock to cook our food. (though I hear the cooks after my year were very good)
  8. Some shameless person wrote in to the newspaper, ostensibly talking about fitness in the country. In reality, it promoted his fitness club, telling of its benefits.
  9. F&N Fruitade tastes terrible, I wonder what fruit it is supposed to taste like. I drank it once and have hated it since. It's mind-boggling how people actually like it. Actually, Dr Pepper is disgusting too. The only time I drank it (in Hawaii, since it's not available in Singapore), I thought it was one of the most disgusting drinks ever. The jury is still out on whether Fruitade is worse or Dr Pepper.

  10. I once read a Chinese passage - it tried to convince me that comedies are bad because they supposedly don't deal with "social issues" (which Chinese seem to love dealing with) and are not thought provoking. So we should all go watch tragedies till we die crying. Incidentally, not all comedies are mindless slapstick showcases for clowns, unlike what the author of the passage thinks. Chinese passages *love* to talk about saving time and how hardship is needed to mould good character.

  11. Sexism is evil. We now have females triumphant in some areas.
    - In a court of law trying sex cases, the Woman's word is, ceteris paribus, of more value than the Man's
    - Sexual discrimination / harrasment is alleged for the most innocous trespasses
    - male toilet cleaners can't clean female toilets but the reverse is not true
    - There are cases of women raping man - In Australia, 2 guys held down a guy and some woman straddled him
    - There are subtle forms of "date rape". Like when the guy is drunk
    - custody of children is usually given to women
    - Men sometimes have to pay alimony and give half their property to their former wives who earn more than they do
    - Guys can't wear pink, and there are 2 types of fashion - female and unisex

  12. There are only 2 reasons girls cut their hair - they have undergone some great emotional change, or they are feeling hot

  13. There are only 2 types of fashion - female and unisex. And the former is much more comfortable than the latter.

  14. The parang is the most popular weapon in violent crimes in Singapore. (Newspaper: He was slashed with a parang)

  15.  If experience is needed for all jobs (as job notices seem to indicate), how do you get a job in the first place?

  16. What's the Crescent Moon going to be changed to when Singapore becomes an old country.

  17. People never call the people at service counters by their names (which is presumably what the nametags are for). Or maybe it's just Singapore.

  18. It's amazing how easily consumers are conned. Eg Tracing Paper (Blue "Blotting Paper" and Hello Kitty (see How Girls Waste Time)

  19. TV is evil. "Charmed" has people thinking that warlocks are evil witches, when in fact they are male witches. Damn.

  20. People looove quoting famous people, as if that will make their case any stronger.
    "People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first."

  21. Much of the food from America is either Low Calorie / Reduced Fat or the like or 100% Natural and using Only The Finest Ingredients. Better than Palm Oil laden food though.

  22. Drunk people say they're not drunk. Sober people say they're drunk (From Luther Chan)

  23. RJC has a diabolical cult called: Girls In Shirts (with innumerable members in 2000 and ~34 seen so far in 2001). With too many types of blouses to choose from, the cultists got irritated and decided to wear shirts instead. 
    Types of blouses available:
    (Dying out) The old old RJ blouse (transparent, very soft, no stitching below the shoulder at the back) - 6 J1s wore it in 2000 (that I counted starting near the end of the year)! And ~25 people in all in 2001.
    The RGS blouse.
    A slight purplish tinted version of the RGS blouse (Yangtse Kiang)
    The old RJ blouse (as RGS blouse but with pleat)
    The old RJ blouse, but with a slight purple tint
    The purple gunnysack RJ blouse (approved and the most popular)

    So far, their efforts have been in vain, but they have successfully infiltrated HCJC, PJC and NJC, and probably a lot more JCs (most neighbourhood Secondary Schools have also been taken over by the Diabolical Cult). Interestingly enough, I have only seen one guy in a blouse (he wasn't in school uniform)

    Some stupid RJC rules: Female students with long hair must tie their hair up... with ribbons. Wonderful. I've seen 3 who do that.

    Anyhow, many with long hair don't tie it up. Zixuan asked me to count those with long hair (just above the shoulder or below) who didn't tie it up, and in 3 hours over 2 days, I counted 36.

  24. Most NJC girls have short hair

  25. Hot Socks (the very very short, ankle revealing ones) are a culture in ACJC (as are short skirts - the longest there is 3 cm above the knee). In ~5 months, I counted only 35 people who did *not* wear Hot Socks. Assuming (conservatively) that slightly over 1/4 of them were double-counted, we have 25 left. Assuming (conservatively, again) further that I've only seen half of ACJC, we come to the conclusion that 50 ACJC girls, of 400, do not wear hot socks. Wonderful.
    Melvin Tay Poh Huat says that the purpose of Hot Socks is that they:
    makes their legs look longer, more slender and hotter
    but we must take what he says with a shaker of salt, so.

    To think that Hualalalala JC (HCJC) and TJC ban them.

  26. People blossom when they reach JC.

  27. Why do fishermen need mints?

  28. Most dot.coms have no imagination and use their URL as a 'company name'

  29. 'Groovy Chick' stationery is disgusting (though not as bad as the Powerpuff Girls, Tare Panda and the Queen of them all, Hello Kitty). One pencilbox has a girl pulling down her shorts, a brown lump on the floor and 'poo' written in cartoony scrawl on the top. Ugh.

  30. Posers wear black shoes (to school)

  31. Nothing in the world is Halal - everything is Haram due to the water cycle as the haram water evaporates. If you do not buy this, the alternate explanation is that since the rivers are connected to the sea, and the water table is in contact with the rivers, everything is Haram due to the contaminating touch of the water.

  32. The 3 worst commercials on Television:

    Hicee Vitamin C - A Woman playing tennis.
    A Japanese commercial. A man in a car (with a gigantic mobile phone) comes to traffic lights. They turn red and he has a stomachache. He eats a pill, and they turn green.
    A guy with a fake white beard and in Ancient Chinese Garb holds up a bottle of pills. He strokes his beard and eats a pill.

    And they are ALL badly dubbed.

  33. Buying gifts and cards is troublesome because you have to draw up a loooong list. To leave one person out is unforgivable and speaks volumes, since you got something for everyone else. [NB: Not from personal experience]

  34. Why do 75% of Muslim males have "Mohammed" in their names?

  35. How come we don't have a minister of Buddhist Affairs? Or even a Minister of Taoist-Buddhist-Amalgam affairs. There are much more even Buddhists than Muslims.