That said, I came across this: NTU Valedictorian Exclaims F-Adjective. View the comments, especially the top-rated ones.

Then have a look at this: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh On the Most Important Word in English (you’ll need to turn up the volume, the video is quite soft)

Here’s one from a different source: The Use of the Word Fuck

Then get over the versatility of the word “fuck”, and its relatives, already. Open your mind please, thank you (and then stop bothering us – and NEWS! For goodness sake, NEWS! – with this bullshit at pretending to have your pristine, unblemished, immaculate dignity insulted, for there are far more deserving things than this that should be NEWS). I’m honestly fucking flabbergasted at how a harmless utterance caused such a ruckus. If anything, it’s the dignity of news that’s been insulted with unnecessary fluff like this. News is not “anything that is or might be interesting” – that is the stuff of tabloids and gossip. Admittedly we have such low standards of news here.

As a quick side note, let me just put it out that I think convocation is overrated and outdated. If you had a distance-learning degree from an overseas university, are you going to fly there to attend convocation? No? Overrated. How many people get degrees now? Are degrees very exclusive now? No? Outdated. QED.

Download the sheet below and open it in MS Excel 2007. See if you can read all 7 lines of a repeated sentence in the first, merged cell without zooming out.

Silly Scrolling Behaviour.xlsx

Looking back on the history of the situation, we can clearly see, on the surface, a long period of compliance, followed by what is right now happening as a period of conflict, and somewhat nasty conflict sometimes.

Crossing subject lines to borrow a concept from organisational culture, Singapore is inherently a society with a low tolerance for conflict. People who disagree may not openly express it; they keep conflicting tensions internal, and over time those tensions get pent up. Cultural norms exact some form of penalty for openly expressing disagreement, whether in personal standing in the eyes of an elder, a parent, a boss, or in its most extreme manifestation, lawsuits. Disagreement is not allowed in traditional media such as print, TV and radio, through self-censorship.

Thus, as the case is now, when an avenue presents itself free of the penalties of a “low conflict tolerance” culture, such as social media and new media, a veritable explosion of pent-up tension occurs, resulting in what we see now as highly stirred, often irrational, emotions and comments flying around. It is often difficult to get reasoned, balanced opinions out of all this.

However, once the initial period of hot-headedness dies down after the easing of pent-up tension, more level-headed debate on new media may emerge as people calm down. Conflict may become less of the nasty, mudslinging nature. In the long-term – again borrowing concepts from organisational culture – conflict may eventually give way to reasoned compromise, and collaboration as emotions subside and people decide and discuss, in the open nature of new media, how best to move forward. When this happens it may also herald an evolution into a culture more tolerant of conflict, and again borrowing another concept, a healthy amount of conflict is essential to ensure optimal results in any organisation, which can be generalised to discussions in the general populace.

The danger is this: new media can still be segregated. People can split themselves fervently into different camps – as seen in the various FB page “likes”. Once segregated, dialogue is difficult to achieve – let alone compromise and collaboration, as the camps do not want to engage. People, also, can in spite of the open nature of new media, refuse to educate themselves about issues, and stick to appeals to emotion that do not hold water. When this happens, rocks will be strewn in the path of long-term evolution.

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I have a feeling this is not very well-written, and I should really be studying for my exams. But I think the gist is there so I’ll leave editing for better reading aside. I hope it has given you a bit of impetus to put the current election fever into perspective and look into why it manifests itself as it is, and what might result after.

I spent the next half back in NTU, labouring away, Mondays to Sundays. However, in spite of all the work, regrettably I must say that I have not taken away an ounce in terms of value, from NTU, from a university. Amongst all that work which consumed my life, I don’t know what was of value, for life. Perhaps the only thing that was of value, was the reinforcement of the realisation of the lack of value of some things, and I spent half a year in pain chafing with the things that lacked value.

I want my life back. 6 months later when this is over, I’m kicking NTU out of my life for good.

And up till today, in the 3.5 years I’ve spent in NTU, of the professors that I respect and would remember, I can count – whose number is not expected to increase – on one hand.

1. Failure to recognise that frank assessments under confidential and private circumstances are neither new nor groundbreaking,

2. Failure to adequately evaluate, and take responsibility for, the newsworthiness/public interest value of the leaks in view of 1.,

3. Failure to adequately evaluate the impact of unnecessary controversy in view of 2. and the history and context of the region,

4. Failure to, in the name of press freedom, evaluate the impact on the freedom of officials to make critical assessments under confidential circumstances in the course of work, that may shape policy,

5. In view of all the above, thus flouting responsibilities that come with press freedom and abusing press freedom.

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That being said, I’m actually quite neutral on WikiLeaks. They have in the past revealed information that has actually been in the public interest, but this time, on matters involving the SEA region, it has crossed the line. I couldn’t give two hoots about Singapore’s PAP government and I’m not entirely supportive of Singaporean diplomats using adjectives like “stupid” either, but “lack competency” sounds objective enough in the course of work. But WikiLeaks has crossed the line this time, because the repercussions will be borne by Singapore – a country and its people – not by the PAP government, or any government.

The string of “failures” above is on purpose, as having studied media before, press freedom – and the responsibilities that come with it, and newsworthiness – come across as very serious matters. To disregard that in pursuit of attention-grabbing headlines is nothing but failure on the part of the media.

What was of public interest value in the leaked cables about the SEA region? Was the controversy needed? Is it even new? These questions were obviously not answered properly.

Yes, some of the adjectives were overboard, and I don’t support that, but that does not justify creating an even bigger, unneeded controversy out of perfectly normal subjective judgment, especially given the context of the region and its history, of relations between Singapore and the region, using information they were not even privy to.

Right now I’m interested in what impact this will be having on cooperation in the region, in ASEAN, ASEAN+3, ARF and APEC. Stability amongst clashes of “civilisations”, or between “ideas” – viz. the plethora of differing social/political/cultural norms and views in the SEA region and beyond – and the increasing value of cooperation viz. the age of connectivity and globalisation, are important prerequisites for economic growth, and sensible diplomats probably won’t let this affect their work for the greater good, but not caring about it, now that it has all erupted, isn’t a good idea either, and no thanks to WikiLeaks + Fairfax Media.

“We are always in danger in Singapore of mistaking excellence for competence. Most people in Singapore are happy to be competent, above average than exceptional.”

He also says there are…

“…not that many people in Singapore who really want to be extremely good at what they are doing.”

Next he opines…

“I half suspect that once we get to 75 per cent of that level — which is quite good — you think that’s good enough, you’re already better than the rest in Singapore.”

“And that urge to want go much farther and to be exceptional — not because someone is looking or you are trying to win a competition, but you just want to be exceptional — that urge isn’t there in Singapore.”

I just want to ask: what is excellence? If one looks at a bigger picture and broadens one’s mindset, can excellence be pinned down by competency and percentages? Is excellence always defined by competition? Is it always defined by a bottom line or some margin? Something measurable?

It is telling, that from both the Minister’s quips and the responses to that described in the article, that the “elite” are still stuck in that tangible-item focus. Evidently, they are not excellent at transcending artificial boundaries on “excellence” imposed by Singaporean ideas of tangible “success”.

Here and here. Here and here too.

Just for the record, I am a non-smoker. But I also don’t support hamfisting other people not to smoke with a complete ban on smoking, and I also don’t support forcibly playing daddy/nanny. And where will these flippant bans stop? Just at smoking? Or is alcohol next? Is junk food next? Are unhealthy diets next? What are the other top killer diseases in Singapore? Clue: heart disease is one of them.