Urban Camouflage

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Please feel free to leave comments/thoughts/ideas in the comments section or the tagboard (though I'd prefer it in the comments section)

Lesson learned: windows journal tends to hang after you scribble too much in it.


Credits:
Kenneth Chen for contributing to the idea
Honghu for suggesting I upload to blogger directly (yes, I didn't know you could do that)

The Structure of the Army

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Someone please recommend a better image hosting site. Photobucket's messy.

Term 3

Alas, Term 3 has arrived... The term where 'people start to behave weirdly', as coined by Shenxiang.

Today during physics lecture, Joel suddenly turned around for about 10 seconds, looked at Rayshio, and when they made eye contact, Joel gave a creepy smile, and turned back again to face the front.

Pretty creepy.

Anyway, I don't know about the rest of you, but for me. I've been using foolscap paper more than I use toilet paper. And thats bad, considering my active bowel movement.

Thats why I have this conspiracy theory. that the A levels is merely a top-secret highly-confidential expansionary economic policy undertaken by the Singapore government under the codename 'MOE'.

This expansionary policy's target is to encourage spending in the economy, without requiring much government spending (other than edusave, subsidies, educational bursaries and scholarships). You might to call into question my theory, but I will further justify it.

1. In preparation for A levels, you buy TYS, Guidebooks, prelim papers, stationery (lots of pen ink refills, mechanical pencil lead, writing paper etc), and if desperate enough, buying the Popular Bookstore Students' Card so you can get discount on all of the items listed above. See? All this additional spending by Consumers (in this case, students) increases consumption in the Singaporean economy without needing much prompting. Admit it. You buy all these guidebooks, TYS etc on your own accord, not forced. Hence, this is, in fact, induced spending. You are induced to spend by the A levels.

2. By mugging, you increase your brain capacity in the long-run. This solves the problem of brain-drain in the economy, and adds more value-addedness to the Singaporean worker. With enhanced mugging capabilities, Singaporeans of the future will be more productive. With this increase in productiveness, the productive capacity of the economy will increase, hence shifting LRAS rightwards (sorry, can't really draw diagram here). Hence, with this increase in LRAS, potential output increases, and economic growth can be attained, and inflation kept in check as well. Wow. 2 macro goals solved there.

3. Did I mention how much we spend on A levels? Oh wait I did. But I forgot to continue on that train of thought. Anyway, with the increase in Consumption, Aggregate Expenditure increases, since C is a component of AE. With this increase in AE, National Income will increase more than proportionately, via the multiplier effect.

Assumptions (Let me try and recall...) :
1. 4-Sector Economy, consisting of households, investments, government expenditure as well as exports and imports.
2. The economy in Singapore is operating below full employment
3. Singaporean kids are kiasu/humji/scared fail, and spend a lot of textbooks, tuition etc, increasing expenditure by 5 billion
4. Marginal Propensity to Consume = 0.7 (Singaporean students can be big spenders)
Marginal Propensity to Import = 0.1
Marginal Propensity to tax = 0.1
Marginal Propensity to Save = 0.1

The Multiplier works on the principle that spending generates income, which then generates more spending.

(Imagine the AE-NY diagram is here, it's rather difficult to draw here)


When Singaporean students spent $5 billion on TYS, they will require additional tuition in order to know how to do every TYS question. Hence, they will hire more tutors. Hence, TYS publishers and tutors gain additional income of $5 bn. When households receive the $5 bn, $0.5 bn will be saved, spent on imports, and paid in terms of taxes each, leaving behind $(0.7)(5) bn to be spent. Thus, there will be an increase in consumption of $3.5 bn. In order to meet this excess demand, firms will hire more factors of production to increase production (probably production of more TYS), including labour. When these households take home this income of $3.5 bn, again, $0.35 bn will be saved, spent on imports, and paid in taxes each, leaving behind $(0.7)(0.25) bn to be spent. The multiplier process would continue until the increase in Consumption and National income is negligible due to the existence of leakages such as savings, tax and import expenditure.
(Insert the table here, or try and imagine it's here, I'm too lazy to include it again).

To calculate the total change in national income, we can use the following equation:

Change in National Income = K x Change in Aggregate Expenditure, where K, the multiplier, is 1/Marginal Propensity to withdraw.
In this case, k = 1/0.3. Hence, overall increase in National Income would be 3.33 x $5 billion. Wow.

So, with this increase in spending on TYS, National Income can increase more than proportionately via the multiplier, and we can see that not only does NY increase more than proportionately, there is also Long Run Economic Growth, with the real output and employment increasing. Wow. Okay lets move on to the next point.

4. Increasing demand for TYS and tuition leads to increased competitiveness in the industry.
All the various TYS publishers will try to DIFFERENTIATE their product, INTEGRATING it together with other ideas to give a creative product (e.g. JC2/IP4 March Math Revision Package). Also, different tuition agencies and tutors will spring out, offering a variety of choices to consumers/students. With the high competition, cost-effectiveness can also be ensured, and cost of production will be kept low, hence cost savings increase, which may be passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices of TYS. Tutors will also engage in 'creative' techniques to engage their students, hence 'separating XYZ tuition agency from the rest'.

So, as we can see from the justifications above, I can conclude that my conspiracy theory is valid. No need for evaluation, my whole post makes sense, and therefore requires no evaluation. It is flawless. Perfect.



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Disclaimer: Lots of assumptions, and some concepts may or may not be correct. Reproduce this essay at your own risk. The author holds no responsibility for any damage caused by the use of this essay or whatsoever.

I'd bet Ms. Heng would be pretty proud of me if she read this post!

towards the end, the grass gets less green

in my room there's a calendar i drew up to help me keep track of the number of days before the major exams hit. the A levels are too close for comfort, of course, like any responsible jc2 student recognizes. yep, they're gonna hit hard on you soon enough: its inevitable.

but what i also realise, too, only recently, is that along with the days towards the A levels goes the number of effective days i can spend with the entire ip4 cohort. is separation inevitable, too? and if so, would it hurt? how will it be like when there no longer exist common lectures and tutorials in the place we call NJC?

there is major cause for concern here, dude. after december this year, the guys are going into the army, while the girls are going to be scattered so broadly around the world the only thing that can beat them at spreading, i would suspect, would be the H5N1 virus among chickens. (not among humans, hopefully.) everyone wants to live the american dream, no, the study abroad in some place ive never been to before, meet all kinds of people dream. prove me wrong, but i somehow always get the feeling that most who take SATs will sail away to the distant lands of America in search of new adventures, like [drumroll] Indiana Jones and the University of Some American State!

which brings us to the stale old axiom of the grass being greener on the other side. do you seriously think it'd be a fantasy over at the US? or the UK? wow, im gonna enjoy a lot more freedom there! wow, im gonna meet people ive never met before, especially the white kids you see on tv! and wow wow wow kylie minogue that woman with the wow song (its retardedly awful to the ear) actually lives in the US! the creators of WOW (world of warcraft) are there too! but did you also realise that with a free society nobody's gonna hold back and not point fingers at you labelling you as a stereotypical asian who knows jackie chan, kungfu, wields nunchucks, has ninjas as bodyguards, and is also short, dim-witted, incompetent and downright stupid? i seriously think this whole going overseas to complete your education thing is overrated. perhaps im too xenophobic at that. but anyway, while i acknowledge that the best rated universities are in fact in the western countries, i still hold fast to the notion that the west isnt much better than here at home.

coming back to the original point, im sure you know how it is to feel left behind. or left alone, for that matter. its exactly what i foresee in less than a years' time. can it be helped? i guess there's no way to hold everyone back for another 4 years at njcip, because, first, everyone's so sick of the school already, and second, we've got to grow.

then what's the issue here?

yeah, what's the issue here?

if everyone's acknowledged who their best buddies are, who they're gonna keep in contact after the ip course, what's the problem with leaving the people they've probably never interacted with for 4 years?

yeah, so there's no issue at all.

no, but there is.

the most ridiculous cartoon ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWmTlxJ-5Ag

due to the censorship standards in singapore, i refuse to comment on the above video.

Why you don't start doing your tutorials or revise your integration.

let me present to you a theory explaining why you will not spontaneously do your tutorials and write your essays.

this theory is firmed rooted in thermodynamics (entropy) and chemical energetics, which are based on the irrefutable laws of physics.

2nd law of thermodynamics: "in an isolated system, a process can only occur if it increases the total entropy of the system." this means that in a spontaneous change, the degree of disorder must increase.

as time proceeds in your final year in jc, you find that things just keep stacking up. this is the natural increase in entropy. you see more disorder, or rather, an increasing number of things to attend to in your daily life.

but as more tutorials are thrown into your system, you feel a build up of pressure. this is your enthalpy.

chem students can tell instantly that a compound higher in energy is unstable and will react readily to form a more stable product.

if this is so, why dont you do your tutorials, since it'll lower your enthalpy, which is your stress level?

this is because of your activation energy of the reaction between you and your tutorial. refer to Fig 1.1.


Fig 1.1


when you handle a subject you dread, your activation energy is high, and therefore you will not spontaneously work on that tutorial, even though the enthalpy heat change (delta H) is -ve.

but when you do something that does not lower your enthalpy, such as playing everyone's favourite game DOTA, the activation energy is extremely low, and entropy also increases. hence is becomes a very spontaneous reaction.


to increase the rate of reaction by reducing activation energy, certain catalysts may be used. these are your math lecture tests, and, of course, your favourite math tutor that likes to f*ck colin up.


but beware. if everyone keeps doing his tutorials, enthalpy heat change is negative, so you'll release your energy into the universe. if this happens, eventually, the whole universe will be equivilant in terms of heat content (since there is a perpetual balancing out of heat between you and the universe) such that entropy of the whole universe is uniform. no more heat transfer will take place, and the HEAT DEATH WILL CLAIM OUR LIVES.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death


so next time your mom tells you to do your homework, tell her that you'll cause the death of the universe by doing so.

Les Argument ala Educatio

P1: you receive an average of about 1.73205 sets of notes every week.
P2: you have A levels this year.
P3: you also have some cca that probably allows you go home at about 7 (or later).
------
C> your life is quite shitted up.


additional premise:
P4: you are able to tell me that 1.73205 in P1 is root 3.
------
C2> life is quite shitted up, but youre so in tune to the rhythm of school that youre able to subconsciously make connections between what you see at a relaxed state (i.e. surfing blogs) and what you remember through religiously doing your math tutorials.

school. is the subject matter of this essay. note that in this writing i shall not be doing to school what is colloqially termed "bitching". in contrast, i shall lavishly praise school so as to raise the morale of you fellow readers.

first of all, i must say that school is a absolutely wonderful environment for all manners of activity, in which stress is an existence that never finds home.

...

(i find it really difficult to continue being hypocritical.)

(if someone has the emotional capacity to write a beautiful essay in praise of school like that, i advise you to kindly stay away from me.)

so well, let's talk about school.

miss champagne once told our gp class that she sees the j2 year as

"...like an express train. it starts off slow, because of the weight it has to carry, but when it gets started, it accelerates to frightening speeds. now, in january, the train has just begun to run. in february you'll start to experience the full magnitude of the speed."

two thoughts came to my mind upon hearing this analogy. the first, the most immediate, and strikingly instinctive thought was whether she, with credentials as an MOE approved gp teacher, described the train's motion accurately physically. i didnt know why i had to do that, but i just did. probably it was in my nature to put things into a scientific perspective. anyway, in the end, i deduced that she had not made a statement absurdly nonsensical to physics students.

the other thought, obviously, was that she was probably right about our sad lives ahead in j2. january has already been the most tiring month so far in my life as a student. if its much worse for the rest of the year, it probably spells disaster. the train might fly off its tracks and rocket into space. of course that's a metaphor.

it would be okay if students everywhere experience the same thing at some point in their lives. how can you lose out in a global phenomenon? but the fact is, apparently many students in the world are not subject to such intensity. daniel returned again to our school some days ago, and i had the chance to briefly talk to him about his australian adventures. and, as expected, he proved me right about singapore's system being tougher.

must quality education really be as demanding as what we experience now? H1, H2 and H3 are creations of the singapore education professionals. (yes, these are the very people who might live opposite your house in bukit timah driving a BMW.) why is it that people who live in similar houses in the states and who drive BMWs be so much more liberal about their education system? what accounts for this difficulty gap?

the answer probably lies in the fact that singapore is an open NIE which faces challenges on continued growth. without a strong capable mass of academically wise young adults, it is hard for singapore to overcome obstacles that loom over the future economy. more economically developed countries such as the US, have the population advantage, as well as the economy advantage. therefore they can afford to offer more relaxed educational schemes. makes sense? probably. probably not.

in any case, it amounts to one thing. go study le.

Coursework

WARNING: Brainstorming in Progress. Strong use of incoherent language.

Happened to be having lunch with Shuning last Tuesday, when the conversation ended up about friends, and her mentioning something like "our lives are governed by our timetables". Come to think of it, mine is. Close to all my weekdays' day time is restricted by that little a5 sized paper I carry around. Is yours?

The bell rings, assembly ends, you wonder what your next period is. You take out your timetable. (Actually, yes, take it out now.) Look at those little squares in them. Look at how segmented your life actually is now.

"Oh, first period is GP. I'll be seeing A, B, and C".
Then the bell rings, and
"Oh okay, chem. I'll be seeing E, F, G."
"sorry, A,B,C, we'll have to talk some time later"

Maybe it's just me, and me having an odd combi (I empathize with all you odd-combi-ers out there!). Thing is, almost every single little square in the timetable refers to a new bunch of faces. A bunch of faces which I interact with based on where the lines start and end. I might want to chat for a while more, but sorry, bell's gone, gotta go. Duno if this is true or not, but do you not-so-odd combi people have more friends that actually go to the same classes as you?

Back to the timetable.
Segments, like little cells.
Cells, or rather, pockets of time with a clearly demarcated start and end. Start time, and end time. Deadline. Dateline or Deadline? Dead-date-line.

Think of it.

How many things have deadlines these days?
Let's look at LPG's diagram.

Past:
[]-------[]-------[]

Present:
[][][][][][][][][][][]

Where [] represents a segment of time.
Are we over-living our lives?
What's happening to transition states, the in-betweens of phases? Why does my food suddenly turn bad when it hits tomorrow, and not slowly sour?

Perhaps nowadays, people are so caught up with deadlines, with end times, that the imaginary barrier between events is growing taller and taller.

And this barrier, this fence, it separates polar opposites, what comes before and after the deadline is totally different.

Hmm.

I'm losing control of my thoughts! I think i should...

=END=

If you managed to make sense of it, congrats! This is art making. Documenting random ideas and memories of ideas from this afternoon somewhere, so i can work on them later. I just happened to be on the computer when I realized I should 'pen' these ideas down somewhere.

K. Workwork.