Debates

Finally, another debate show will be aired on Singapore TV again come 23rd November. I am not sure how many were there before this upcoming 9th International Varsity Debate but it was five years ago that I last watched one on television.

Other than detective shows and animal documentaries, another all-time favourite genre of TV programme is debates. I still recall that when I was in Sec 2, I glued myself in front of the TV trying to catch and digest every word the debaters were speaking.

Debates are a wonderful way for you to test and display your everything-that-you've-got. I consider debates as arguments but done in a posh and elegant manner.

I had took part in numerous debates when I was back in school. Of course, there is no real winner in a debate or else it will not be called a debate. It is just a judgement of whose reaction and thinking is better.

My favourite topic of all is "Is it better to be a male or female?" I always ponder over this topic since a long time ago. I would very much like to see it being debated by a group of guys and girls where the guys are on the female side on vice versa.

It would definitely be interesting.

I was absolutely right about the Technopreneurship notes. It is almost useless except that you can use it as rough paper when practising Maths. One lecture only make up of two pages.

There are some blanks in the notes which students have to fill in. The "scared" answers to those blanks will be revealed by the lecturer in class. Actually, more than half of Thursday's lesson was out-of-topic.

Again, the lecturer was talking about his daughter. This time it was her enrichment classes at some popular centre where parents need to wait for one year to enrol their kids into.

He also spoke about SP's night classess for the part-time diploma courses. I seriously can't see what does this got to do with the module. Oh yeah, maybe there was excess time so he was trying hard to stretch the lesson longer.

Let's see what extra stuff does he have next week.

S League 2010

How often do you hear me talk about our local S League, let alone discuss about it? Well, I'm going to give my two cents worth about it today and it could turn out to be worth two hundred dollars.

All the teams are left with only one more game to play. Nothing much is left to compete except the championship.

Woodlands Wellington are destined to be number one from the bottom this year. Beijing Guoan can jolly well pack their bags and return to their villages where violence is common there.

Balestier Khalsa deserves a Best Improvement Award. The doubles Gs United, Geylang and Gombak, are fighting for a respectable fifth place. Singapore Armed Forces has finally ran out of ammunition which made them the 2006-2009 winners.

However, the main characters are still Etoile FC and Tampines Rovers. Home United's chance of being crowned is only a decimal value of less than one. Tampines is behind Etoile by a point but have a better goal difference of 6.

In my opinion, I reckon that Etoile will go on to clinch the title hence, being the first foreign team to do so. Their final match is against Albirex Niigata. Shouldn't be a tough game for the French club.

Tampines host Balestier on the same day as Etoile vs Albirex. Tampines face a must-win battle and hope that Albirex can at least squeeze out a draw. But I think Etoile will give it their all since it's the final hurdle.

Singapore Pools' odds for Etoile FC as championship winner is $1.33. One week ago, it was only $1.07 but has since increased because Tampines narrowed the gap between the two contenders.

A 33% percent profit from 95% percent win bet looks decent. If you wage $250, you can easily win more than $80. Etoile definitely have the ability to win their final game.

Bet Type: 20, Competition No.: 0101, Selection No.: 05

This is the two cents worth that I am talking about.

Local names for coffee and tea

I was doing some school work about coffee and came across this. So much so for being a Singaporean when I don't even know the names of the bevarages here. I had always wondered what name was for what type of coffee/tea. Well, can't blame me, I am no coffee-drinker.

Local names for coffee and tea

At kopi tiams, coffee and tea are usually ordered using their local names.
Coffee

• Kopi, coffee
• Kopi-gau, coffee (strong brew – "gau" is "厚" in Hokkien)
• Kopi-po, coffee (weak brew – "po" is "薄" in Hokkien)
• Kopi-C, coffee with evaporated milk
• Kopi-C-kosong, coffee with evaporated milk and no sugar ('kosong" means empty in Malay)
• Kopi-O, coffee with sugar only
• Kopi-O-kosong, coffee without sugar or milk
• Kopi-O-kosong-gau, a strong brew of coffee without sugar or milk
• Kopi-bing or Kopi-ice, coffee with milk, sugar and ice
• Kopi-xiu-dai, coffee with less sugar
• Kopi-gah-dai, coffee with extra sweetened milk

Tea

• Teh, tea with milk and sugar
• Teh-C, tea with evaporated milk
• Teh-C-kosong, tea with evaporated milk and no sugar
• Teh-O, tea with sugar only
• Teh-O-kosong, plain tea without milk or sugar
• Teh tarik, the Malay tea described above
• Teh-halia, tea with ginger water
• Teh-bing, tea with ice, also known as Teh-ice
• Teh-xiu-dai, tea with less sugar
• Teh-gah-dai, tea with extra sweetened milk

CSM lecturer

My CSM lecturer is really a joker. I am not referring to being a competent joke teller but one whose actions and words make others laugh at.

Last week, we had to think of something which we want to sell (or market). Everyone else is going to think of dull and boring electronic gadgets or devices so I decided on selling property to be different.

When I told my idea to the lecturer, she asked if I have ever worked as a property agent. I cannot comprehend what made her ask that. If I was really selling houses, will I still be in the classroom?

Today, she browsed the sales letter which I drafted for the "house" that I am selling. She asked why didn't I include a sentence about a discount.

There can only be two possibilities which prompted her to ask such a dumb question. She has never lived in a house before or she is just simply d_ _ _.

Where on earth does a seller gives a discount to potential buyers? It's the one with the highest bid that wins.

My lecturer even suggested me to write nonsense like "10% discount for first 100 buyers". There will and will always be only one damn buyer for one damn house. I am not selling printers or handphones like what the rest of your students are doing.

I wonder if I were to sell matchsticks would she think that I am selling one matchstick at a time?

Third Year Assembly

Saw this in the inbox of my school email yesterday. It really amused me.

From the grammatical errors, you can tell that the email was hastily typed. The sender even spelled a word in his name with two capital letters. I don't understand Why must so kancheong.

Secondly, the third year assembly is on a Thursday at 4.30pm. My lesson ends at 6pm on that day. There are usually classes on Thursday afternoons for EEE students so it is kind of strange that they schedule it on that day.

Anyway, I can foresee what will occur during then. It has always been like this in SP.

Some boring speaker talking on stage, people using their handphones, people listening to music, people talking to one another, people falling asleep, people trying to get out of the place during the event and people not attending it.

Why are language modules taught to students only? Lecturers should be the ones who need presentation skills.

Why did you choose SP?

Lots of people, and I mean lots of them, from SP always complain about travelling to school. They stay quite a distance away from school hence, need more time to travel.

Then why did you guys choose SP in the first place? It's not like SP is the one and only poly in Singapore. If you marked SP as one of your choices during JAE (Joints Admissions Exercise), you should be prepared for this.

I have ever asked many people this question. And those were the people whom actually complained about living far away from SP some time later after they were asked that question.

The question is "Why did you choose SP?". Most of them seemed unable to answer. Others would give a look which signifies I-got-no-choice. I don't believe that they weren't given a choice.

It is human instinct that these people so unknowingly talk about the disadvantages of not living nearby school.

Today, you can ask XXX why he doesn't choose TP when he stays at XXX area in the East. A few days later, he is late for class and when he arrives he'll complain about having to wake up early and other nonsense.

These nonsense include waking-up time, travelling time, transport fare, need to change trains at MRT interchanges and the most absurd of all, staying up late last night.

If you people picked a school nearer to your home, you would have less troubles and nonsense.

22 Oct

I expected the Technopreneurship lesson to be interesting but I guess the saying that goes "the higher the hopes, the greater the disappointment" is right.

The lecturer kept talking about himself and other auxiliary stuff. Like his daughter's swimming lessons, his Chinese New Year visitings, his working life in SP and many more which I can't remember.

The only thing that I recalled was I was reading the newspaper and Temasek Holdings bought a stake in a Brazilian oil and gas company that starts with the letter O.

The most ridiculous part is that we have to pay $1.30 for this module's notes. It's not even a book man! It's just some A4-sized papers stapled together. The content inside is hardly informative at all.

I seriously suspect if the price is $1.30 or $0.13. I could have bought a ballpoint pen with the amount I forked out.

I also had to buy a book (it's really a book) for another module called NETP. It costs $2.10 and although it has been 4 days since I paid, I still find the extra 10 cents quite annoying.

I wonder if the lecturer pockets all the 10 cents from students or the printing costs so exactly at that price. I hope it is the latter.

People will tell me that it is because of calculations from the printing. I believe that the price won't be exactly $2.10.

So if the school can round the price up to the nearest 10 cents, why can't it round up to the nearest dollar?

No Lunch

Singapore Exchange (SGX) is proposing for an all-day continuous trading system by cancelling the 90-minute lunch break. Currently, the Singapore market operates from 9am to 12.30am and then 2pm to 5pm.

This was first brought up a few months ago by SGX and I think it looks set to become a reality. This would enable investors to trade international securities which are listed in SGX. Also, they can keep up to date on latest happenings in the financial world.

Many markets around the world like NASDAQ, Germany and London all practise continuous trading. Singapore together with Malaysia and a few others are the few Asia-Pacific countries that still have lunch breaks.

But this might not be good news to brokers. They may have to sarcrifice their lunchtime to work since every second counts in the market.

Anyway, I don't think this change (if it happens) will make much of an impact on Singapore's stock market.

20 Oct

Teacher said that I was the best writer in class during yesterday's lesson. She was referring to the essay which she made us do on Monday. It was the first time in 3 years that I wrote so many words on a piece of foolscap paper.

We had to talk about our polytechnic life and our goals. I protested at first as I find that those were boring topics. I gave in in the end and tried to write something out-of-the-box, content which most people won't think/write about.

Then, the last question was "What does Singapore has to offer to youths?" This one is really difficult to answer but I think it was this part which made my essay looked nice.

You can ask me in private what I wrote. I'm not going to disclose it here.

Actually, it is not that I am a better writer than the rest. It is just that I bother to use my brain and I use it with creativity.

Rooney's future

Recently, there has been a lot of speculation on Wayne Rooney's future. Some say that his relationship with manager Alex Ferguson has deteriorated to a negative point. There is no turning back.

If Rooney were to leave Manchester United in the January transfer window, who would his new employers be? Here are some guesses.

Chelsea

The Blues have indicated that they would be keen to take advantage of the situation should the England striker really leave United. Chelsea have the money for the transfer fee and are the only other "big club" in England at the moment.

Rooney would also be the long-term successor of the ageing Didier Drogba. Both would form a formidable attacking force in the Premier League should the Blues sign the former.

Stamford Bridge still looks quite unlikely as the final destination for Rooney though.

Manchester City

A move to the blue half of Manchester? I would say the probability is only one percent. There is already Carlos Tevez, cramming another Rooney into the squad does not sound practical.

Moreover, the guy is going to get lots of abuses from the fans when both Manchester teams play each other.

Barcelona

Barca would be delighted to have a player like Rooney to be part of their team. However, there is already David Villa, the striker they splashed 40 million euros on this summer.

Buying Rooney would not only burden them financially but tactically as well. If Villa were to partner Rooney in a 4-4-2 formation, then where will Messi be?

Real Madrid

The most possible outcome to this story. Rooney reuniting with C.Ronaldo at the Bernabeu can definitely be a reality.

A move to overseas might also be advantageous to Rooney considering the many negative non-football news about him

Karim Benzema, the French striker at Madrid, might be used as in a part exchange deal.
Ferguson is a long-term admirer of the Frenchman and signing the latter would be a dream come true for him.

Many ex-Red Devils who have fallen out with Fergie have moved on to Real Madrid. From David Beckham to Gabriel Heinze to Ruud van Nistelrooy, they have all continued their playing careers at the Spanish club.

Rooney looks set to be the next one.