Never ask "Do you have any questions?".
I conducted tutotrial class today for one of my class groups. As usual, after completing class discussion on one of the topics, I would pause a while and allow students a chance to get a question in. During the pause, one of the students, "J", raised his hand and asked the most ridiculous question. It baffled everyone in the room and obviously he was dreaming for the last 10 minutes.
Everyone burst out laughing, and I guess it provided some comic relieve and broke the monotonous drone of the hot afternoon sun and the need for siesta. As for me, my reaction is similar to the comic strip.... flabbergasted!
Moral of the story? Dont be afriad to ask a question even if it means you are going to be laughed at. The greater fool is the one who does not ask.
(This comic strip appeared on the Sunday 28th Jan edition of Blondie). This weekend brought some welcomes news from around the world. I had followed Celebrity Big Brother and the on-going "racial" slurs from contestant Jade on Bollywood actress Shilpa. Then the news fizzled out and I lost interest, but over the weekend, Bollywood actress Shilpa won!
In this day and age, when the world is a smaller place, there really is no place for racism or racial insults on a fellow human being. All humans have a right to exist on any part of this planet and in any country if governments are to be believed about world citizenship.
Anyhow, Australia celebrated Australia Day over the weekend and the world watched Roger Federer make history. Cheers! Aussies! Here's to you mates!
This image says it all. I feel awful at the moment. I am allowed to feel depressed right?
I had quite a few enquiries as to why this hasn't been updated since my last post on 12th Jan. Well, the lame excuse was that I was busy, but the truth was I had nothing to post..... up to now.
This evening, I went out to buy a new HP Colour Laser Printer to replace the Epson Stylus that my son so unceremoniously killed off. He stuffed so much crap inside the paper feeder that the spool and everything else got jammed up and the printer stopped working (it decided it had enough). When I stripped the printer, I found so much Play-Doh in it that it was totally impossible to clean it up.
My wife had actually tried to get me to "repair" the Epson Stylus printer with the usually encouraging words "you are the engineer". I guess that to a woman, if it moves and runs on some sort of power (gas, electricity) then any engineer can fix it. I had tried to explain to this woman before that engineers come in various models but I have given up as the message didn't seem to get through.
Well, back to the Epson Stylus, try as I might, working on minuscule micro-electronics is totally different from high voltage circuit breakers, power transformers and cables. I couln't get it going and after a while, I adopted the all important Dilbert Principle, "It is technically impossible to fix this thing as it has some sort of rocket science space age technology that knows if the electronics has been screwed around with". That settled the Epson and I got a mandate to go out and spend some money.
So, I came home with the 25kg monster of a printer in an even bigger box, unpacked it and set it up. With these modern plug and play, I thought it was going to be easy going, but no, I had to buy the network version printer and I spent quite a bit of time to configure all 3 computers at home. After completing configuring the PCs, the internet didn't work. My ego got the better of me, how could an engineer not fix this? I simply refused to call it a night until I fixed the internet connection.
So here I am. It is now done, my new colour laser is printing beautiful pictures and I have a new topic posted. Happy reading you all. :-)
The Black Mamba . . .
Ah yes... A snake found in Africa, a member of the cobra family, packs a venom so lethal that it is known to knock out the King of the Savannas (The formidable Lion). The black mamba strikes so fast, so quickly that fatality is almost 100% and is so revered, so respected, so.... (hey, running out of superlatives here)
Over the last 2 days, I just couldn't get any real work done as I spent all my time and energy fending off stupidity (yes, class A morons).
There is this group of students being supervised by one of the staff under my charge who have lodged a complaint to the boss as well as to THE BOSS. These guys were so snakey (sorry, meant sneeky) that they didn't tell the boss that they also spoke to THE BOSS, thus making mistake #1.
The students had completed their Final Year Projects and had been assessed. When the marks were completed and ranked, they were within the bottom 30%. Of course, they do not know this yet (the results are still being finalised), but when they found out that the project was not selected for the upcoming industry exhibition, they turned around and wrote a poison pen letter that seemed to suggest unfair treatment (mistake #2). And so the events that followed caused so much commotion, unsettled so many people along the way, and in the end, these very people who lodged the complaint is now under the magnifying glass.
Com'on. The projects were reviewed by at least 5 other people of senior rank and we all agreed that there is just no WOW factor. Moreover, the project hardware was not working properly, the design was flawed and there was practically no high order thought going into it. Now, THE BOSS has requested an independant review of all the records and it may appear that their exceedingly high marks will be revised (albeit downwards, I guess).
The supervising staff was soooo disappointed and confided in me that she had never felt soooo betrayed in her life before, and betrayed by the very students she helped overcome their project difficulties and worse still, from her same minority race. The staff will also get into trouble as she had rated the students well despite the fact that the projects not well done.
Moral of the story? Don't bite the hand that feeds you. What the students started out was innocent enough (in their minds) and ended up going one full circle back to bite them. As we dug through more and more records and discussions with other Heads of Dept, it has become evident that they did not deserve such high marks. About the mistake #1? Now they have pissed off the boss too. Sigh, sigh. What can we do? God gave us all freedom of choice, and they made their choices, now, they have to bear the consequences of opening up the cupboard and exposing all the dirty linen.
Now that the festive season and the crazy rounds of giving senseless presents are over, it is time to pick up the pieces. Yes. Pieces I say, because the credit card bill that comes at the end of the month will have broken the little piggy bank....
On top of that, we'll all be spending time and money at the local gym slogging it out and shedding the excess fats. As for me, well, I am working our more extensively to regain the 8 solid bars on my stomache which has joined into one piece lately (too much good food and booze).
It is the New Year yet again, a year older and a year wiser (let's hope so). Some of us would have carried over into the new year some old baggages from the last year whilst many of us would like to start the new year with a clean slate. Whether we have made new resolutions, or re-hashed old ones, resolutions help us to plan and keep ourselves focused to look forward in life. Some of my students would be graduating already and I can see the anxiety for many of them as they start a new year with a BIG STEP into the unknown.
Let's put it this way, in 1969, before man (humankind) stepped on the moon, we could only see it in the distance and dream about it. Neil Armstrong said those "wise" words, a "...A Small Step for Man, but a Giant Leap for Mankind". If you are moving from school life into adulthood and the "real" world of work, with the politics, back-stabbing, etc., this would indeed by a Giant Leap for you.
As for resolutions, I hope my students are wise enough (after all the pep talks from me) to plan for themselves, their own family units, and look into the brave new world and the future!
Never ask "Do you have any questions?".
