insights and reflections 1

Sunday, 23 October 2005 T: 21 43

It’s been a while since I wrote. I thought I have a few reflections that I hope to share. Hopefully, it may be meaningful.



1. C-Cab Camp

I do remember walking into the LT along with my boss (the president) with apprehension. To me, the concept of having a camp which involves physical training and corporal punisihment does not at all make sense. After all, what’s has fitness got to do with decision-making in Media Resource, except perhaps the hurling of heavy speakers and amplifiers? Perhaps in my dread of undergoing torture somewhat voluntarily, I am blinded to the advantages and goodness of what that can be left in store for me. Now that I’m sitting here, I think it’s positive that the camp has grant me at the very least insights and wisdom which I can reflect about, and hopefully share it to others.

If you were to ask people the purpose of leadership, what would be the common answers? Is it for fame, for glory, for honor, for power, for leaving that so-called legacy that grants one pride? And to that, I can’t help but wonder, how useful can that be when one is finally on his death made? Apparently, coming from a world of 100% mortality, it’s amazing to see how death can make redundant many things we men have considered to be pleasures and delights of life, no matter how temporal they actually are. Likewise, how many people will remember what I have actually done? I give it two to three generations of juniors and I’m as good as being wiped out from the college.

What then do we work for? Having a past of doing ‘backstage work’, things like video, lighting, sound and lcd, which are often overlooked, where the easiest way for its presence to be felt of is probably the lack of it, I find it consoling at the very least to know that at least I do not work for fame, for praise, that otherwise often clogs up the minds of others. Instead, the objective for my work should be simply to serve.

As I’ve constantly proclaimed and declared the gospel, the call to worship is not just the call to sing during our weekly chapels and services. Rather it should be the call the love both the lovable and the unlovable, friends and enemies. I would boldly say that the presented AC spirit should not be some unique atmosphere that appears to separate us from the ‘spirits’ of other schools and institutes, rather the spirit that we are commanded to possess is simply love and encouragement for our fellow neighbors. During the camp, the games, we should prioritise safety, not because to secure some brownie points in our anxiety to win. We cheer and shout, not to gain the favor and recognition of teachers and other leaders, but to exhort and push one another, to encourage one another as we take that leap of faith. Lastly, we suffer together somehow to be bonded (though I do am puzzled how on earth does punishing others because of a mistake of another reflect truly the college values preached to the students), and perhaps it’s through that suffering, through being a follower, can we learn to be exemplary leaders.



2. The Vicious Cycle in our Screwed Education System

In order to facilitate the different learning paces of students, MOE has devised streamings, segregation of the gifted from the cohort, provided different institutes for different educations. Such, as much as it seems to help students, is still often flamed, for causing unnecessary stereotypes, brilliantly captured in the movie ‘I not Stupid’ directed by Jack Neo.

While today’s society almost condemn the ITEs as ‘it’s the end’, thinking less highly of vocational training graduates, I often wonder if they exist simply just because of stereotyping and stigmatising. For in my opinion, for such to exist, there too must be some basis and reasoning for that to happen. My point is this, ‘realistically speaking, how many ‘N’ level students actually make it to University?’. Are they there because they are of low intellectual abilities? I would dare say that there are some who are probably smarter but less diligent that the other in Express stream. The reason why they seem stuck in that cycle is simply because of the culture and peer influence students have to experience.

If you ask me, I shall suggest that for the same person, it’s much more difficult getting perfect grades in neighbor school than in a independent school well recognised for their results. This is simply because it take guts, perseverence and much motivation to not remain with the other 60% slackers, and move along with the drift; for a person who got into ‘N’ level maybe due to carelessness, a moment’s folly, or lower IQ, he has to work more than doubly hard to secure a place in college, simply because he has to overcome the peer pressure exerted probably in all directions on him. Sometimes indeed, it very much pains me to see youngsters, smoking, ingesting drugs, all because they mix with the bad company.

In a way, for students being in an environment probably made up of everyone who feels education and academics are not important, or who figure out that they CMI anyway and might as well drag some down with them, aren’t they caught in that vicious cycle implicitly caused by the government’s hopeful idea of education systems. Of course, there are some rare ones who benefit, who got into tertiary education in the end, but even so, you realise they belong often to the best classes of schools etc., where morale for studying is at its peak.

Subconsciously, we fail to see the power of peer influence. In actual fact, they are very significant, and I mean very, in shaping the decisions, the ideas, the thoughts, the maturity, and more often than we would like to admit, the future of individuals.

3. Love

Several entries ago, I have suggested that English, despite being a universal and highly commendable and recognised language, is still handicapped by its limited vocabulary. I find it quite silly to have words of the same meaning, and compromise on the other hand on specific meanings of word. By this, I’m refering to the word ‘love’, which exist in 4 different and distinct forms in Greek.

In my folly, I have presented the biblical love to be ‘agape’. I am mistaken. The fact is that the very first Hebrew, Greek Bibles included all different types of love, just that in their translation to English, they are all changed into one same word. This is why I often question the credibility and reliability of translations.

Anyway, as DA Carson interestingly pointed out, it is not easy to define and separate love so specifically, but rather by reading it according to its context, the meaning can be derived. In the Bible, he wrote that the love of Jesus is sometimes described as phileos and evil things as agape ‘e.g. the love of evil’. Indeed how ironic it is to love evil selflessly!

Nevertheless, our call to worship remains the same even though our word use can differ, that is to be other-centered, to love God, love neighbor.