error

the lines below are from a cloze passage that i had to teach to a primary six class. see if you can find the error:


"if you dont give us your tree house, we're coming up to get it!" bill was the neighbourhood bully. all the children in the neighbourhood were afraid of him. anything bill wanted, bill got and this time he wanted our tree house. bill never had the pleasure of having a family that i had. his father was in prison for committing armed robbery and his mother was busty with two jobs, trying her best to make ends meet. it was probably tough not having parents around most of the time but it was just as tough being in the same neighbourhood with bill. even though i knew that putting up a resistance was futile when it came to bill, i still was not going to give up the tree house that easily. "let's see you get up then!" i shouted back as i retracted the ladder.


if you found the error, you will appreciate how amazingly hilarious and shocking it was when a student in class actually read the word out. at first i was stunned. then, after realising the typo made, i burst out laughing to the utmost confusion of the kids.

after telling them to correct the 'spelling' error, i was placed in a position where i was not prepared to be in. one of them actually asked me what the word meant. i was tripping over my own words trying my best to explain until i finally gave up, saying that there was not enough time and to consult a dictionary instead.

how to you explain the concept of generously sized boobs to pre adolescent primary school kids? it's just too confounding and difficult, trying your best to maintain innocence (though we all know that we give them to much credit in that area) while not trying to feed them with lies. when i teach sexual reproduction, i have no problem saying words like breasts and penis and testicles and vagina because it is in the pursuit of science (in fact i enjoy seeing them squirm in discomfort), but i was totally not prepared to explain these terms in a social context. it's just totally different.

oh and by the way, for you numb nuts who couldnt get it, the mistake was in using the word 'busty'. it should have been 'busy' instead.

just follow law

are singaporeans just too safe? are we too afraid of breaking the law?

as i was leaving boat quay's mindcafe last saturday with the gang, trying our best to get a cab, the lot of us actually saw people (caucasians) jumping into singapore river for the heck of it. they actually stripped down to their skivves and jumped off one of those 'old' bridges along singapore river right into the water for seemingly no apparent reason other that to have fun.

my reaction to the whole scene was... well thats the thing: i was kinda conflicted, hovering between a "wow that looks like so much fun! way 'ta go!" and a "oh my, isnt that like against the law or something. they shouldnt be doing that". the whites there however had more liberal reactions to the whole incident.

and that got me to thinking about how singaporeans may have become a bunch of people that are too afraid to even put a toe out of line.

the harsh punishments that singapore is (in)famous for definitely act as deterrents for many. on one end you have the extreme (capital punishment) that is dealt out to drug traffickers, murderers... and on the other end, you have fines; something that has been termed 'hitting it where it really hurts'.

all this is fine and dandy when were considering our (very) low crime rate but i just cant help feeling that we are in some ways getting brainwashed, albeit slowly, into being this hardworking, industrious, no-nonsense, obedient lot of worker ants, where any form of disobedience, no matter how ridiculous or inconsequential it may seem, 'will be dealt with severely'.

as a result, we do become that hardworking, industrious, no-nonsense lot of worker ants, but at what cost?

we become this group of people afraid to have fun. a group of people that may be seen as squares and fuddy-duddies. in the long run, we also lose our ability to question authority. let's face it, without questioning procedures we cannot make any progress. if no one made any noise about silly concepts or roundabout steps, then there will never be any change.

i am not stating that we devolve into a state of belligerence and neglect our duties as singaporeans. we should not be afraid to make certain mistakes and sometimes we have to take a gamble and see how it turns out. we need to live a little.

is being a good and lawful citizen enough of a counterbalance to nullify the loss?

muse

i just viewed another free hugs video done in california. apparently this is really a big thing all over the world. it was started by a guy in australia in september 2006 and this internet meme has gained popularity ever since, with people just randomly starting this all over the world, including singapore (if you remembered the video i put up some time ago).

i honestly have to say i'm inspired. people coming together for the sole purpose of making others feel good is wonderful and just plain sweet. so this is what i'm proposing:

i wanna set up another 'free hug drive' in town just like the one in the video. not only will this be a really interesting once in a lifetime experience, but this will really be something good that some us can do, especially in this fast-paced tiny dot. anyone interested please drop me a message here and we can talk things over. we also need a camcorder to kinda record everything down so it would be helpful if you have one or could get your hands on one. i do hope you readers (if there are any other than the people i already know) will support this!