Writing

This is the hardest thing to do! Write a novel. All the research books that would be of any use are all out of reach. Not for loan. Compared to other female writers in this age, my writing is still with my tongue (pen) in check. I hope that I will be able to complete it. A few friends want to know the ending. Laugh out loud, I'm only at the beginning of Chapter 5. By beginning I mean the heading chapter 5. Its easy to make a start. Its hard to keep going. My new year resolution is to write one to two chapters a week. My chapters are around one and one quarter of a words document page in size 10 arial.

I am getting rather dispirited too. The new year means Secondary School. Friends and teachers at the very most only know me by name, score and the crazy over soft pastel and pen direct school admission girl. No one knows me so I am spared of humiliation.

I prefer virtual life to real life. No. I prefer controlling other people's lives like some crazy puppeteer. Which explains my lunatic behaviour. Oh no, did I really type that?

Music from the Oldies

I'm going crazy with the songs from singers like Kenny Rogers and the Eagles. I am born in the 1990s! Okay, around there anyway. Young enough. I like the song How Long from the Eagles and The Gambler from Kenny Rogers. I've never heard so meaningful lyrics. Lucille and Buy Me a Rose are heartbreaking.

I feel odd. I doubt most youngsters like these songs. They prefer James Blunt and the Pussycat Dolls. Don't see how someone can like repetition in those songs like Umbrella. In all those old songs they have a story behind it. Like Lucille. The girl left a man of a mountain with four children and a crop. Clown of the County is hilarious. Seriously. I don't think any song can make you laugh out loud.

My parents are into it too. It's my dad's era. I am an old person at heart. Old at Heart.

Laugh Out Loud People, Laugh Out Loud.

I received a comment for my previous post (please view). I would personally label it as ironic, sarcastic, a total disgrace to Singaporeans and truthful to say the most of it. Infuriated though I am I find it rather truthful. Instead of likening Singapore's English standard to a sour grape in a bunch of sweet grapes, it makes it sound more like one perfect bunch of grapes in a whole vineyard where other bunches are all pecked by crows.

I am guessing that the person who wrote that comment is a European, most likely British, a teacher or Professor specialising in English or languages. Either that or he's my mom's Linguistic Council phonetics teacher. (or she)

That person is really making my day pretty gloomy. I'm already gloomy because of the dismal weather. It's raining almost constantly. I won't delete that comment because I have to remind myself that there is much for us to do. One person's contribution may have as much of an effect as a drop of water into a parched river, but it can inspire others to help and soon it will become a moving trickle, then a stream, then a rushing,gushing river once more.

Native Speakers in Singapore

Alright my views are open to the whole web provided world so I must warn you that this may get a little racist. Sorry but if you are offended easily please read my other posts.

I don't understand why people are so for native speakers. In all the tuition centres for English or writing which are well known they are all taught by natives. If, I a Chinese were to apply for a job there I would have the job of an administrator or cleaner. Just because they are from England or America or goodness knows where doesn't mean that they are necessarily better than Singaporeans.

I'm sure that there are plenty of Singaporeans who are very good in English. Just because we use our common slang doesn't make us bad. We do it for survival. Anyone read To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee? Calpurina, their cook spoke in the Black's tongue at church. She did it so that people wouldn't say that she was sucking up or something and her normal speech was as fluent as any of the Whites. She knew better but she knew what was right.

I have that problem. I attended classes in a school where there were native speakers and loved (still do) to watch Disney movies. I somehow picked up their way of talking. I think that was further enforced by a few enrichment lessons till I was Primary Four. As a Primary one student most students found my accent strange. I was even bullied for it. Even now some people think that I've stayed in a place like Australia or America for a few months or years. The most I've been is two weeks to New York.

I find people as a natural instinct have the ability to lump people into a group. Like (no offence here truly) "Don't hang out with that boy, he's a Black." "Native speakers are better, this tuition centre not good one." "Foreigner? Must check his luggage a few more times!"

I myself fall prey to such thinking. I try not to by remembering my own plight. So why are people so biased against non Native speakers teaching English. They even say that Singapore local writers aren't good enough to be recognised. Yeah only because we aren't given the opportunities that we should be given to realise that we are good enough. In this kind of environment it lowers our self esteem to the point that we feel its a no hope cause we are trying for. As lustful and as impossible as a winter zephyr in the heat of summer.

Without papers certifying that we can teach we don't have much of a chance. Today's world requires papers and several years of training as a teacher in a tuition centre or a number of years working as a teacher in a government school just because no one is willing to take you on. I thought people would be more gutsy with this new age.

L'Chaim, To Life