Author Archives: tanej19004@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg

A monkey, a pot, and the meaning of life

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In a way, I feel like the stories that we looked at today––The man in Bogota, and of course, God sees the truth but waits, grapple with similar themes. It’s probably best summarised by this line:

He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn’t good

They are stories about grappling with adversity––and what it means to have a “good ending.” In the case of the man in Bogota, it comments on how suicide is unjustified because it is impossible to know whether one’s circumstances will lead to happiness in the future. Similarly, “God sees the truth” shows how one has to accept their position in life, even if it may be unjust. Because ultimately, what life throws our way must lead to the most fulfilling peace.

It’s hard to imagine that being true given the cruel circumstances of Aksionov. Estranged from society and his own family over false claims of murder, and left to toil in a Siberian prison for 26 years without any recourse, it seems that God really has abandoned him––that God doesn’t love Aksionov like he does everyone else. God knows the truth, but he doesn’t do anything about it.

Yet it’s questionable whether god’s actions could have led to a better ending than the one Aksionov  received. Had the incident never happened, he may have continued being naïve––only concerned with the market and how much he could earn from selling his goods. Had he returned home successfully, we would be greeted with a loveless society–one that he has been a stranger to for 26 years. In the prison, he was venerated, commanding respect from the other inmates. And ultimately, he was able to make (a kind of) peace with the true perpetrator, and be cleared of his guilt. Is there a better freedom in this world? One must imagine Aksionov happy as he died.

FLCP Japanese: The familiar and the novel

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Even though it was grade 12, I decided that I wanted to continue stretching myself to continue extending my passions. This time, it was by signing up for the FLCP (Foreign language program) for Japanese in school.

For some context, I have been teaching myself Japanese for two years using online resources. As a result, I have memorised quite a lot of vocabulary, however my grammar has been quite weak as I haven’t had the opportunity to ask anyone proficient in Japanese questions about sentence structure. Ultimately, that’s why I took the class. I wanted the opportunity to ask questions about grammar and continue forging forward with improving my Japanese.

I feel like this has been largely successful for me since my Japanese has improved a lot since I started doing the activity. The contents of the class itself are quite simple, however, I have appreciated the ability to ask our teacher specific questions about the language. Combined with my own practice, this has allowed me to improve my Japanese a lot since I started!

LO7: How have I changed my community?

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Below is an excerpt from an essay that I actually submitted as a university application essay! I think it’s especially to learning outcome seven as it shows how I have had a positive effect on my community (outside of just community service).

While I’m sure it would be immensely fun to lead some sort of large organisation or social group, I doubt it would have felt the same as my small programming club. It felt much more intimate, like I was forming a personal relationship with each of the members through programming. It was surreal seeing them grapple with the same concepts and the same revelations that I had not too long ago.

I often wonder why I decided to lead the club. Evidently, it was the process of vicariously living out my love for computers through others, that fuelled my desire to continue learning. At least, that’s what I found out two years ago.

It was a class of approximately 20 students, almost all of whom had no prior experience with programming. Until then, I had never truly appreciated the difficulty of having to teach the concept of a variable to students that were expectantly waiting to develop applications of their own. Nevertheless, I came back every week, prepared with new lessons and new ideas.

I would like to think that I had high expectations, but my students managed to impress me every time.

Once, I set a task for them to write a text-based ATM–a program that could keep track of account balance and perform withdrawals and deposits. A student approached me the next week, wanting to show me his program. I realized that he spent his own free time mimicking a real graphical interface, with screens and buttons within the text. It was an idea that I hadn’t even conceived of; to say that I was amazed would be putting it lightly.

Leading the club taught me the power of pedagogy. Teaching is not just the process of transferring information–more often, it’s about igniting a hidden creative spark within a student. That’s what happened with me, and that’s what I had hoped to deliver in my club. In teaching, I realized why I fell in love with computers in the first place, and as a bonus,  I got to contribute one more fervently impassioned programmer to the world.

The image here is completely irrelevant to the reflection, but it’s hilarious.

LO5: Collaboration in the absence of presence

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Lockdown in Singapore due to COVID-19 was challenging to collaboration––not only in school, but also in my various commitments outside of it. Last summer, I was undergoing an internship where we all had to work remotely, and it was incredibly strange going through the experience without any direct contact with the people that I was working with. However, over time we found ways of connecting and grounding ourselves in the project even when we were apart from each other.

Every morning, we had our team check-in, a small meeting where we would discuss our weekend, how our day was going, as well as progress on the project that we were working on. I found that in these meetings, we were able to connect with each other. Ultimately I made good friends with some of the people in the company, and I still talk to them about technology and other projects today.

I think that the crucial feature of these meetings was their regularity. Due to the fact that the meetings themselves were very relaxed, focusing on our project but also other features of our days, as well as the regularity of the meetings, created a very comfortable space amongst us that helped to foster collaboration. I realized that a very similar philosophy applied to mentor time in our school, a small period of time before school starts to get ready and talk to other people that may not be in the same classes as us.

Even though we’re not in lockdown anymore, I still think that this style of interaction is quite important, and is something that I want to take with me to university and beyond!

P.S. I don’t have many photos of myself during my internship (it was mostly at home). But here’s a video of how one of the components works!

LO4: Balancing the load

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CAS is particularly difficult during this time of year, as a lot of us (myself included) have to juggle academics, activities, and university applications. It’s often difficult to stay organized––but there are a few methods that I have developed that have helped me to stay on top of things.

I think the first point to address are the different planner apps that my friends recommend me. I’m not sure why, but I feel like using these apps doesn’t really work well for me, as I spend too much time organizing my planner rather than doing actual work. I tend instead to use a simple notes document to lay out my tasks for the day.

There are also a few things I do to blow of some steam after working. I enjoy playing instruments, and also play video games in my free time, to socialize, and relax as well.

Overall, it’s been a challenging year, but I feel like I have been able to achieve good balance.

Conrad and Fatalism: Heart of Darkness

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This piece is taken from a larger, timed response I wrote for a paper 2-style question. You can read the full response here

The final pages of “Heart of Darkness” reflect the culmination of the book’s thematic moral ambiguity––the conflation of virtue and depravity. It reveals the insidious, fateful human tendencies that are hidden by society, and it is a recollection of Marlow’s romantic idealism being at odds with the truths of colonial reality.

…

We continue to see this protection in the double meaning of the dialogue. “his end was in every way worthy of his life.” Marlow console Kurtz’s fiancé that his death was noble–commensurate with her perceived nobility of his values. However, as readers, we know that Kurtz, died alone, and in the dark. He dies decrepit, a shadow of his previous self–ironically reflective of his own ruthlessness towards the natives, and his obsession with power.

For Marlow, this scene is particularly painful as he realizes his own conflation of virtue with depravity. We know that Kurtz’s soul was destroyed, but his mind was still intact. His desolation, his realization of “the horror” of the human condition, and his devotion to it is not at odds with his artistic and literary genius. It is more likely the next step in his journey to apprehend meaning. What he could not learn from literature and art, he learned in the jungle. That progression is the culmination of the book’s “greyness”. The Fiancé’s “inconceivable triumph” and “unspeakable pain” coexist just as Kurtz’s eloquence and violence. Conrad makes it clear that there is no such moral boundary between the virtuous and the despicable.

…

Project Week: Final Reflection

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Project week was an interesting experience, regardless of the fact that we weren’t able to actually go. It presented a valuable opportunity to plan an independent trip, and organise activities with individuals and organisations that are not necessarily affiliated with the school.

Our planning document was quite comprehensive––we were convinced that it had the requisite detail for the plan to be approved.

I was personally in charge of the safety aspect of the trip, as well as organising cooking supplies if they were necessary (in case we opted to go camping). Here is a copy of my role in the club.

I was also responsible for liaising with key figures within the school in order to clarify different aspects of the projects, and approve it.

Here are some of the links to our internal documents:

 

The Fool––the real villain in “Heart of Darkness”

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Did I see it? I saw it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven! Rivets. To get on with the work––to stop the hole. Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast––cases––piled up––burst––split!

Marlow’s lamentation of the absence of rivets is surely more than just an expression of irritation. It is more likely a symptom of the general disease that afflicts many, if not all, the western colonisers in the Congo. It is the sense of collective apathy––a disposition to ignore the truth of the human condition, the darkness within the civilised man. The ship is symbolic of exploration, a more earnest venture in seeking to learn truths about lands yet unexplored. However it seems like the members of the outpost are more than content to laze around, speculate, and gossip about trivial matters (such as their careers). As Marlow puts it, they are “fools”.

That apathy, the unwillingness to apprehend truths about humanity and nature, is that aforementioned “…flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly”. In many cases, we can actually see some colonisers as being weak and flabby––as is the case with Marlow’s companion on his trek to the first camp, who had an “exasperating habit of fainting on hot hillsides”. He states that his sole desire to come to Africa is “to make money, of course”––a sentiment that squarely opposes Marlow’s primary motivation to explore. We see that the true evil of the book is in these bystanders––weak men preoccupying themselves with profit and prestige, turning a blind eye to the horrors of colonial reality.

That sounded more than a little pretentious. I don’t know why I wrote like that. Oh, well…

What hell looks like in Heart of Darkness

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Excuse the poor drawing…it appears I may be lacking in artistic bent. I don’t think my depiction of page 22’s intricate landscape does justice to Conrad’s phenomenal word-painting, but unfortunately it is the best that I can do.

However, Conrad’s usage of various sensory effects does more than elucidate a pretty, or grotesque, picture of his experience. It is symbolic of how he perceives the “scramble for Africa”, and the conflation of religious duty with domination.

 

–continue.

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