Another rejection for Lambs for Dinner. I think I've given up hope for this one.
Your idea is wonderfully original, but I just didn’t find myself interested in the characters. Another agent might feel differently.
I wish you the best.
Louise Fury
Literary Agent
L. Perkins Agency
5800 Arlington Avenue
Riverdale, NY 10471
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
A recent post by Danielle Han on a very pertinent issue:
“A friend was applying for an American university and asked me to help him with his personal statement. The following ensued:
“The question says to write on an issue of local, personal, national, or international concern and its importance to me. Any ideas?”
He produced a notebook and on each page was a mind-map on trending topics. International terrorism, the rise of China, climate change were in the mix. It looked like a standard list of pretty much what is happening in the world. All that we had learnt in school.
“I can probably relate the rise of China to Singapore since Singapore has to cope with a more assertive China in the region. And probably talk about terrorism since Singapore being an international hub is vulnerable…”
I felt vaguely uncomfortable listening to him. Something was amiss.
“But how are these issues important to you? I mean, yea, these issues are important. But why and how are they important to you on a personal basis? How is it important to you as a human being, as a person? ”
At these words, we both stopped stunned, as both of us slowly understood what I spurted out. After that meditative silence, my friend spoke.
“I have a feeling that education has taught me all about this world, but nothing about myself.”
And I felt immense, immense sadness.
For my friend was no simpleton. He was, objectively speaking, one of the most accomplished of my age in Singapore, perhaps easily in the top 1 percent in my batch. His paper record is impeccable – Straight As with a Higher 3 paper distinction, leadership in the student council, team captain and national champion in his sport, and an assortment of various awards and book prizes. Now a scholarship holder and an officer-to-be in the army… He was by no means one of those whose success is limited to the academic; his paper credentials suggest a more than holistic education.
But now, he has just confessed that education has not… even made him a person. He was akin to some inchoate concept of a man, some aggrandization of trophies, some hollowed husk of purposelessness.
I slumped in my chair, for I had never heard such a damning statement on our education system.”
— from Norvin Chan’s The Secret Political Blog
Kellynn's reply:
What do you guys think?
I see this happening a lot. For loads of people my age, in university, studying, say, sociology, it is a thing separate from themselves as people (which is of course highly ironic). It’s a subject to be mastered, facts to be memorised, things to be learned on an abstract and disembodied level. There is certainly some passing interest, some genuine enjoyment, but there is this strange sense of disconnect, as if studying the sociology of food is about being able to repeat facts about body image and our social delinking from the origin of food without really thinking about how we ourselves are implicated in this whole process. There is a lack of — reflection, perhaps (and now I risk coming across as a little snooty), or a certain kind of lack of self-awareness? I had a friend who, while studying for GP, memorised reams and reams of statistics to be crammed edgewise into an essay during the “A” Levels, which to me was a little baffling. I’m not saying that the act of memorising facts is a bad thing, but shouldn’t writing a GP paper be based somewhat on interest, on a personal connection with the otherwise abstract worldly issues we are writing about?
I am interested in how our education system conditions us into thinking that this is the only way to study, that this is ‘education’, a task to be accomplished like learning to fix a car or how to swim. Evidently this is not true for everybody and everyone reacts to education, is shaped by, or shapes their view of education, differently. I have many friends who feel strongly about what they study and who do not separate school from self like most Singaporean students do. And yet I also have an acquaintance who chose to major in literature simply because she scored the highest grade for its exposure module in comparison to political science and sociology. (This of course pissed me off on a very personal level, because I remain torn about my decision not to pursue lit [although day by day I am certain that I’ve done the right thing] as my first major and am weirdly envious of those who have chosen to study it, but it also just utterly confused me, because literature is something you pursue because you are passionate about it, because it is something wildly personal, and not because you can get the best on-paper grades for it.)
So why do we separate ourselves so completely from our education? Why is the failure to do so chastised as being “impractical” and “having your head in the clouds”? Is this a Singaporean thing? Is this true for other people in other countries? Is this emblematic of a lack of self-reflection (to put it kind of wankily) or of social censure of self-reflection (which is really creepy when you think about it)? What is it that makes us leery of information, education, and current issues in relation to ourselves — that makes us dismiss all these things in the (this familiar, familiar Singaporean watchword) name of “practicality”? Why am I told again and again — by the people around me, by the culture I am raised in, and by my government — that my lofty ideals (which I know are very naive and which I have only a very tenuous grasp on) are not “practical”, that they are not part of “real life”???? How is what we study not part of real life? Are we for example not faced with damaging media images of women or part of food webs or do not grapple with colonial images of “little brown brothers”? Are we not part of a political system and do we not wonder philosophically how we know the things we know or do we not read books or question what it means to be Singaporean in this day and age? Why are these things so often confined to the classroom?
I know that most of you have decided to study things that are off the beaten track in Singapore. Many of you are lit majors or political science majors or something along those lines, and I know that all of you have chosen these areas of study out of interest, out of an intimate belief that what you are educated by is inextricably interweaved with the persons that you are, and that if you were faced with the question that was posed above, you would be able to answer without isolating your self from it. Why are you this way? And because you all exist, is it really, incontrovertibly true that our education system has failed? And again, because you all exist, are you (in varying degrees) exceptions to the rule? And, again, why are you this way? Aaaand I am feeling uncomfortably judgmental here of people who do separate themselves from their education and feeling my class privilege that allows me to ask these questions and to receive this education, but I admit that I am young and stupid and overthinky and I’m going to say these things anyway.
For me, NUS — university education — is one of my favourite things. I love it. I can bleat on and on about how much I have learned and how much I have consequently grown as an individual because of it. I love everything I read, everything I hear and watch and study; I love going to lectures, I love writing papers, I love reading these novels that I would never otherwise pick up, and listening to ideas that will forever shape my perspective of the world. In one year I have learned about political imagery in architecture and the politics of climate change and methods of social research and Christian revivalism in Singapore and post-colonialism in Merle Hodge’s “Crick Crack, Monkey” and the history of food gathering and production in human society. I have debated on sustainability and the failure of massive nature conservancies and heatedly argued about the racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” despite the distancing frame narrative and jumped up and down in my seat in unbridled rage arguing about the implicit sexism of the language used in men’s magazines. I marvel all the time at all these super amazing things that I’ve been part of and feel happy and grateful that I’ve been able to learn so much from my teachers and my books and my peers. But that’s just me, and I think that my reaction is a product of a thousand things - a loving and encouraging family, open-minded and interested friends, my early use of the Internet (which I feel is pivotal), my enjoyment of books - my class, my race, my ethnicity, my specific educational background (where I skimmed just under the ‘elite’ schools while studying at Anderson Sec and St. Andrew’s, but still remain very much highly educated), my socioeconomic position which insulates me from many things - my general (personality?) enjoyment of academia, my linguistic privilege, and so on.
And so I wonder specifically why so many people complain about how boring and crappy and etc our university education system is when I find it stimulating and challenging and helpful. What specifically allowed me to fall off the radar to a certain extent (although I still remain firmly and safely on the beaten, well-trodden path to class and economic stability because of my [incidental to my enjoyment of school] good academic grades)? Obviously a lot of it’s got to do with the state, doesn’t it? Policies that inculcate this attitude towards education, playing on notions of upward social mobility and class anxiety? How class starts to perpetuate itself at the age of ten, when students are streamed, then again at the age of 12 at PSLE, and then if you get into Raffles or St. Nick’s or Hwachong you’re pretty much set, aren’t you — and how I’ve managed to sort of fall away from this ideology because I have the class and economic privilege to not worry about needing to succeed academically, and because I am privileged enough to be fairly smart so I never had to worry about “making it”? And why do many of my peers approach education the way they do - with an almost rabid singleminded focus on grades, on pleasing the lecturer, on academic paper success rather than holistic academic education, on its sheer functionality?
Ultimately (sorry for the terrible organisation of this post - I kind of wrote myself into this conclusion and understanding), I think I’ve had the luck and the privilege of not needing to adhere to the idea of education as a literal tool to economic stability and future success because I already fit the ideal that the Singaporean state demands of us, by which I mean I am (upper) middle class, Chinese, English-speaking, and perform well academically. So I have the privilege to say fuck you to the idea of education as separate from the self and have the luxury to study all kinds of abstract social theory and high-flown literary concepts and so on. So this, I think, is why I can look at education the way I do. What about you guys?
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When I read and hear things like this, I can't help but wonder if there's something wrong with me. Did I consciously choose to pursue something fluffy like Media instead of Law (when everyone, including myself, expected me in Law School)? Yes. And I never regretted it. But did I enjoy my education in NTU? No, not a bit. It was unchallenging. And I don't mean everyone-else-sucks-so-I-am-better unchallenging (ugh please I left NTU with a fairly shitty GPA), but I found the only way I had to cope and keep up with the others often left me unable to engage my course material, i.e. memorising and memorising and regurgitating was the only way I seemed to scrape by. I felt like I was in JC all over again, but even in JC I had mugged with a certain kind of enthusiasm...maybe even willingness. I felt, in short, like I was trapped in a cycle of mindless mugging.
So back to the question...is there something wrong with me? I've always wanted to be like Kristi and Kellynn and the people she hangs out with, or like Clara and her way with words, or Alan and his tablet, or Liz Law and news. They all seem to just...get it. They all seem to have some kind of ability to grasp things so easily such that they can immerse themselves in modules of their interest. They all seem to exude some kind of genuine love for the things they do and study. Like they ooze poetry and sociology and literature. Why don't and can't I have that? I seem to have done everything right. I mean I've literally gone by the textbook of success - I was in an all girls elite school since P1, I've won model pupil awards, money from MOE, I love to read and write on my own accord...where did education fail me? I don't know...
All I know is that I have been fighting a losing battle since Secondary School. Deep down inside I knew I wasn't as academically inclined as I was told I was by virtue of my Secondary School and CCA (debates...a shameless, hopeless attempt to make myself look smarter), but I stayed put and continued fighting anyway, and left SCGS without a happy memory. I mugged through JC, and then I mugged (to tears) through my first year of university until I had enough.
The way I see it, people like Kellynn and Kristi and Clara and Alan all have something about them that will enable them to have a comfortable life even if they flunk out of school. They have practical views on life and survival in this country, hypothetically will still be amazing people if they fail splendidly, but, seriously, will come out of uni even more amazing than they already are. There's that little spark about these people, and many more I've not mentioned, and a level of intelligence or talent that I, and Jerico, and many, many other students lack.
Which is why Jerico and I both realised, at the end of the day, that even though we love so many things that are available to study in our local unis, we're still going to have to slog it out to "make it". Make what, I don't know that either. But being so...average, we feel like we've no choice but to just get that piece of paper whether we love or hate the process of not.
I'm lucky because I had the chance to start anew in Aussie, where being away from all this gives me the chance to do things differently. I was telling Kristi that I finally feel like I'm being challenged academically in a positive way, like I have time to soak in how amazing and intriguing my readings are. Maybe it's because I take less classes. Which brings me back to the point about how average I am compared to all the students my age I look up to. Unfortunately, I can't cope with the number of classes local uni requires us to take. I can't sit back and love every topic I read and breathe life into every word in my essay. I wanted to, I really, really wanted to. I really thought uni would liberate me from the mugging shit I endured for so long. But I ended up having to do things the typical way to scrape by that is mug. And I believe many others are stuck here, longing not for a quality lecturers or readings or modules, but an education system that encourages and allows them to soak up all the amazing things available in our universities.
So I have gone around in circles and whined pitifully about how sad my academic life is (hur hur), but that's exactly what I think our education system needs. It needs life. It needs...it needs to remember that studying is not learning and learning doesn't only mean studying. It needs a fucking attitude overhaul. It all sounds so simple isn't it? Maybe I'm wording it wrong. I can't think straight...I have discussed our education system with Jerico so many times but I always ended up feeling so unsatisfied.
What an uncoherently put together blog post but I could go on and on and on...nevermind it's 3.17 am. I handed in a big assignment a few hours ago so fuck it.
-----
I just thought I'd weigh in on the issue too.
I can't agree more with Danielle. I don't know her personally, though we (and Kellynn) spent two years in the same junior college and are both Arts students, but I do feel like she's one of those - apart from Gerlynn - who understands what I'm going through. Gerlynn and I have discussed how disillusioned university has made us. At first, it was just me. I felt like a fish out of water. I was floundering, wondering what the hell I was doing in university. I didn't want to seem like a whiny brat, granted the opportunity to higher-level education, but complaining about it like an ingrate. But when she entered university a year later, Gerlynn seemed to understand me perfectly and echoes my views on university. We've taken to discuss what being in university actually does for us. For her, it seems university is pure agony and she's forced to press her back against the grindstone while towing it up the hill. For me, I feel like I'm standing in the midst of all these lab rats skittering on their little treadmills, focused on the single-minded intention to collect their honours degree and later, their masters, and maybe even their doctorates. As soon as I stepped foot into campus, I realised I'm not going to be as rabid and dogged as my peers in their quest to collect their certificates (and then some). I'm not going to be visiting the library to borrow books on issues relevant to the modules I'm taking and reading them for leisure and then raising some questions I have with the lecturer or engage the lecturer in impassioned discussions and the like.
Later, I realised it's because unlike my peers, I don't see a goal ahead of me. I don't know what I want to be, or the sort of options open to me, an English linguistics major who just wants to write fiction all day and get paid for my efforts. My goals, it seems, are too lofty, beyond what university can provide. Because who gives a flying crap about creative writing in Singapore? In Singapore, it's all about the sciences - biochemistry, engineering, etc - law, medicine, dentistry, new media. These are the courses that reap tangible rewards. These are the modules that provide quantifiable self-worth in terms of grades and achievements. Linguistics? Everyone immediately assumes you're going to be a teacher after you graduate. I know SO many irate Arts majors who've had enough of people asking them if they plan to teach - and I'm one of them. Is there nothing else we Arts majors can do other than teach? And why is that so? Why is that the prevailing assumption? Is it the environment that has cultivated this mindset, or this mindset that has shaped the environment, the one that emphasises on practicality and functionality? Which brings me back to the question I often crack my head over while on the long bus ride to school: what am I doing in university? Am I here to get a certificate that would boost my chances of working in a cushy office and earn a steady paycheck? Do I even want that sort of job? I've mentioned before that I'm really not keen about office jobs. Punching in at nine o'clock every morning, sit at your desk, avoid office gossip, be careful not to tread on toes, bow to your superiors, go for stipulated lunch breaks, return to desk, work, punch out at six o'clock. Wash, rinse, repeat. Does education really liberate us? Being trapped in a desk-bound job, tiptoeing about corporate hierarchies so that I can scale the corporate ladder and break the proverbial glass ceiling, score that big promotion and that big fat paycheck that will entitle us to a cushier life that entails even greater wants and needs, which demands us to slog harder for the next promotion so we can score an even bigger paycheck.... Seems like we're more trapped than we were before.
Or, am I in university because I want to? Because I want to learn and be exposed to ideas and knowledge that I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise? But what if my level of enthusiasm isn't as high as my peers? Granted, some of them exert the effort in their studies because they want their rocketing CAPs and not because they really enjoy the course. But what if my passion for English isn't as high as theirs? What if the effort I put in only marks me as an average student? As it is, my CAP is completely, morbidly, depressingly average. Maybe even lower than average, I don't know. It's a B. I enjoy my linguistics modules (most of them, at least), and I put in the effort. Clearly, it's not enough.
While it is true that my university experience thus far has shaped up to be, for the most part, satisfying. I'm lucky that my father is supportive of me studying the course I'm interested in and passionate (well, that remains debatable, but let's see this in relative terms to put things into perspective, okay?) about. I know he wishes for me to study more practical things like business administration and economics and the like, and he often comments on how I chose the easiest things to study (in a jocular manner, that is, but I can detect the grain of honesty in those comments). But he let me study English, anyhow. For that, I'm grateful. But then I can't help but wonder, while I'm enjoying myself studying the things I want to study now, what am I going to be after I graduate?
Like Danielle said, some people like Kellynn just seem to have it. They're smart, coherent, sensible, sharp-witted and are keen observers of the society we live in. Because of that, they can do well in their course without breaking a sweat. While the rest of us are left wondering what it is we're lacking.
And it was only recently that I had that eureka moment. That I realised I had no idea what I was going be, what I could be, what I wanted to be. While my peers are full of aspirations and hope and faith in their futures after graduation, I'm still slippery-footed and hesitant and left trailing in their wake as they charge ahead for their degrees.
It's just the second week of the second semester of my second year in NUS. I mustn't be consumed by disillusionment yet. Not now. I shall, like I do for everything else unpleasant, pretend it does not exist. I shall train myself to believe I am studying for a purpose, I'm studying because I want to learn, not because I can shape myself into what my society deems a useful member. Higher learning is here for a reason, and I need to hold on to my stand - however unsteady it may be - for a little while longer.
“A friend was applying for an American university and asked me to help him with his personal statement. The following ensued:
“The question says to write on an issue of local, personal, national, or international concern and its importance to me. Any ideas?”
He produced a notebook and on each page was a mind-map on trending topics. International terrorism, the rise of China, climate change were in the mix. It looked like a standard list of pretty much what is happening in the world. All that we had learnt in school.
“I can probably relate the rise of China to Singapore since Singapore has to cope with a more assertive China in the region. And probably talk about terrorism since Singapore being an international hub is vulnerable…”
I felt vaguely uncomfortable listening to him. Something was amiss.
“But how are these issues important to you? I mean, yea, these issues are important. But why and how are they important to you on a personal basis? How is it important to you as a human being, as a person? ”
At these words, we both stopped stunned, as both of us slowly understood what I spurted out. After that meditative silence, my friend spoke.
“I have a feeling that education has taught me all about this world, but nothing about myself.”
And I felt immense, immense sadness.
For my friend was no simpleton. He was, objectively speaking, one of the most accomplished of my age in Singapore, perhaps easily in the top 1 percent in my batch. His paper record is impeccable – Straight As with a Higher 3 paper distinction, leadership in the student council, team captain and national champion in his sport, and an assortment of various awards and book prizes. Now a scholarship holder and an officer-to-be in the army… He was by no means one of those whose success is limited to the academic; his paper credentials suggest a more than holistic education.
But now, he has just confessed that education has not… even made him a person. He was akin to some inchoate concept of a man, some aggrandization of trophies, some hollowed husk of purposelessness.
I slumped in my chair, for I had never heard such a damning statement on our education system.”
— from Norvin Chan’s The Secret Political Blog
Kellynn's reply:
What do you guys think?
I see this happening a lot. For loads of people my age, in university, studying, say, sociology, it is a thing separate from themselves as people (which is of course highly ironic). It’s a subject to be mastered, facts to be memorised, things to be learned on an abstract and disembodied level. There is certainly some passing interest, some genuine enjoyment, but there is this strange sense of disconnect, as if studying the sociology of food is about being able to repeat facts about body image and our social delinking from the origin of food without really thinking about how we ourselves are implicated in this whole process. There is a lack of — reflection, perhaps (and now I risk coming across as a little snooty), or a certain kind of lack of self-awareness? I had a friend who, while studying for GP, memorised reams and reams of statistics to be crammed edgewise into an essay during the “A” Levels, which to me was a little baffling. I’m not saying that the act of memorising facts is a bad thing, but shouldn’t writing a GP paper be based somewhat on interest, on a personal connection with the otherwise abstract worldly issues we are writing about?
I am interested in how our education system conditions us into thinking that this is the only way to study, that this is ‘education’, a task to be accomplished like learning to fix a car or how to swim. Evidently this is not true for everybody and everyone reacts to education, is shaped by, or shapes their view of education, differently. I have many friends who feel strongly about what they study and who do not separate school from self like most Singaporean students do. And yet I also have an acquaintance who chose to major in literature simply because she scored the highest grade for its exposure module in comparison to political science and sociology. (This of course pissed me off on a very personal level, because I remain torn about my decision not to pursue lit [although day by day I am certain that I’ve done the right thing] as my first major and am weirdly envious of those who have chosen to study it, but it also just utterly confused me, because literature is something you pursue because you are passionate about it, because it is something wildly personal, and not because you can get the best on-paper grades for it.)
So why do we separate ourselves so completely from our education? Why is the failure to do so chastised as being “impractical” and “having your head in the clouds”? Is this a Singaporean thing? Is this true for other people in other countries? Is this emblematic of a lack of self-reflection (to put it kind of wankily) or of social censure of self-reflection (which is really creepy when you think about it)? What is it that makes us leery of information, education, and current issues in relation to ourselves — that makes us dismiss all these things in the (this familiar, familiar Singaporean watchword) name of “practicality”? Why am I told again and again — by the people around me, by the culture I am raised in, and by my government — that my lofty ideals (which I know are very naive and which I have only a very tenuous grasp on) are not “practical”, that they are not part of “real life”???? How is what we study not part of real life? Are we for example not faced with damaging media images of women or part of food webs or do not grapple with colonial images of “little brown brothers”? Are we not part of a political system and do we not wonder philosophically how we know the things we know or do we not read books or question what it means to be Singaporean in this day and age? Why are these things so often confined to the classroom?
I know that most of you have decided to study things that are off the beaten track in Singapore. Many of you are lit majors or political science majors or something along those lines, and I know that all of you have chosen these areas of study out of interest, out of an intimate belief that what you are educated by is inextricably interweaved with the persons that you are, and that if you were faced with the question that was posed above, you would be able to answer without isolating your self from it. Why are you this way? And because you all exist, is it really, incontrovertibly true that our education system has failed? And again, because you all exist, are you (in varying degrees) exceptions to the rule? And, again, why are you this way? Aaaand I am feeling uncomfortably judgmental here of people who do separate themselves from their education and feeling my class privilege that allows me to ask these questions and to receive this education, but I admit that I am young and stupid and overthinky and I’m going to say these things anyway.
For me, NUS — university education — is one of my favourite things. I love it. I can bleat on and on about how much I have learned and how much I have consequently grown as an individual because of it. I love everything I read, everything I hear and watch and study; I love going to lectures, I love writing papers, I love reading these novels that I would never otherwise pick up, and listening to ideas that will forever shape my perspective of the world. In one year I have learned about political imagery in architecture and the politics of climate change and methods of social research and Christian revivalism in Singapore and post-colonialism in Merle Hodge’s “Crick Crack, Monkey” and the history of food gathering and production in human society. I have debated on sustainability and the failure of massive nature conservancies and heatedly argued about the racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” despite the distancing frame narrative and jumped up and down in my seat in unbridled rage arguing about the implicit sexism of the language used in men’s magazines. I marvel all the time at all these super amazing things that I’ve been part of and feel happy and grateful that I’ve been able to learn so much from my teachers and my books and my peers. But that’s just me, and I think that my reaction is a product of a thousand things - a loving and encouraging family, open-minded and interested friends, my early use of the Internet (which I feel is pivotal), my enjoyment of books - my class, my race, my ethnicity, my specific educational background (where I skimmed just under the ‘elite’ schools while studying at Anderson Sec and St. Andrew’s, but still remain very much highly educated), my socioeconomic position which insulates me from many things - my general (personality?) enjoyment of academia, my linguistic privilege, and so on.
And so I wonder specifically why so many people complain about how boring and crappy and etc our university education system is when I find it stimulating and challenging and helpful. What specifically allowed me to fall off the radar to a certain extent (although I still remain firmly and safely on the beaten, well-trodden path to class and economic stability because of my [incidental to my enjoyment of school] good academic grades)? Obviously a lot of it’s got to do with the state, doesn’t it? Policies that inculcate this attitude towards education, playing on notions of upward social mobility and class anxiety? How class starts to perpetuate itself at the age of ten, when students are streamed, then again at the age of 12 at PSLE, and then if you get into Raffles or St. Nick’s or Hwachong you’re pretty much set, aren’t you — and how I’ve managed to sort of fall away from this ideology because I have the class and economic privilege to not worry about needing to succeed academically, and because I am privileged enough to be fairly smart so I never had to worry about “making it”? And why do many of my peers approach education the way they do - with an almost rabid singleminded focus on grades, on pleasing the lecturer, on academic paper success rather than holistic academic education, on its sheer functionality?
Ultimately (sorry for the terrible organisation of this post - I kind of wrote myself into this conclusion and understanding), I think I’ve had the luck and the privilege of not needing to adhere to the idea of education as a literal tool to economic stability and future success because I already fit the ideal that the Singaporean state demands of us, by which I mean I am (upper) middle class, Chinese, English-speaking, and perform well academically. So I have the privilege to say fuck you to the idea of education as separate from the self and have the luxury to study all kinds of abstract social theory and high-flown literary concepts and so on. So this, I think, is why I can look at education the way I do. What about you guys?
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When I read and hear things like this, I can't help but wonder if there's something wrong with me. Did I consciously choose to pursue something fluffy like Media instead of Law (when everyone, including myself, expected me in Law School)? Yes. And I never regretted it. But did I enjoy my education in NTU? No, not a bit. It was unchallenging. And I don't mean everyone-else-sucks-so-I-am-better unchallenging (ugh please I left NTU with a fairly shitty GPA), but I found the only way I had to cope and keep up with the others often left me unable to engage my course material, i.e. memorising and memorising and regurgitating was the only way I seemed to scrape by. I felt like I was in JC all over again, but even in JC I had mugged with a certain kind of enthusiasm...maybe even willingness. I felt, in short, like I was trapped in a cycle of mindless mugging.
So back to the question...is there something wrong with me? I've always wanted to be like Kristi and Kellynn and the people she hangs out with, or like Clara and her way with words, or Alan and his tablet, or Liz Law and news. They all seem to just...get it. They all seem to have some kind of ability to grasp things so easily such that they can immerse themselves in modules of their interest. They all seem to exude some kind of genuine love for the things they do and study. Like they ooze poetry and sociology and literature. Why don't and can't I have that? I seem to have done everything right. I mean I've literally gone by the textbook of success - I was in an all girls elite school since P1, I've won model pupil awards, money from MOE, I love to read and write on my own accord...where did education fail me? I don't know...
All I know is that I have been fighting a losing battle since Secondary School. Deep down inside I knew I wasn't as academically inclined as I was told I was by virtue of my Secondary School and CCA (debates...a shameless, hopeless attempt to make myself look smarter), but I stayed put and continued fighting anyway, and left SCGS without a happy memory. I mugged through JC, and then I mugged (to tears) through my first year of university until I had enough.
The way I see it, people like Kellynn and Kristi and Clara and Alan all have something about them that will enable them to have a comfortable life even if they flunk out of school. They have practical views on life and survival in this country, hypothetically will still be amazing people if they fail splendidly, but, seriously, will come out of uni even more amazing than they already are. There's that little spark about these people, and many more I've not mentioned, and a level of intelligence or talent that I, and Jerico, and many, many other students lack.
Which is why Jerico and I both realised, at the end of the day, that even though we love so many things that are available to study in our local unis, we're still going to have to slog it out to "make it". Make what, I don't know that either. But being so...average, we feel like we've no choice but to just get that piece of paper whether we love or hate the process of not.
I'm lucky because I had the chance to start anew in Aussie, where being away from all this gives me the chance to do things differently. I was telling Kristi that I finally feel like I'm being challenged academically in a positive way, like I have time to soak in how amazing and intriguing my readings are. Maybe it's because I take less classes. Which brings me back to the point about how average I am compared to all the students my age I look up to. Unfortunately, I can't cope with the number of classes local uni requires us to take. I can't sit back and love every topic I read and breathe life into every word in my essay. I wanted to, I really, really wanted to. I really thought uni would liberate me from the mugging shit I endured for so long. But I ended up having to do things the typical way to scrape by that is mug. And I believe many others are stuck here, longing not for a quality lecturers or readings or modules, but an education system that encourages and allows them to soak up all the amazing things available in our universities.
So I have gone around in circles and whined pitifully about how sad my academic life is (hur hur), but that's exactly what I think our education system needs. It needs life. It needs...it needs to remember that studying is not learning and learning doesn't only mean studying. It needs a fucking attitude overhaul. It all sounds so simple isn't it? Maybe I'm wording it wrong. I can't think straight...I have discussed our education system with Jerico so many times but I always ended up feeling so unsatisfied.
What an uncoherently put together blog post but I could go on and on and on...nevermind it's 3.17 am. I handed in a big assignment a few hours ago so fuck it.
-----
I just thought I'd weigh in on the issue too.
I can't agree more with Danielle. I don't know her personally, though we (and Kellynn) spent two years in the same junior college and are both Arts students, but I do feel like she's one of those - apart from Gerlynn - who understands what I'm going through. Gerlynn and I have discussed how disillusioned university has made us. At first, it was just me. I felt like a fish out of water. I was floundering, wondering what the hell I was doing in university. I didn't want to seem like a whiny brat, granted the opportunity to higher-level education, but complaining about it like an ingrate. But when she entered university a year later, Gerlynn seemed to understand me perfectly and echoes my views on university. We've taken to discuss what being in university actually does for us. For her, it seems university is pure agony and she's forced to press her back against the grindstone while towing it up the hill. For me, I feel like I'm standing in the midst of all these lab rats skittering on their little treadmills, focused on the single-minded intention to collect their honours degree and later, their masters, and maybe even their doctorates. As soon as I stepped foot into campus, I realised I'm not going to be as rabid and dogged as my peers in their quest to collect their certificates (and then some). I'm not going to be visiting the library to borrow books on issues relevant to the modules I'm taking and reading them for leisure and then raising some questions I have with the lecturer or engage the lecturer in impassioned discussions and the like.
Later, I realised it's because unlike my peers, I don't see a goal ahead of me. I don't know what I want to be, or the sort of options open to me, an English linguistics major who just wants to write fiction all day and get paid for my efforts. My goals, it seems, are too lofty, beyond what university can provide. Because who gives a flying crap about creative writing in Singapore? In Singapore, it's all about the sciences - biochemistry, engineering, etc - law, medicine, dentistry, new media. These are the courses that reap tangible rewards. These are the modules that provide quantifiable self-worth in terms of grades and achievements. Linguistics? Everyone immediately assumes you're going to be a teacher after you graduate. I know SO many irate Arts majors who've had enough of people asking them if they plan to teach - and I'm one of them. Is there nothing else we Arts majors can do other than teach? And why is that so? Why is that the prevailing assumption? Is it the environment that has cultivated this mindset, or this mindset that has shaped the environment, the one that emphasises on practicality and functionality? Which brings me back to the question I often crack my head over while on the long bus ride to school: what am I doing in university? Am I here to get a certificate that would boost my chances of working in a cushy office and earn a steady paycheck? Do I even want that sort of job? I've mentioned before that I'm really not keen about office jobs. Punching in at nine o'clock every morning, sit at your desk, avoid office gossip, be careful not to tread on toes, bow to your superiors, go for stipulated lunch breaks, return to desk, work, punch out at six o'clock. Wash, rinse, repeat. Does education really liberate us? Being trapped in a desk-bound job, tiptoeing about corporate hierarchies so that I can scale the corporate ladder and break the proverbial glass ceiling, score that big promotion and that big fat paycheck that will entitle us to a cushier life that entails even greater wants and needs, which demands us to slog harder for the next promotion so we can score an even bigger paycheck.... Seems like we're more trapped than we were before.
Or, am I in university because I want to? Because I want to learn and be exposed to ideas and knowledge that I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise? But what if my level of enthusiasm isn't as high as my peers? Granted, some of them exert the effort in their studies because they want their rocketing CAPs and not because they really enjoy the course. But what if my passion for English isn't as high as theirs? What if the effort I put in only marks me as an average student? As it is, my CAP is completely, morbidly, depressingly average. Maybe even lower than average, I don't know. It's a B. I enjoy my linguistics modules (most of them, at least), and I put in the effort. Clearly, it's not enough.
While it is true that my university experience thus far has shaped up to be, for the most part, satisfying. I'm lucky that my father is supportive of me studying the course I'm interested in and passionate (well, that remains debatable, but let's see this in relative terms to put things into perspective, okay?) about. I know he wishes for me to study more practical things like business administration and economics and the like, and he often comments on how I chose the easiest things to study (in a jocular manner, that is, but I can detect the grain of honesty in those comments). But he let me study English, anyhow. For that, I'm grateful. But then I can't help but wonder, while I'm enjoying myself studying the things I want to study now, what am I going to be after I graduate?
Like Danielle said, some people like Kellynn just seem to have it. They're smart, coherent, sensible, sharp-witted and are keen observers of the society we live in. Because of that, they can do well in their course without breaking a sweat. While the rest of us are left wondering what it is we're lacking.
And it was only recently that I had that eureka moment. That I realised I had no idea what I was going be, what I could be, what I wanted to be. While my peers are full of aspirations and hope and faith in their futures after graduation, I'm still slippery-footed and hesitant and left trailing in their wake as they charge ahead for their degrees.
It's just the second week of the second semester of my second year in NUS. I mustn't be consumed by disillusionment yet. Not now. I shall, like I do for everything else unpleasant, pretend it does not exist. I shall train myself to believe I am studying for a purpose, I'm studying because I want to learn, not because I can shape myself into what my society deems a useful member. Higher learning is here for a reason, and I need to hold on to my stand - however unsteady it may be - for a little while longer.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Short Story - Fire and Rain
Fire and Rain – fiction by Joyce Chua
He stared at her back, the slope of her narrow shoulders. “Why do you keep looking out the window?” He joined her, followed her empty gaze.
“It’s a mess.”
“Have you taken your meds?”
“Look at all these people, thrown about like broken dolls.”
“You’ve lost weight.” He pulled her to him, but she didn’t yield, just perched, stiff-limbed, on the windowsill.
“Remember how we wished for rain then? Remember how we wished for rain to take away the fire? Oh, how we craved for rain then, Connell!”
“I remember.” He brushed away the tangle of hair obscuring her face and took her hand.” But Raven, you can’t possibly think this is all your fault.”
“That’s what Daddy would say. He used to say I blame myself for too many things out of my control.”
“And he’s right. Come on, time for your daily magic.”
She let herself be pulled by him, then stopped. “I want….”
“Raven?”
“Will you help me with something?”
“Anything.”
“Will you wish for fire with me? This time, we won’t do anything. We’ll let it burn. Burn away all this water.” Her eyes were wide, shining. She gripped his hand too tightly.
“Raven.” He made sure she saw him – really saw him – before continuing. “Raven. Wishing for fire now isn’t going to bring your brother back, just like how wishing for rain then didn’t bring your father back.”
She stepped away from him. “You won’t help me. That’s okay. It’s my family, anyway. That’s okay.”
“Raven, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay. I’ll wish for fire on my own.” She returned to the windowsill, picked up the lighter resting on the ledge. He’d missed that.
Flick.
“Raven, don’t!” He grasped her hands, letting the light clatter to the floor. “I’ll wish for fire with you. Fire. This time, we’ll let it burn.”
He stared at her back, the slope of her narrow shoulders. “Why do you keep looking out the window?” He joined her, followed her empty gaze.
“It’s a mess.”
“Have you taken your meds?”
“Look at all these people, thrown about like broken dolls.”
“You’ve lost weight.” He pulled her to him, but she didn’t yield, just perched, stiff-limbed, on the windowsill.
“Remember how we wished for rain then? Remember how we wished for rain to take away the fire? Oh, how we craved for rain then, Connell!”
“I remember.” He brushed away the tangle of hair obscuring her face and took her hand.” But Raven, you can’t possibly think this is all your fault.”
“That’s what Daddy would say. He used to say I blame myself for too many things out of my control.”
“And he’s right. Come on, time for your daily magic.”
She let herself be pulled by him, then stopped. “I want….”
“Raven?”
“Will you help me with something?”
“Anything.”
“Will you wish for fire with me? This time, we won’t do anything. We’ll let it burn. Burn away all this water.” Her eyes were wide, shining. She gripped his hand too tightly.
“Raven.” He made sure she saw him – really saw him – before continuing. “Raven. Wishing for fire now isn’t going to bring your brother back, just like how wishing for rain then didn’t bring your father back.”
She stepped away from him. “You won’t help me. That’s okay. It’s my family, anyway. That’s okay.”
“Raven, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay. I’ll wish for fire on my own.” She returned to the windowsill, picked up the lighter resting on the ledge. He’d missed that.
Flick.
“Raven, don’t!” He grasped her hands, letting the light clatter to the floor. “I’ll wish for fire with you. Fire. This time, we’ll let it burn.”
It's the middle of the week, and hitherto, I've sat through three of my five lectures for the week. Here is, by the way, a list of the modules I'm taking this semester:
1. EL2211: Historical Variation of English (50% open-book final exam, 15% class test, 15% individual essay, 10% group project, 10% class participation inclusive of group presentation)
2. EL2201: Structure of Sentences and Meaning (60% open-book final exam - not essay-based, 30% open-book quizzes, 10% class participation)
3. EN2271: Introduction to Playwriting
4. LAC3204: Chinese for Business and Social Science. Don't let your jaw hang too loose. I'll get to this one in a bit.
5. EC2101: Microeconomics
The week started off with EL2211 lecture. As expected, this is a pretty content-heavy module, but Gerlynn was right in saying it's actually pretty interesting. We learn about Old English and the like, and how it evolved (in terms of spelling, grammar and lexicon) over the ages to what it is now. The text we have to analyse for our group project is A Midsommer Nights Dreame, and the final exam counts for 50% of our final grade. I've seen the past semester test papers, and all I can say is that I signed up for this, so I might as well take all this in my stride.
But at least, despite the demands of this module, I know what to expect. Because I've taken English (EL) modules before, so I know the approximate level of rigour and what to expect by now. This is more than I could say for LAC3204. When I entered the seminar room, I had no idea who would be there, or how many people. There were 25 in all, and the group consists of a Canadian, a couple of Malaysians and a couple of PRCs. The notes were entirely in Chinese, and people spoke Mandarin (well, except for me and three girls from the Law Faculty, so we stuck together in class - good to flock with people you can communicate better with, right?). The lecturer is the maternal sort. I don't know about you, but my impression of Chinese teachers is that they are always maternal and nice. And Laoshi totally fits the stereotype. She has a background in media and commerce since she worked for several years in Mediacorp and a media group in Hong Kong (news production and associated fields). But, you know, as nervous as I was about the class, Laoshi managed to ease us into it and it turned out to be a surprisingly refreshing class, though we're expected to write some essays in Chinese and present it in front of the class. I'm not nervous about presenting in front of the class, but the fact that, after so many years of being spared from Chinese oral, speaking Mandarin in front of a crowd sounds daunting, to say the least. But I'll worry about that in due time.
The third class, today's class, was EN2271. And similarly, I didn't know what to expect. I've never experienced having a critique group before. There were 12 of us in all (Valerie-Ann, Tamara Kisha, Luke, Nick, Melissa, Joanne, Hazel, Denise, Koon Hui, Huiyi, Shah, and me), selected from the list of applicants. We had to submit three scenes written (in prose, poetry, play, etc) in response to three words respectively: Abdication, Vindication, and Restitution. With that, the 12 of us ended up in the seminar room, seated around a long meeting table, facing Dr Husir, playwright and firm believer that the arts is far superior to sciences. That's a touchy issue, highly debatable, so I won't espouse or expound on that. But while Dr Husir declares that he is not an academic and that we shouldn't regard EN2271 as an academic module, EN2271 is one of the most demanding modules in FASS, as his ex students tell him. That's what I've heard too. Each week, we have to write an essay regarding a play (issued by him), along with writing an act of our own and submitting it next lesson for critique.
After introductions were made (half the class were Lit majors), Dr Husir set us a prompt and got us to work. A scene in the midst of the Queensland flood with the opening line by a character: "Why do you keep looking out the window?" Written in twenty minutes. I'll post my attempt here in a bit. Mine's in prose form, though I cut back on the details that can't be realised in play.
Once we were done, we had to read our piece aloud (and rope in the person next to us to help act out the other character(s) in the story) and let the group offer feedback. And you know, it's terrifying, having to read out your work to a group of strangers. But I received constructive feedback (how rare to have people actually pay attention to your work and offer advice to improve it!) from the group. Dr Husir said I managed to use the flood as a backdrop to a large character conflict that develops with the story, but I needed to pay attention to developing the narrative as a play and not prose. I have zero experience with plays. The only two plays I've ever read are Antony and Cleopatra (for Lit in JC) and The Importance of Being Earnest (by the ever delightful Oscar Wilde), so it seems I really have a lot to work on.
Listening to what the rest have written, though, was so much less sweat. There were several that I really liked, like Luke's and Valerie's and Nick's and (I forgot her name - sorry!). Luke wrote a piece about a battered-wife mermaid who was trapped by her husband but liberated because of the flood. Which is a really interesting take. It's unique and refreshing, exactly the way fantasy fiction should be. And Valerie's was a delicately written piece that played on words and had a sweet silver-lining ending where the character revealed she was looking for a rainbow amid the flood. It seems her writing is as delicate as she looks. She has the sort of feminine frailty and childlike vulnerability in her face that is the sort that I imagine photographers like to capture. Nick's was a funny piece between a bimbo and a neurotic boy who took every precaution not to let the waters in the house. The bimbo went on and on about Santa Claus being able to enter the house, at least, because the roof was dry, so baby kangaroos could be born because it was Santa who put joeys in the pockets of kangaroos. And the boy's yelling at her for thinking about joeys in the middle of a flood, and she said kangaroos are important and then she suddenly saw a crocodile and asked the boy if it would eat them and then to wave to it, and the boy demanded why on earth he would wave to something that was planning to eat him...
Nick's writing is typical of a male POV. I've always thought male writers are either funny in their prose, or boringly methodical. Nick happens, it seems, to belong to the first group.
And the last piece I enjoyed (I still can't recall her name, but she's a Lit major) was about a family trapped in a house while the flood's going on outside and the mother's sister, Aunt Rose, is crying to be let in because the water's at chest level. But the mother's adamant about not letting "dangerous characters in during dangerous times" despite her husband telling her to let her sister in. The scene then went on with the two children watching their aunt struggle and drown, all reported in a detached manner ("Oh look, she's going down now"). The story appeared light-hearted, even funny, but belied a sinister thread that left me slightly uneasy. Some commented on how dysfunctional the family was, and I suppose that's why it made me squirm. Dark humour is really difficult to achieve. Too little and your reader might miss it; too much and it'll prove counter-effective. But I think the writer handled it well.
So many good writers in the class. I hope I'll improve in my writing with the help of this class and the various characters in it, and I'm completely looking forward to reading more of their work. There's just so much to learn when it comes to the craft of writing! That, I've always felt, is one of the reasons why writing is such an engaging activity. There's always room to improve, always something new you learn about yourself and the way you perceive the world.
Okay, I hope this is a sufficiently long post, Gerlynn. (She's always bugging me to blog - I have to remember to thank her for that.) Till next time!
1. EL2211: Historical Variation of English (50% open-book final exam, 15% class test, 15% individual essay, 10% group project, 10% class participation inclusive of group presentation)
2. EL2201: Structure of Sentences and Meaning (60% open-book final exam - not essay-based, 30% open-book quizzes, 10% class participation)
3. EN2271: Introduction to Playwriting
4. LAC3204: Chinese for Business and Social Science. Don't let your jaw hang too loose. I'll get to this one in a bit.
5. EC2101: Microeconomics
The week started off with EL2211 lecture. As expected, this is a pretty content-heavy module, but Gerlynn was right in saying it's actually pretty interesting. We learn about Old English and the like, and how it evolved (in terms of spelling, grammar and lexicon) over the ages to what it is now. The text we have to analyse for our group project is A Midsommer Nights Dreame, and the final exam counts for 50% of our final grade. I've seen the past semester test papers, and all I can say is that I signed up for this, so I might as well take all this in my stride.
But at least, despite the demands of this module, I know what to expect. Because I've taken English (EL) modules before, so I know the approximate level of rigour and what to expect by now. This is more than I could say for LAC3204. When I entered the seminar room, I had no idea who would be there, or how many people. There were 25 in all, and the group consists of a Canadian, a couple of Malaysians and a couple of PRCs. The notes were entirely in Chinese, and people spoke Mandarin (well, except for me and three girls from the Law Faculty, so we stuck together in class - good to flock with people you can communicate better with, right?). The lecturer is the maternal sort. I don't know about you, but my impression of Chinese teachers is that they are always maternal and nice. And Laoshi totally fits the stereotype. She has a background in media and commerce since she worked for several years in Mediacorp and a media group in Hong Kong (news production and associated fields). But, you know, as nervous as I was about the class, Laoshi managed to ease us into it and it turned out to be a surprisingly refreshing class, though we're expected to write some essays in Chinese and present it in front of the class. I'm not nervous about presenting in front of the class, but the fact that, after so many years of being spared from Chinese oral, speaking Mandarin in front of a crowd sounds daunting, to say the least. But I'll worry about that in due time.
The third class, today's class, was EN2271. And similarly, I didn't know what to expect. I've never experienced having a critique group before. There were 12 of us in all (Valerie-Ann, Tamara Kisha, Luke, Nick, Melissa, Joanne, Hazel, Denise, Koon Hui, Huiyi, Shah, and me), selected from the list of applicants. We had to submit three scenes written (in prose, poetry, play, etc) in response to three words respectively: Abdication, Vindication, and Restitution. With that, the 12 of us ended up in the seminar room, seated around a long meeting table, facing Dr Husir, playwright and firm believer that the arts is far superior to sciences. That's a touchy issue, highly debatable, so I won't espouse or expound on that. But while Dr Husir declares that he is not an academic and that we shouldn't regard EN2271 as an academic module, EN2271 is one of the most demanding modules in FASS, as his ex students tell him. That's what I've heard too. Each week, we have to write an essay regarding a play (issued by him), along with writing an act of our own and submitting it next lesson for critique.
After introductions were made (half the class were Lit majors), Dr Husir set us a prompt and got us to work. A scene in the midst of the Queensland flood with the opening line by a character: "Why do you keep looking out the window?" Written in twenty minutes. I'll post my attempt here in a bit. Mine's in prose form, though I cut back on the details that can't be realised in play.
Once we were done, we had to read our piece aloud (and rope in the person next to us to help act out the other character(s) in the story) and let the group offer feedback. And you know, it's terrifying, having to read out your work to a group of strangers. But I received constructive feedback (how rare to have people actually pay attention to your work and offer advice to improve it!) from the group. Dr Husir said I managed to use the flood as a backdrop to a large character conflict that develops with the story, but I needed to pay attention to developing the narrative as a play and not prose. I have zero experience with plays. The only two plays I've ever read are Antony and Cleopatra (for Lit in JC) and The Importance of Being Earnest (by the ever delightful Oscar Wilde), so it seems I really have a lot to work on.
Listening to what the rest have written, though, was so much less sweat. There were several that I really liked, like Luke's and Valerie's and Nick's and (I forgot her name - sorry!). Luke wrote a piece about a battered-wife mermaid who was trapped by her husband but liberated because of the flood. Which is a really interesting take. It's unique and refreshing, exactly the way fantasy fiction should be. And Valerie's was a delicately written piece that played on words and had a sweet silver-lining ending where the character revealed she was looking for a rainbow amid the flood. It seems her writing is as delicate as she looks. She has the sort of feminine frailty and childlike vulnerability in her face that is the sort that I imagine photographers like to capture. Nick's was a funny piece between a bimbo and a neurotic boy who took every precaution not to let the waters in the house. The bimbo went on and on about Santa Claus being able to enter the house, at least, because the roof was dry, so baby kangaroos could be born because it was Santa who put joeys in the pockets of kangaroos. And the boy's yelling at her for thinking about joeys in the middle of a flood, and she said kangaroos are important and then she suddenly saw a crocodile and asked the boy if it would eat them and then to wave to it, and the boy demanded why on earth he would wave to something that was planning to eat him...
Nick's writing is typical of a male POV. I've always thought male writers are either funny in their prose, or boringly methodical. Nick happens, it seems, to belong to the first group.
And the last piece I enjoyed (I still can't recall her name, but she's a Lit major) was about a family trapped in a house while the flood's going on outside and the mother's sister, Aunt Rose, is crying to be let in because the water's at chest level. But the mother's adamant about not letting "dangerous characters in during dangerous times" despite her husband telling her to let her sister in. The scene then went on with the two children watching their aunt struggle and drown, all reported in a detached manner ("Oh look, she's going down now"). The story appeared light-hearted, even funny, but belied a sinister thread that left me slightly uneasy. Some commented on how dysfunctional the family was, and I suppose that's why it made me squirm. Dark humour is really difficult to achieve. Too little and your reader might miss it; too much and it'll prove counter-effective. But I think the writer handled it well.
So many good writers in the class. I hope I'll improve in my writing with the help of this class and the various characters in it, and I'm completely looking forward to reading more of their work. There's just so much to learn when it comes to the craft of writing! That, I've always felt, is one of the reasons why writing is such an engaging activity. There's always room to improve, always something new you learn about yourself and the way you perceive the world.
Okay, I hope this is a sufficiently long post, Gerlynn. (She's always bugging me to blog - I have to remember to thank her for that.) Till next time!
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Hi Joyce,
Thanks again for sending Lambs for Dinner. Your voice sounds strong and confident, which is no surprise since we already knew that from Red December Skies. Skye is definitely a unique character too - an obsession with superstitions is a fresh concept in a YA.
Though we enjoyed your writing very much, I'm afraid we still encountered a few issues. Certain passages, for instance, seemed too slow since they were bogged down with details and actions the reader didn't necessarily need to know. Some of Skye's and Drew's diction also sounded a bit odd coming from the mouth of a teenager. Their kiss on page 21 also struck us as too abrupt and maybe even unconvincing - it didn't seem like something a real teenage boy would do. The kiss, along with their many chance encounters, made their romance feel a bit too obvious and heavy-handed to us, as well.
In short, Lambs for Dinner is a very strong YA, but we don't feel it's quite ready yet. It looks like we're going to have to pass, but again, this is only our opinion. It's a very subjective industry and we have no doubt that another agent will feel differently about Lambs for Dinner. Thank you very much for sharing your most recent work with us and we wish you the best of luck.
Kind regards,
Judith
--
Judith Engracia
Literary Assistant
Liza Dawson Associates
350 7th Avenue, Suite 2003
New York, NY 10001
(212) 465-9077
http://www.lizadawsonassociates.com/
Thanks again for sending Lambs for Dinner. Your voice sounds strong and confident, which is no surprise since we already knew that from Red December Skies. Skye is definitely a unique character too - an obsession with superstitions is a fresh concept in a YA.
Though we enjoyed your writing very much, I'm afraid we still encountered a few issues. Certain passages, for instance, seemed too slow since they were bogged down with details and actions the reader didn't necessarily need to know. Some of Skye's and Drew's diction also sounded a bit odd coming from the mouth of a teenager. Their kiss on page 21 also struck us as too abrupt and maybe even unconvincing - it didn't seem like something a real teenage boy would do. The kiss, along with their many chance encounters, made their romance feel a bit too obvious and heavy-handed to us, as well.
In short, Lambs for Dinner is a very strong YA, but we don't feel it's quite ready yet. It looks like we're going to have to pass, but again, this is only our opinion. It's a very subjective industry and we have no doubt that another agent will feel differently about Lambs for Dinner. Thank you very much for sharing your most recent work with us and we wish you the best of luck.
Kind regards,
Judith
--
Judith Engracia
Literary Assistant
Liza Dawson Associates
350 7th Avenue, Suite 2003
New York, NY 10001
(212) 465-9077
http://www.lizadawsonassociates.com/
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Jiro Wang - his story
His father was in the military, and after retiring he worked as a security guard. His mother worked as a seamstress, but after her eyesight failed due to old age, she gave up her job. Jiro's parents married late; his mother was forty, his father fifty, when they had him. Jiro's health had never been too good when he was young, maybe because his parents had him old. He used to have asthma, but that ceased to be a problem after he took up swimming. His parents doted upon him, as he was their only child.Jiro has loved to draw since young, and made it his goal to enter Fushing College of the Arts. When he graduated from high school, he clutched his acceptance letter from Fushing and bounded home, intending to use that as a Father's Day gift for his father. But when he reached home, he found an ambulance outside his house, and with a heavy heart pounding in tandem with his footsteps he raced home, only to learn that his father had had a fall. Jiro's father had never been able to get up since. He was hospitalised for diabetes.
Because his father was hospitalised and his mother was no longer working, compounded with the issue of hefty school fees for Fushing College, Jiro began sourcing for odd jobs everywhere to support the family. His father continued to be hospitalised for five years before diabetes took him. Before he died, Jiro's father told him that he had to take on the responsibility of supporting the family. Jiro agreed. His father left.
That year when he turned eighteen was probably the start of Jiro's financial problems. He had to repay the debt his father owed when the latter bought the house, amounting to six million NTD. Jiro had to look everywhere for a job, and sometimes had to juggle three jobs at once. He had to play multiple roles, sometimes as a mascot in an amusement park or the zoo, sometimes handing out flyers, sometimes as a waiter in a bar, a sales assistant in a boutique, freelance model. He even worked as an odd-job labourer, those who work at construction sites, carrying buckets of mud and steel bars. Sometimes, he also hawked items in fairs till late at night.
After his father died, leaving behind a trail of financial debts, a lot of Jiro's friends persuaded him to sell his house. But Jiro was adamant about not selling it, only saying, "It's a memory my father left for us. I won't sell it."
In 2006, after the band Fahrenheit (an idol quartet that Jiro is part of) became famous, Jiro finally managed to repay his debts. But he continues to leave only five thousand NTD (about one hundred and seventy USD) for himself a month because he had to repay the bank interest of his father's loan. [In 2008, Jiro managed to completely pay off all his debts, and even bought a second-hand car. In 2010, he bought himself a new bike that he likes to ride along the coast.]
Jiro's road to stardom was rocky, to say the least. At eighteen, he formed a band named DCW with his college friends, and was the lead singer and guitarist. They went around performing and entered competitions. Because of his outstanding performance and good looks, he was scouted by an agent and signed on by an international record company. Then, he had high hopes for his future, but then came the 9/11 incident and half of the staff from the company was laid off. His dreams of becoming a musician were dashed.To single-handedly bear the task of propping up the family is a challenge for someone so young. As he narrated his story to the reporter, he couldn't help but let the tears fall. It was a relief to the reporter, in fact; it was better than seeing him hold back his tears and eke out a watery smile.
Despite how tired he was, Jiro is always meticulous about his appearance and how he presents himself in front of the camera. He has always put in more effort than others in the industry. In Fahrenheit, bandmate Wu Chun, often dubbed the Bruneian prince, owns two fitness centres back home; Aaron's father is a renowned doctor; and Calvin's father is in the export business. Apart from Jiro, the rest of Fahrenheit grew up in well-to-do families, while Jiro faces mounting debts at home.
"There's nothing fair or unfair about it." He squeezed out a beatific smile, like one of those commonly seen in idol dramas. "Maybe my life was more colourful than those of my peers then. Because I came out to work early, I've gained a lot of work experience."But the truth is bleaker than he makes it out to be. He even worked in construction sites, where he was eighteen, where he had to carry steel bars and buckets of mud around and lay sewage piping.
"I see that as a chance to work out. It seems I've been working out since high school!" he laughed, cracking a joke at his expense in his usual upbeat manner.
His father's illness turned him from an introverted boy into a bubbly extrovert, because that was the only way he knew how to mask his worries so that no one would see his weakness, his vulnerability.
"When I was young, I'd cry even when I had to receive an award on stage. But until my dad fell sick, I wanted to make myself stronger, so that everyone would see me as the happy kid, because I didn't want to make my mom worry."
That was how he nurtured his outgoing, bubbly nature."For my mother, I think anything is worth doing. It's my duty." His nose twitched slightly. His eyes reddened. It was apparent he was about to cry, but when his agent offered him a tissue, he said, "It's okay. I can hold it in."
"When I'm all wiped out from acting, my mother would worry about my health and wake up half an hour earlier to prepare a nutritious breakfast for me. No matter how late I reach home, she would still be waiting up for me. She often says I'm her best sleeping pill - when I'm not at home, she can't get to sleep. When I reach home and come out from a bath, I'd already hear her yawning. She really has it worse than me."
Family is, quite evidently, Jiro's Achilles' heel. Just ten seconds ago he said he was a man who didn't cry, but he let his tears fall freely now.
"My father was sincere in courting my mother. She often said to me, if you're going to find a girlfriend, you have to learn a thing or two from your father. My mother was a seamstress, and when she and my father had a date at six p.m., he would already be waiting nearby at two."
All he has left are these scattered bittersweet memories. His father's illness marked the start of Jiro's difficulties and challenges. He was the lead singer of his band in high school, DCW, and devoted hours to practising, so that he could temporarily forget about the possibility of losing his family.
In the end, his father died on 23 December.
With a wan smile, Jiro said, "My bandmates and I had practised hard for a performance on Christmas eve. I didn't want to go for the performance anymore, but my mother urged me to." He paused to choke on the last few words. With a shaky breath, he went on, "So from then on, every time I'm on stage, I feel like I can hear my father cheering me on. But I feel bad for my mom; she's had to shoulder so many responsibilities."
His father left a pile of debt behind. Jiro took on a seemingly insurmountable challenge. But what else was there to do apart from holding up his smile? His friend egged him on to take up modelling, and go for singing auditions. But his hopes to form a band with Jay Chou and Jordan Chan (HK singer) were dashed because of the 9/11 incident.
He recalls, "I was slated to release a record after Jay and Jordan. But after half the staff from BMG were laid off, I crashed to the ground after being buoyed by my expectations. That night, I cried like a baby, because I felt like I'd let a lot of people down, especially my mother."
After his supporting role in idol drama, It Started With a Kiss, Jiro's career plummeted into a three year-low waiting stint. He went to serve in the military, but never gave up on his dreams.
"I was quite foolish then. With my background and serving environment, I couldn't afford to pursue my dreams. But then I thought, I was still young, anyway, so why not go for it? I didn't want to grow old and tell my children, 'Daddy regrets that when he was young he didn't dare to chase his dreams.'"
The toil he went through in his early years conditioned him into a versatile and persistent artiste. In Hana Kimi, another idol drama filmed in 2005, Jiro starred as the second male lead in 2005, alongside Fahrenheit bandmate Wu Chun, who played the first male lead.When a reporter commented, "You used to be the star of Fahrenheit, but after Wu Chun joined the group, it seems he's stolen the stage from you," Jiro replied, picking his words with care, "There's no such thing as stealing the stage. He may take on the lead role today, and tomorrow maybe someone else will. Anyone can perch on the crest of the wave. I won't be affected by what reporters write. I even wish Chun would bring me to Brunei! Of course, if he sponsors my ticket, I won't complain."
The reporter went on to ask, "It's often rumoured that you and Wu Chun don't interact very much with each other. Is that true?"
"How can that be true? Although the four of us have very different personalities and opinions, we're all adults. At most, we'll fight it out and be done with it!" he laughed. "I'm kidding. No, we have very different temperaments. The media and the rest of the audience just like to magnify these differences and make comparisons among us. That's not a problem among us. After all, we've been together for two years and counting [five now], so we've fostered a close friendship through work. Fahrenheit consists of the four of us, and for me, it's like having three more brothers. We rely on and support one another, all of us fighting for a common goal!"Because he feels he is not as well-endowed as his Fahrenheit bandmates, Jiro pushes himself to work doubly hard. He used to have asthma, and now only squeezes in a couple of hours of sleep because of his hectic work schedule. Often, he was overworked and suffered from frequent nosebleeds and once, even meningitis (inflammation of protective membranes around the brain).
But Jiro said, "Unless I'm hospitalised, I won't say no to work. That time when I fainted on the set, I was really beaten. And the best thing was, I only fainted after we wrapped up for the day. I already felt nauseous when we were filming, but I knew that if I fell then, a lot of people's schedules would be affected by me."
Although, if you asked him what was the biggest sacrifice he'd ever had to make in order to achieve his goals, he would tell you, "Time. Time with my family."
When asked why he wants to perform on stage, he said, "Because my father used to like having me sing in front of his friends and our relatives. My father was my biggest fan."
He said with the money he's earning now, he would like to take his mother on a vacation. "I want to bring her to Disneyland [he's done it], to Holland to see the tulips (it's the flower his father frequently gave his mother) in bloom, to Greece to see the temples, to China to see the Great Wall...."Asked about the most perfect woman on earth, Jiro replies without hesitation, "My mother. And the man I aspire to be is someone like my father, dependable and strong, one who will walk to the end of the world with the girl he loves and never let go of her hand."
Now that he is able to provide a comfortable life for his family, his father is unable to enjoy it, so Jiro lavishes his mother extravagantly. He hopes his father in heaven can see that he is taking care of his mother for him. He usually wears accessories that do not quite match the amulet bracelet his mother got for him from the temple. He never takes it off because he knows that his safety is the biggest consolation and source of happiness for his mother.
A boy who loves drawing, pencil and paper are his closest companions. For his autobiography, he drew a family portrait along with other works. In it, he is a young boy of five, flashing a mischievous grin and the victory sign while sitting in the lap of his mother. She smiles mildly ahead, her husband's arm around her. He, on the other hand, seems stern, but in his eyes belies a gentleness that is conveyed through his hand on his wife's shoulder. This is the time Jiro wishes to return to. That family portrait exists only in his mind (it's not an actual photo - Jiro has never taken a proper photo with his parents because one of them is always the one taking the photo) - he can only rely on his memory to create that portrait.
"When I'm drawing, I get transported back to the happiest time of my life: my childhood."
Original article: Jiro Wang selected as top ten most filial sons
Translated by: Joyce C.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
So. We've crossed over to 2011. Without much fanfare. On my part, at least. I was dog-tired yesterday, so just slept my way through the midnight mark. Just like last year. And possibly the year before.
It seems New Years present the highest surge in everything. Hope and enthusiasm, most of all. Everyone's eager to get started on their New Year resolutions and make this year the pivotal year of their lives. Turn their lives around (if it had sucked before) so to speak. Just at the pool today I saw so many new faces, all eagerly diving into the water, brimming with the eager hopefulness of trimming down or getting fit. A few months later, these new faces usually disappear. That's what happened last year. And possibly the year before, too.
Anyway. I shan't get cynical again. Because for all my scorn for New Year resolutions, I've come up with an unofficial one too. And being less cynical and disillusioned is one of my resolutions for 2011. Much as I don't place much stock in New Year resolutions (if you really want to do something, why wait till next year?), this list is more of a promise - a reminder, if you will - to myself.
1. Write SOMETHING everyday. Be it a blog post, an essay, even just a haiku - write.
2. Meet people. Stop shying away from making new friends and find topics to talk about with the old. I shall leave this at that.
3. Be less disillusioned and jaded with life. Find more interests. Find inspiration.
4. Have hope.
5. Be happy - to put my father's mind at ease. He's always worried that I'm unhappy or dissatisfied. I am, but I don't want him to see it. He's working long hours at the sales floor, tired, busy and stressed. I don't want him to worry about me anymore. So I'll channel Jiro's undefeatable spirit, so that my dad will see me happy and be happy in turn. This brings me to
6. Remember Sunflower Baby, Jiro. He was poor, and had to juggle three part-time jobs while studying in an arts college after his father died when he was 18. He met lots of obstacles on his way to becoming an artist and an artiste, but he never gave up his first love: art. He's recently published his autobiography, Me and van Gogh, which contains his art works, and has sold more than a million copies so far. Persistence in pursuing his dreams! Corny as that may sound, his persistence makes me want to strive even harder to reach mine.
[Sidenote: I really don't think Jiro's just a pretty face. Sure, he's absolutely good-looking, but his upbeat, unbeatable personality spurs me on to think on the brighter side of life. I realise I'm employing way too many cliched phrases for my health, but looking at him gives me hope, because he's Sunflower Baby! Tenacious, outgoing, passionate, loyal. He brings joy to the people he loves, and asks for none back. His pure, childlike heart and thoughtfulness is probably the reason why so many people love him in return. His past is moving, his present empowering, his future limitless.]
You begin to see why New Year resolutions don't work for me. Most of them are abstract to the extent of being pointless. But, you know, in the spirit of all things new, I drew up one for the sake of it.
What I want to do/achieve in 2011:
1. Learn the piano. My biggest regret was when I turned down my dad's offer to put me in a music school when I was young, all because I was afraid the teacher would be fierce. He said he didn't want to pressure me, so he didn't insist when I rejected learning the piano.
2. Land a literary agent who believes strongly in my manuscript, Lambs for Dinner.
3. Complete two novels by the end of 2011. At the moment, I have THREE Shiny New Ideas waiting to be developed. To have three SNIs is completely rare, for me at least - and for most writers - but the ideas came as I was working on The Dreamcatchers and now I don't know which one to work on while I work my way out of the rut I've gunned myself into for The Dreamcatchers.
Long story short, I resolve to be more optimistic and push through until I get what I want: to get published. And in the meantime, I shall adopt Jiro's approach to life and be happy so that the people I love will be happy.
Happy 2011!
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