Here’s the man driving the combination golf-cart/vacuum cleaner this morning. There are two or three of these machines on campus, and they are driven by elderly men in sun hats. They get started before the traffic does, and their job is to clean the gutters of all the roads on campus. Too bad I didn’t […]
I know I’ve mentioned the hideous fence that’s going up around the campus to protect the YOG contestants – or maybe keep them from running amok in the local jungle. So since I complain about it, I just thought I’d show you how it looks: The view without the fence: Two views of the same […]
I think I mentioned before that this is a great walk – 13-15 kilometers of water, plants, a few animals, and a bit of peace and quiet. Of course we last did this hike during Chinese New Year, and there were some guys having a “Good New Year Yell:” they took turns standing at one […]
My colleague explained yesterday the precise mechanism of getting cars off the road in Singapore: you buy your car for about $100k, drive it for ten years, each year paying plenty in parking fees, ERP fees (they charge you to drive downtown during peak hours), and registration fees, as well as maintenance, insurance and gas. […]
OK, so we know that Singapore is not America. There are advantages to this; believe me, I can see them. On the other hand, yesterday’s Straits Times newspaper featured a half-page article, the upshot of which is that if a Singaporean uses an English name it’s a sign of insecurity – a symptom of post-colonial […]
NIE, Singapore’s National Institute of Education, will host the Youth Olympic Games arts and cultural events in the evenings during the games. So for the two weeks of the Games proper, plus a week on either end – in fact, the whole of August – NIE will be non-functional. But that doesn’t mean its employees […]
This August, the world’s first-ever Youth Olympic Games (YOG) will be held in Singapore. Moreover, they will be held at the university campus where I live and work. First, inquiring minds want to know, what do they mean by Youth Olympics? When regular Olympic women gymnasts are routinely 14 years old, will Singapore be hosting […]
Since it’s of interest to anyone watching the U.S. healthcare death struggle, I thought I’d tell you a few prices. We have health insurance through the university, where my spouse is a professor. He upgraded coverage for our family of three, to the maximum best-possible coverage, and for this we pay $700 (Singapore currency) a […]
Top-down management is a double-edged sword. First, the good side: In Singapore education, the highest power is the Ministry of Education. It determines the curriculum for all schools, grades and levels, trains teachers and administrators, provides budgets and money and administers the exams that determine how well kids are doing and how well individual schools […]
The Xmas decor is up, and the main shopping districts are having their annual contest to see which one wins the prize. We live nowhere near Orchard Road or the Esplanade, where the main shopping action is, but our local mall has expanded and become one of the biggest in Singapore, and is amazingly full […]