Stuff to do

1) Exercise. Starting tomorrow.

2) Teacher recommendations. Two down, quite a number to go. Have to read those portfolios as well.

3) PSC SARs. Ugh.

4) Fallout 3 / Far Cry 2.

5) Reading. With one eye on next year.
Posted by kungfuzi at 9:05 pm | 0 comments

  It's over

The exam was earlier today, and with it came the close of one cycle and my first ever A-Levels as a teacher. There won't be many of those. As for the paper, well, let's just say that History examiners, of all people, should know what it means to respect dates and their constraints on the syllabus. Section B was do-able however. And our scripts, relative to those of others, should be of higher quality.

Interestingly enough, I came across one of my A-Level papers today, along with the examiner's reports for both papers, hidden away in a dusty green file that Mrs Sng left behind when she left all those years ago. I can't remember the questions that I attempted, except for the piracy one, which to this day I have no idea how I managed, given that it was not something we covered in class at all. Then again, back then we were a lot more independent-minded. All my knowledge came from books (Weiss, Forsythe, and Coate on the UN, Jonathan Spence and Immanuel Hsu on China, this huge volume on East and Southeast Asia specifically for A-Level students), articles (Foreign Affairs had this nice one on the nationalities problem in post-Soviet Russia, while all I knew about world trade came from this one article from the Economist), and random stuff off the Internet (this was before Wikipedia). Making the transition to university life was easier as a result. I'm not sure it will be -- academically at least -- for a lot of this generation.
Posted by kungfuzi at 6:39 pm | 3 comments

  Believe

From Football365:

Liverpool's display was a masterclass in match-management, a lesson in how suffocate opponents, in exploiting and revealing weaknesses, in the power of discipline, in refusing to yield the initiative.

Entertainment in football can take many different forms. Sunday's game would have been subdued viewing for those who have bought into the modern-day, TV-dictated definition that an entertaining game of football is a game of numerous goalmouth action and endless end-to-end breaks. This was a throwback, a reminder for those who can appreciate the skill of controlling as a game as an artform that football works best as a contest. It's not just about how you play; how you make the opposition play matters just as much. Liverpool's performance was a demonstration in how to make good on a piece of slight fortune and win. As such, it was close to perfection.

That Xabi Alonso's 10th-minute shot required a deflection to make its transformation from hopeful punt to match-winning strike is undeniable. Yet, with eighty minutes still on the clock, Chelsea had ample time in which to make their response. Their stage was set; either they scored or they lost. Simple, really. And yet despite the clarity of that knowledge, they managed to create a grand total of one chance. One.

A lucky win? Forget it. A boring win? Forget about football if you couldn't appreciate its quality.

Posted by kungfuzi at 5:56 pm | 0 comments