Another possibility...

It looks like that when I grow up I'll have improved chances of getting a (real) job in Europe: "The EU, which lags behind the United States and Japan in terms of funding for research and development, aims to become the world's most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010." Btw. Yes, somewhat selfishly, I hope that sooner rather then later Cro will be "one of Europe's Stars" (T. Ivčić).

25,414,760,448

km...!

Choices, choices...

In my opinion this is a good 'problem' to have, a quality, or even a privileged 'problem'.

Yesterday I updated my Personalised Google page with more feeds to address the current interests (human sciences and more techie news...). Ray told me once that 'one's research should be about pursuing one's interest'. Unsurprisingly, I went on to generalise this by saying that 'not just research... a life should be about pursuing one's interest', which has underlying assumption that "All life is an experiment." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

So now when I logged in and noticed the feed titled Human Journey, it was a no-brainer click. It leads to the blog entry with the interesting line:

"The art of living is, in its essential meaning, a development and transformation of the power of inward choice."

This is nicely complemented with the inquiry that was part of Luka's eM signature "What is the best use of my now".

Either way, a 'problem' or with 'transformation of the power ', with 'best use', or whatever else might be applicable to choices, when it comes to our own, I hope we can all join Frank Senatra in singing:

I’ve done it my way...!

Ps: off to get that lecture material ready for this Monday :)

Teach less Learn more

This is the latest ‘catch phrase’ that the Poly's Teaching and Learning Centre is using to advertise the ‘new’ approach to teaching. After going though their induction day for International Fellows, I felt rather confident, as what they consider as ‘new’ is very much the same way tutorials are run at the unimelb. In a nutshell, what TLC is advocating, is a move from an Oracle, know-it-all, type of a teacher, to a more human facilitator who is more concerned with students’ wellbeing ant not in love with the subject material.

Back in Melbourne my (very) low power, friendly, facilitating approach to teaching worked very well, so I decided to start of with it here as well, and adjust things as needed. So far there hasn't been much need for adjustments, and things are going rather well, but we’re about to start only 4th of 16 teaching weeks, so better leave evaluation for later.

The reason why I mentioned extra effort for appreciation of different style of teaching is two fold (not to just put it due to the socio-political circumstances). One, as evident by TLC’s new campaign for ‘less teaching...’, is that it seems that students are quite comfortable with teacher running though all the slides while most of them are engaged in their own world via their laptops.

And second, as I’ve heard a lot about before arriving here, the students are less mature then the ones I’ve got accustom to. The difference in age is small, but the one in their attitude towards the studies is rather significant. So for the example, an obstacle to efficient lessons is a laptop. As the School does not have a typical computer lab setting, the students are required to bring their laptops. By having their own laptops, there is no regulation on what kind of software can be installed. This means that lecture time is games, games, and more games for guys and as many Korean TV soaps for girls. And, of course everybody’s into on-line chat, chat, chat… (Helping a student last week to debug a Java program, I was laughing at the frequency of msn chat’s notification popping up in the system tray… easily 1 in 5 seconds.)

Ideally, I would get all my students to:
a) take more responsibility for their studies (unlike some lecturers, I'm not going to be giving them a call to a mobile to remind them about their exam the night before - an extreme and isolated example, I hope).
b) think for themselves, it seems that they are not used to questions such as 'what do you think' n 'why'...
c) actively participate by asking questions and commenting on each others answers.

Thanks to circumstances, it will be hard to achieve the above, as I’ll have to get them to realise it for themselves without (explictitly) telling it to them.

And by the way, a thing that I’ll have to get accustom to is being referred to as MrZoran/Sir/Teacher/Cher, as quite a number of students cannot seem to get over the power barrier and refer to me by the 1st name only, without any prefixes or titles.

I like it a LOT

...is the standard answer to the usual question of '...So how do you like it in Singapore'. It's two months today since I landed here, and if I just think about all the specifics of my situation, I have a little grin stretching across my face...

There are two main reasons for it:
It was a while back on one of our walks to his car when Boxy asked me: 'what do you want?', and my answer was 'different lifestyle'. And on the arrival here, all that the word 'lifestyle' implied at the time, was basically handed to me. Nothing against my previous lifestyle, but it was just that after 20 years of doing the same thing in a very much the same way I was well due, or should I say overdue, for a change...

The second reason is rather simple: I've expected it to be a working holiday and it is. My first travelling destination, not counting that little trip to Malaysia, is India. The furthest destination West I was thinking about was Myanmar, India came as a possibility and then a realisation very quickly and very 'accidentally', very me!

As they say 'without sorrows there is no sweets', and the reason I find all this so 'sweet' is that it took me five yeas to get here. Similarly to recently retired Michael Schumacher who explained why his best memory was his title win in 2000: "We had a lot of hard work and setbacks so when we finally won it, it was the most beautiful championship." I say it took me five yeas, and not 20 to get here, because it was then, when I first moved to Melbourne, that I started thinking what is it that I've done during my undergraduate degree, and what kind of a job would I want to get, and how could I get... it was a while after that that I came to, what I see now as even more important question, why is it that I want it...

In summary, what it is that 'I like a lot', is mianly due to my outlook to the context. I like Singapore, but this is not about the city, this could have been Melbourne, Auckland, Zadar or abc...

Routine

...fighting it, while looking for it at the same time...

It's been now almost 2 months that I've been here, and I guess I'm sort of developing the pattern in everyday things and slowly but surely settling into the comfortable lifestyle:

Breakfast: cereal, sometimes in addition a boiled (in a kettle) egg. I have assortments of cereals and few fruit and yogurt types available so the nuber of combinations keeps variety (sort of) present.

Work: It's 2nd week of teaching now. I have 4 classes, two for each subject that I'm teaching. Each class has between 20 and 23 students; this is the same as the case used to be at the Melbourne. The main difference is that with the groups of students I have been assigned, I run lectures, tutes as well as labs. Another difference is that I'll have to put in some extra effort to get the students to appreciate different mode of learning - after all, as my job title implies, I'm suppose to provide a different classroom experience.

Swim: I am getting better and better by the day. Paying attention to the technique by keeping in mind all the lessons I picked up from reading swimming articles, is paying dividends. As the end result, I can ‘feel’ myself being ‘pulled’ through the water by ‘holding’ onto it for increasingly long periods.

Dinner: with David/Shan/Ed. We end up at Auntie’s place on most nights. It is the restaurant in the stretch of restaurants that is located 5 min walk beyond the Hawker centre. The restaurant has a similar menu and prices as a Hawker place, plus a friendly customer service with a smile – an old little Auntie that likes us – CRM truly goes a long way. [Auntie/Uncle == Madam/Sir].
On nights that we’re not at Auntie’s place for dinner then we provide Shan with an opportunity to further practice his already excellent culinary abilities – you are welcome Bhai!

After dinner it’s either the bed time, or meet down here in the lobby area of the building for a drink (beer/cider/whisky...wather/tea) while browsing the net and talking cock (BS).

Cleaning: on most weekends I do some cleaning. I finally figured out what my sister was talking about when mentioning those machine cycles – clothes come out clean and somewhat nice smelling (maybe I should put in more softener) – thanks Yogic.
(Cheers) Suzanne, an IF fellow, left us her things, that got accumulated in the appartment during her one year stay, once she moved back home to States few weeks ago. Guess who picked up majority, if not all, of the cleaning stuff – once a cleaner, always a cleaner :)
Ideally I’d be swinging that mop around once a week, as the apartment gets rather dusty even though it is on the 8th floor. It must be due to the near by motorway and the fact that I keep all windows open all the time…

In a way it seems like the two months have gone by very quickly, but on the other hand acclimatising to lifestyle here felt rather effortless, mainly thanks to David, Shan and number of guys at work, so in a way I feel like I've been here for a long time. This reminds me of a comment from the (local) colleague, who joined the School few weeks after me: "Thought you’ve been here for at least two years."

Honeymoon period, no more

Officially, as of Monday this week the 'do nothing most of the time while at work' period is over. Yesterday I had 7 hours of teaching... in addition had to work on some exam questions (procrastination) as well. To make the welcome back to 'work' after 3 and a half months away from teaching even more exciting I only managed to get 4h of sleep the night before. Conditioning is truly a funny thing - unsurprisingly I couldn't just fall a sleep 4h before the usual bed time.

The 2nd day of teaching is in the books... - and the 3rd - so far so good...

The pictorial representation of the 'honeymoon period'