I have reached one of Blogger's inherent limits. Oddly, nowhere was it stated, in anything that I read, along the way, that Blogger had any limit such as this. You see, I cannot write any new labels. Apparently, Blogger only permits 2,000 different labels per blog. I find this most odd, since, surely, storage space on computers, these days, is rather cheap - so why limit the number of labels at all?

You will have noticed that I have stopped giving detailed labels at the ends of posts. This is because I cannot do so any longer. I can only use labels that I have used before. Thus, I am now permanently constrained to be non-specific and unclear in my labelling of posts. This has the effect, of course, of making posts more difficult to find.

It occurs to to me that Blogger must not have intended Blogspot to be supportive of people who really have a lot to write about. Perhaps they anticipated that "bloggers" would be: a) very repetitive so in need of few different labels b) unproductive, writing little, so having little need for new labels c)that bloggers would give up blogging long before they reached these limits. Now, I must say that these assumptions are true of many bloggers. Most blogs are abandoned soon after they are begun (when people realize that they don't write themselves and require daily attention). Most bloggers do, in fact, write on a narrow range of topics - some blogs are incredibly slender in their focus. So, too, many bloggers write relatively little. So, given this, perhaps Blogger feel safe placing such a modest labelling limit on its blogs. Yet, this system punishes those they should most truly be supportive of: the productive, daily bloggers, who write consistently, across several topics, across the span of years. ALL of these bloggers will run out of labels, soon enough - and yet these are the most important bloggers of all. They are the ONLY bloggers who are actually keeping the platform alive and making it a substantial creative medium for people to enjoy.

So, I ask this of Blogger, should they ever read my words: shelve the label limit. Let bloggers use as many labels as they wish. It is clear that the ONLY bloggers punished by a label limit are the ones who should be most supported: the most productive bloggers. It seems both shortsighted and self-defeating to limit the output of the most productive writers. By doing so, Blogger is actually damaging its own platform. So, lift the label limit - and let me write as I please!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Art Singapore 2009 - The Contemporary Asian Art Fair.

Art Singapore 2009 has begun. We know, because Ainan was invited to the Gala Opening Party. Yes, that is right, he received his very own invitation. Of course, we accompanied him to the Art show!

It was, to me, a pleasant surprise to see the diversity of art and artists on show. Perhaps, an annual event like this, will give Singapore's nascent art world, the impetus it needs to become truly alive. The artists and galleries showing, come from all over Asia, and some appeared to be from Europe (there was at least one German gallery present). It is good to see this interconnectedness of Singapore's art world, with the wider world. Perhaps, through this mutual exchange, some Singaporean artists might make it on to the world stage - just as the world makes its way to Singapore.

It is quite possible that Ainan was the youngest person to be invited - and that led to a comic moment, which I shall not recount - I mention it here only to remind myself, in years to come, of how he was greeted.

Ainan enjoyed the evening rather more than he expected. He seemed to wish to interact with the works and did so when permitted: touching them, to feel their textures and peering closely at them to see how they were made (which he would then comment on perceptively, sometimes debunking the artist's work, once the method was revealed). It was rewarding to watch him think about something outside the realm of science, and see how he perceived it, processed it, and understood it. At times, he even laughed at pieces - in a positive way. So, it was a good evening.

Thanks to Art Singapore 2009 for their invitation. It is definitely a worthwhile exhibition and all who can, should get along to Suntec City to catch it before its close on October 12th. You will be as pleasantly surprised by the range of work on show, as we were. There are, without doubt, interesting artists at work, in Asia. See it!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

The worst kind of student.

Those who have never taught, have never had the chance to learn many valuable lessons about human nature. Some of those lessons, however, can be rather depressing.

I recall once teaching a group of Chinese students from the PRC. They were not the stereotypical Chinese students. They were neither particularly bright - in fact they were a bit dull - nor were they particularly industrious - in fact they were rather lazy.

Typically, whenever set a task that involved speaking, this group of students (four boys) would sit and do nothing. They never even attempted to do the tasks. However, they did mumble to each other in Chinese, throughout. Whenever they were asked to do written tasks, they made relatively little effort and their output was among the poorest in the class. Now, none of this might have mattered much were it not for what they did outside the class.

Every week, this group of students would complain, in Chinese, to the Chinese management of this school that they "weren't learning anything". It transpires that they had been told, in China, before coming here, that they would learn English in "three months". They seemed also to believe that this learning process would occur magically, without any effort on their part at all.

Now, everytime this particular group of students complained, I would get hauled up by management for it. The manager would then tell me things which they had said such as: "He never marks our work"...which were wholly untrue. I made a point of correcting everything they ever wrote. The sessions would turn into a "he said, she said" ritual, in which I was accused of things which never happened - yet it was just my word against the word of these very lazy students.

It was dispiriting teaching them. You see, everyday I would have to stand up in front of them and teach them - while watching them play brain dead, knowing, that they were stabbing me in the back, on a weekly basis.

The funny thing is, that in the very same class, there were students who wrote feedback that I was the "best teacher they had had". The difference was, of course, that the ones who liked my teaching made an effort to do the work - and the ones who didn't, blamed the teacher for their lack of progress, rather than taking a good look at their lack of effort.

Experiences like this one, rather put people off teaching. You see, the teacher is attacked for the students' own failings. The students, in this case, were just not willing to make the effort to learn - but blamed their failure to do so, on the teacher. The management of the school, in question, seemed to side with the students because "they pay the bills" and "we can't afford to lose them". Thus, the teacher is in the strange position of being appreciated by some students as the "best teacher" and attacked by other students on a weekly basis, and by the management of the school, as well.

In the end, such experiences lead one to conclude that teaching is not worth the effort of the teacher - so one is lead to look at other avenues.

This kind of situation could be prevented if there were higher standards of recruitment. If a student is not really motivated to study and is just there because their parents want them to be there, perhaps they shouldn't be there at all. Let them stay in China, for they won't do any good coming here to laze around and complain about everything including the food (they love to complain about that, too). My advice to them: stay home and watch TV. Don't waste the time of your teachers, or the money of your parents. It is better than becoming a toxic presence in a classroom.

Of course, they will never read my advice because they can't read well. So, I suppose I shall just have to wish for a world in which such students only exist in nightmares.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Shopping, national superiority and organic growth.

Singapore is a country filled with people busily feeling superior to their neighbours. I have long noticed this and long been puzzled by it. You see, I don't, personally, see that this sense of superiority is particularly well-founded.



It is true that Singapore is a polished country. It is a country that gleams. Every little corner seems to have been organized by someone. Nothing is out of place. Nothing is, more to the point, ALLOWED to be out of place. It is a country controlled down to the very last leaf on a tree. Yet, it could be said that this is a failing as much as a strength. The degree to which a country is controlled, is also the degree to which it is not allowed to breath, to live, to become. Singapore is such a country: perfect in every way, except that it died, long ago. By "died", I mean, stopped living, growing, breathing, organically, as most countries do. There is nothing organic about Singapore, it is, in a sense, the most synthetic country one could ever imagine. There is nothing authentic about any of it, in the least. Everything is imported, imitated or derived. Nothing is created organically, from within - indeed, it seems as if those who are born to create are not encouraged to do so. Perhaps they would upset the order of the way things are - and so they tend to be disparaged, marginalized and, at the very least, underemployed and under-utilized. At least, that is the experience of certain creative people I know, in Singapore: they find it difficult to find a good, remunerative position in life, here, and tend to be pushed to the corners.



Now, I have meandered a little wide of my initial intention, but it is good that I have done so, for it sets the sense of superiority that one observes in Singapore, in a broader context.



Today, I wish to address one little observation. Singaporeans are a nation that loves to shop. Indeed, shopping is about the only thing many Singaporeans do for enjoyment. It is, almost, their sole pursuit (the other being the pursuit of the money necessary to allow them to indulge their desire to shop). Given their love of shopping, one would expect Singaporean shops to be great, to match that desire. Indeed, they are quite good. However, Singaporeans seem to think that they have a monopoly on good shops. There is a feeling that their shops are somehow better than everyone else's. Their malls are a focus of national pride. There is a kind of one-upmanship in the world of shopping, going on. Singaporeans seem to think that, not only are they the best shoppers in the world, but that they have the best shops, too. I have one question for them: have they ever been to Kuala Lumpur to shop?



You see, recently, I had the chance to see what the shops were like in Kuala Lumpur. I was, I must say, rather surprised. The shopping malls in KL are BIGGER than the ones in Singapore. What's more - they are BETTER, too. The malls are more spacious, less crowded, often better planned. In Singapore, by contrast, the shops are small, overcrowded and cramped. There is a claustrophobic feel to many Singaporean malls - even on Orchard Road - by comparison to what I observed in Kuala Lumpur.


Yet, of course, merely saying this will attract venomous comment from the type of Singaporean that is nationalistic and likes to defend Singapore at all costs. However, what I say is true and logically consistent. You see Malaysia has something in abundance that Singapore has very little of: space. It is a no-brainer that Malaysia can afford to build bigger, more spacious malls. They simply have more space and the land is cheaper. It is not a difficult thing to do, for them, if they so wish. Yet, still, it was a surprise for me. It was a surprise precisely because Singaporeans are ALWAYS doing down Malaysia. I have heard so many knocking comments about Malaysia since I came here - and read so many not so subtly critical stories in the press, as well. So, I was led to expect the worst from KL. What I found there surprised me, in many ways. It seems to me that a middle-class Malaysian probably has a better life, materially, than a middle-class Singaporean. They have so much personal space that their lives can only be described as more open, than those I have observed in Singapore.



I am not about to go into my thoughts, in detail, in this post, but I just want to observe that much of what I saw there contradicts the views of Singaporeans that constantly disparage Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur. Yes, Singapore does shops, well...but in no way does KL do them less well. In fact, in many ways, they do them better - at least in KL. The same could be said for certain other aspects of the city, as well - though it has to be said that Singapore's public transport system is far superior to KL's. So, each city has certain strengths. Yet, it should be made known, that the winner in comparisons between the two cities is NOT always Singapore, as Singaporeans seem to think.



If you are a Singaporean reading this, and you have never shopped in KL, there are plenty good malls to check out: One Utama, The Pavilion, The Curve and so on...the city is full of great malls.



Happy shopping, wherever you happen to be doing it. What's more, keep an open mind while you are there and see KL for what it is, and not for what you have been told it is. In many ways, it is a city that, although less planned and less ordered, is also more organic and more varied, than Singapore. It is a city of more possibilities, therefore, in some ways than Singapore. If you doubt this - go see for yourself - and open your eyes and use your imagination.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)