Preparing students for which real world?

Delaqroux Inc Updates
This blog entry is in regards of my colleague's interesting status update on Facebook that i came across which questioned whether if the Malaysian curriculum preparing students for the real world? And if yes, which real world?

I was particularly intrigued by the question "which real world?" It was not further elaborated in that status update but from what i understand (and my familiarity of my colleague), this question is focusing on how much are we preparing our students to think from a global perspective and to deal with the REAL real world? And based on my observation on the curriculum and the syllabus, am i wrong to think that it seemed as if we're preparing Malaysian students to be good Malaysian citizens (which I'm not denying how important this is), but not as a member of the global community? This doubt of mine came about when i realized there's not much content in the textbook that touches on global issues, world histories and.. worldly stuffs. I'll get to that in a second.

Yes, i know it's the responsibility of the teacher to bring such matters into classes on their own initiatives and i really respect the teachers who did. But in regards to our teaching material, - let's focus on the textbook for this matter - are the contents enough to have ALL teachers thinking "i should have my students thinking about 9/11 incident, or oppression of a culture or a community to develop critical views of real world problems"? To put this in a view, I seemed to realize that we are teaching our students more on writing complaint letters about the lack of trash cans in a local park. Dont get me wrong. Writing complaint letters is quite "real world" but if we provide the context of students writing to be as littlest as lack of rubbish bins, what of other "real world" issues like; debating a stand, make a politically correct statement or changing the opinion of the masses?

Before you ask "dont you think it's a little too early to be teaching kids about terrorism?", well, i question myself that alot as well. But my answer to that question lies with a google search of "ESL lesson plan ideas for high school teaching". A grade 9 lesson plan requires the students to prepare a presentation based on their research of a cultural history and common misconceptions of that culture. Another lesson plan had students preparing an informational essay on historic events that changed the world and based on the essay rubric, they are to explain more of the incident, talk about how the event changed the world, and what they think of the event and how THE WORLD should learn from it based on their own opinion. Yes, these two lesson plans sound like university grade essay writing task but based on the sample of students' work; while they are not as in-depth as a university student's work should be, they showed much thoughts being put in. For the first LP, a group of students wrote on Muslim community and the misconception of Muslims being all Arabs and violent. The second LP had a student writing about Hiroshima bombing and how it stopped the WWII even if it's such "a 'terrorist' thing to do". If those students can think about all that, why do we think our Malaysian students arent capable of that?

In all, I personally see the English language as a medium for students to connect with the outside world and if we dont start debating on how much of social studies are we bringing in to the students, i honestly think our students will see English as a subject, not as a language, and a school as a place to get an exam cert not as a place to prepare them for the future.

And before i end this blogpost, here's a picture of my students that have nothing to do with the topic :D
Delaqroux Out

Sweet (Jeebus) Potato :D

Delaqroux Inc Updates.

So i was in Jaya Jusco, Wangsa Maju the other day, shopping groceries (yeah, i do shop for groceries. that's how i roll). I was somewhere walking by the foodcourt when suddenly this one (Indian) voice came out loud screaming "SUDAH SIAP MASAK" <-- yeah, it's in capital letters. It was that loud. I noticed that i wasnt the only who heard that call but for some reason, everyone who heard the call had this carnivorous look in them. Their eyes seems to be saying "FINALLY, I'VE BEEN WAITING FO THAT SHIZ" <-- also in capital. the thoughts in their eyes were that obvious. And thus, a stall in front of the Jusco entrance was crowded instantly. Me, being curious, decided to join along the crowd

Apparently, it was this stall selling chestnuts and baked sweet potatoes. The potatoes were the one that was just came out of the oven and people were swarming over that, grabbing at least a kilo each (like, seriously, wtf?). So i was like, seriously, wtf and bought a 100g of them sweet potatoes when the crowd cleared away just to try a bite. I mean, seriously, what was all the hype about right? Oh, and btw, i noticed the Indian guy selling the sweet potatoes asked me "just a 100g?". Pfft.. well, yeah, how good can baked sweet potatoes be that i would by a kilo for myself.

But first, let me get this out of the way. I like fried/baked potato wedges. i mean, i can never get enough of that stuff. KL's mashed potatoes - i worship his recipe and i cant get enough of that too. Sydney baked corn by The Rocks Market, that was quite a bomb. 

And, to our matter at hand now - baked japanese sweet potatoes; IT WAS THE BEST OF BOTH WORLD! Both all soft mash-y and sweet in the flest inside but hard enough on the outside it was baked! I mean, i dont usually like mashed potatoes coz it's too soft that you have to eat them with a spoon. Baked corn? Yeah, you can hold them upright and it's all crunchy but i rather have something sweet and soft (okay, i'm not being complacent here. i just wanna get my point across) But baked sweet potatoes, it's both baked and soft! And on top it all, it's sweet! It's genius! I mean, seriously, my first bite and i was all "WHHHAAADEEFAAAKKK???!!!" <-- SERIOUSLY, IN CAP LETTERS COZ IT'S THAT AWESOME! I mean, who would have phunked?

And if you think i'm exaggerating, just google up "baked japanese sweet potato" on the net and read up all those opinions on people who've tried eating them. If you think i'm exaggerating, then i supposed it's a flash mob out there of people spazzing out on their dose of sweet potatoes.

In any case, how hard can baking sweet potatoes be right? With that in mind, i took shit in my own hands (....figuratively) and bought some raw sweet potatoes from Tesco yesterday. Yeah, imma bake em one of these days bitches. I'm hardcore like that. Maybe the next blogpost is going to be about that. Wait for it :D

Delaqroux Out.

Caput Draconis

Delaqroux Inc Updates
Today, i realized that i was not able to log in to my twitter account. For some reason, i've been keying in all my possible passwords matched with all my email addresses whole morning (that was an exaggeration of course. My mornings are always spent with productive activities) - and still no log in! Probably it's because of the fact that, much like my blogger account, i rarely come back and post stuffs and thus, my account is probably closed down. Maybe twitter thought i am dead.

Anyways, somehow the word "Caput Draconis" came into my mind. Anyone have any idea what this is? It's been bugging me for the whole day. It's like one of those thing that came up in your thoughts but you cant remember where you got it and what does it mean.

Delaqroux Out.
p/s: okay, here's the truth; the reason why i'm making this short post is because i am getting paranoid that blogger might shut down my account as well if i'm not posting stuffs regularly. Oh well, you can call it a motivation to write too in a way...

Keluang Man Rises?

Delaqroux Inc Updates
I've just watched the recent trailer on Dark Knight Rises and some parts of the trailer somehow reminded me of something that i (day)dreamed of as a kid, that is; to take ownership rights of Keluang Man and make my own storyline take of the animation series.

Yep, Keluang Man. Ring any bells?

Keluang Man is a Malaysian comedy caped-crusader hero based on the animal "Fruit Bat" (Keluang) with appearance closely resemble the ever popular hero Batman. Keluang Man, however, goes around with the attitude of Spiderman/Deadpool - highly comedic and almost ultimately memorable by his verbally annoying remarks towards his enemies. The show was aired from 1997 to 1999, where the series stopped due to its drop of popularity - in which was suggested in Wikipedia that the popularity drop could have been caused by the producers take to make a more morally preachy Keluang Man rather than a hillarious one... @#$% you, morality.

Keluang Man was neither a billionaire or a friendly neighbourhood. He's just purely made of 100% pure annoyance, even throwing racist remarks to people around him. But why is that fine on Malaysian television? Well, Keluang Man, or his real identity, Burhan (yeah, what the fuck), is a fictional OKU (wait, how does that make it okay to be racist on national tv again?). He's a patient in Tanjung Rambutan Mental Hospital who is suffering from... well, some brain damage considering he's so annoying. But Burhan somehow possess this atheletic skill and the habit of escaping Tanjung Rambutan at nightime to look for trouble. His career as Keluang Man begins when Burhan accidentally stumbled on the corpse of the previous Keluang Man (which was only explained to have been shot by a villain but never explained of his real identity) and putting on the costume, he resumes the heroic journey as Keluang Man. Whether or not if he really knows what he is doing but with the Keluang Man identity 'revived'; Burhan caught the attention of all villains around Malaysia who thought that Keluang Man was supposed to be successfully murdered.

The latter episodes of Keluang Man had Burhan's fighting and athletic capabilities explained, alongside his real identity. While the show is ultimately lame on today's perspective (considering there's way more cooler foreign superheroes out there) i personally find Keluang Man's a good attempt to start Malaysian own iconic super-hero league. And why Keluang Man is a better icon IMO than the now-popular Cicak Man? It's because of the take of the story. I consider Cicak Man's storyline to be way more cliche. Keluang Man's storyline has so much potential that the producers should have hired me as their storyline advisor and make it gazillion way more epic - this is where my imagination as a kid came in.

Donning on Keluang Man's costume, Burhan faced villains he never really heard of and villains of Burhan's own past. This is where i think the show could have been made way more interesting (and probably for more mature audience). Burhan could have been made to start using the Keluang Man identity to his own advantage and often forgetting the fact that he is taking the role of a late super-hero, not as a vengeful new one. The show can have audience to question the line between being the public's view of an iconic hero or an undercover villain. The audience can take sympathy of Burhan who, while mentally deranged, cannot figure out this line to a point that he comes close to becoming a villain himself - probably by a scene when he killed a public figure who was actually someone evil or corrupted, and related to his own past. Burhan's brain damage could have been caused by a traumatic experience to which he may often lose control of his heroism as Keluang Man due to his long-contained desire to sought for revenge; all this while masked by his comical personality. At the same time, the directors can have so much twists in the show based on Burhan's decision on his surrounding conflict, that the audience would think that, despite Burhan's mentally-ill identity, he's actually way more sane as compared to how mad the modern society is in perceiving things around them. In all, Keluang Man, with its pre-established premise, had the potential to be both a superhero and a philosophical show at the same time, as opposed to standard hero vs villain storyline.

Anyways, those are just the idea i had when i was... about seven years old? (damn, should have picked a different line of work. sigh). How did the trailer of Dark Knight Rises reminded me of my old ideas when i was a kid? Well, i wanted to have my (alternate) Keluang Man's 'trailer' to start with the national anthem that ends with alot of all-hope-is-lost footages. So there. Lol. Anyways, maybe there will be one day when i'm a millionaire that i can purchase ownership rights of Keluang Man and make my take of the animation a reality.

Til then, here's a sketch that i did on the 'new' Keluang Man. Was doing this in a moving vehicle awhile back and i didnt have any eraser with me. so sorry for the terrible drawing

I drew the mask to be slightly pointier
as the Keluang is more in the family of
foxes rather than bats
(according to some source).
Also tweaked the logo to be sharper because
I hated the original dumb looking face. lol

I prefer the other sketch as this started out
just as a joke. That was when i get to the
head part and got really immersed into
 starting to draw the tones and the
 cape more seriously. But because of
 this, I think the body is
slightly off proportions. oh well.

Happy 2012 :D

Delaqroux Inc Updates!

Apparently, it seems like each post of mine these days been starting with me saying stuffs like "gosh, i havent been blogging for awhile" or "damn, it feels good to be saying that again". But yeah, it has been awhile (Almost six months to be exact). Yep, alot of things have happened but i'm too lazy to be doing recaps so yeah, let's get on with what i'm doing now... as if the world cares. lol

Aaaaanyways, i have finished my studies in IPBA (or IPG KBA) and thus - this might not come as anything new to my colleagues or anyone who knows me - i am jobless. No, it's not that i am looking for a job now. I am just in the state of inner peace and patient-most, waiting for the posting notice. And seriously, this posting notice better come soon coz i think i have been terrorizing strangers in Selayang Mall a little too much.

Yeah, when you're stuck in Selayang, Selayang Mall is pretty much the only place you can be (No, we do have pretty good malls around but Selayang Mall is the closest). And when you're at home after a few days and have only been talking to your family day in, day out; the sight of any stranger, all the people that you dont know but can be talked to, excites you... not in a rapist way of being excited, mind you. So yeah, i've been talking around with people from the shop outlets, receptionist, pak guard, taxi drivers etc. and while most of these people (hopefully) reply to me positively that we did go in a good conversation for a few good minutes, some purely freaked out. I guess it's not the culture of Malaysians to be talking to strangers.

For a good reason, most Malaysian guys are creepy.

Putting that aside, I've found myself to have not enjoyed Selayang Mall as much as Tesco Extra outlets. Yeah, Extra. They're like normal Tesco-s but they have the whole building dedicated for their store along with a few more smaller outlets. Weird as it may be, but the sight of things on bargain prices and raw materials for cooking excites me, just as much as my non-rapist stranger encounter excitement. Maybe it's the fact that i'm revisiting the epic fun times i had when i was studying in Macquarie when a nearby Woolworth outlet was my domain. I own that place, bitches.

Okay, shift of topic. It is now 2012 and yeah, i've realized that i've been comparing my wait for the posting notice and the end of days to be much of the same thing. Both is just as uncertain but if it's possible, can i get a confirmation on both? I dont want to be stuck in this state of uncertainty limbo. If i'm not gonna get posted anytime soon, then let me know so i can do something else in my free time like travelling or getting laid. And if the world is ending anytime soon, then let me know so i can do something else in my free like travelling or getting laid. Alright, i am just kidding about the travelling and getting laid part - it doesnt have to be in that order.

Have a good day and an awesome 2012 people :D

Screenshot of my phone at the time of 2012 countdown :D