Naresh Fernandes

Going out to enjoy yourself didn’t exist until recently.

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the ugliest business language

yesterday, i was reading an Accenture article and was frustrated by its writing:

New technologies are a vital component of delivering enterprise learning in a way that is cost-effective and that results in measurable improvements in workforce and business performance. There is no shortage of compelling technology-based learning approaches today, from e-learning to Web-based seminars to podcasting to simulations. The challenge most organizations face, however, is in incorporating those specific technologies within an integrated and holistic infrastructure in a way that makes sense both economically and from the standpoint of learning effectiveness. That’s not an easy job.

today, by pure coincidence, i read on FT:

This isn’t the first time I’ve singled out Accenture for its work in the jargon space. A couple of years ago, I wrote a column about its annual report, which was a perfect snapshot of the ugliest business language of the time.

worst thing at the gym

what’s the worst thing that can happen to you when you’re 5 minutes into a 40 minutes run at the gym?

when the world’s worst-smelling woman steps up besides you, till death do us part.

Boris Pasternak

The beginning of April surprised Moscow in the white stupor of returning winter. On the seventh it began to thaw for the second time, and on the fourteenth when Mayakovsky shot himself, not everyone had yet become accustomed to the novelty of spring.

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something crazy

when you have 6 hours of sleep in 2 days, you’ll either say something really crazy or fall in love.

high

Asian Investor: Singapore’s inflation is now at a two-decade high at 4.4%, compared to just 0.9% over the past 10 years.

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American Born Chinese by Gene Lune Yang

Me Chinese,
Me play joke,
Me go pee-pee
in his coke.

Lui Tuck Yew may not be a fool

i think the trash-talking-principal and the minister who stood behind her (possibly the next Education Minister) will contribute significantly to the next phase of our educational system.

for those of you who have many friends from mission schools, you should know by now the old paradigm has failed miserably. i spent 2 years in a mission school and looked how i turned out.

besides, strong moral values is really hard to quantify. but if you look at the new paradigm as practiced by our trash-talking-principal, i believe we are on to something really powerful.

the new paradigm is:

1) inspiring (100% passes!)

2) measurable (100%)

3) action-oriented (kicking out!)

4) so Jack Welch (he fired the bottom 10% of his managers)

the more i looked at it, the better it gets. i wish more mission schools will adopt this and i’m sure with ministerial support, they will.

i have another idea for the minister. i was reading monocle and it briefly mentioned that norwegians are outsourcing their aged care to Spain where there’s good weather and better treatment of old people.

why not send our dumb kids (with respect) to another country? then we can have 100% O-Level, A-Level passes.

i’m sure your colleagues will love the idea of us being a hub for smart kids.

Lui Tuck Yew is a fool (2)

there are all sorts of rules in schools.

and all sorts of punishments for all sorts of offences.

when i was in primary 3, i saw my first public caning. some boy stole and he was caned in front of all of us. as a lesson. for who? i don’t know.

somehow, i never was caned in school. i’ve got my ears pulled; wrote thousands of lines like bart; served detentions; forced to stand at many places, on chairs, tables, in the corner of the classroom, in the quadrangle.

you don’t just get punished for individual flaws (not doing your homework, not greeting your teacher in the corridor, not tucking in your shirt).

you get punished when you disrupt the classroom and prevent others from learning (noise-making, refusing to co-operate with your teacher in front of the class, disturbing your classmates).

so my question is – what do you do with the teachers, principals (and silly ministers-of-state that support them) who prevent others from learning by crushing spirits and destroying hope?

what’s an appropriate punishment for these morons? after all, noise is temporary and a crushing blow can last a lifetime.

i say: line every fucking one of them and administer an old-fashioned public caning.

Lui Tuck Yew is a fool

The minister, Lui Tuck Yew, is a fool.

And should he or anyone be offended, let’s just say:

1) Please separate the message from the tone. “We can calibrate the tone, we can soften it, improve on the presentation” but this message needs to be conveyed.

2) i’m just trying to build resilience in his character.

There’s a great reply to this fool’s comment in today’s ST and Mr. Wang had his say.

since the minister is in the business of “set(ting) high goals”, let me set some what should be considered difficult goals for his kind:

1) Try to talk like a human being as difficult as that sounds.

2) How about never talking in public again?

Les Enfants Terribles

Schools have no death penalty, so Dargelos was expelled.

All fire and ice she despised anything lukewarm.

…where strange forces live that are cast out by Life because they disturb its mechanism.

Elisabeth hadn’t married him for his money… She’s married him for his death.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

shame in the blood by tetsuo miura

pg. 39 – For our vow was that, in our own humble way, we would try to live strong, full-hearted lives.

pg. 170 – You would do better to concentrate on correcting your unmanly ways.

pg. 207 – I see my capacity for causing untold harm with just a single mistake.

pg. 207 -  This was certainly no time for happy harmony.

pg. 216 – We would have to make a fresh start from the here and now, as many times as it took.

Lee Kuan Yew

My advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge.

Lee Kuan Yew

But I think the most important single lesson I learnt in life was that if you isolate yourself, you’re done for. The human being is a social animal – he needs stimuli, he needs to meet people, to catch up with the world.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

pg. 29 – Always bring a book, as protection against strangers.

pg. 34 – What is it about restaurant eggs? They had no character, no backbone.

pg. 68 – Just listen to any song on the radio; look at any soap opera. Love is what it’s all about.

pg. 198 – I don’t have friends anymore and everyone looks trivial and foolish and not related to me.

pg. 210 – …although he did not love her he loved the surprise of her, and also the surprise of himself when he was with her.

pg. 333 – Just once he’d like to see a hero like himself – not a quitter, but a man who did face facts and give up gracefully when pushing onward was foolish.

pg. 352 – Oh, it was their immunity to time that made the dead so heartbreaking.

Sir Edmund Hillary (1919 – 2008)

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

female asses

my new favorite line from planet earth. this will take some beating:

Female asses are mysterious creatures. They come and go as they please and much of their behavior seems unfathomable to an outsider.

Ryue Nishizawa

Things are always changing in New York. It’s a town constantly in the present-continuous tense.

Paul Graham

Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset.

see the light

i’m 1/5 through the astonishing planet earth series and my favourite line so far must certainly be:

the light literally shines out of its backside.