Thursday, September 18, 2008

Change.

I am no way critical of the related persons, this post is related to me and my thoughts on the recent chain of current happenings.

My first brush with joining a petition was to petition for one of our tutorials in poly to be brought forward as there was a retarded 3 hour break in between for an hour's class for the last class of the day. We all agreed that we could all be doing something more condusive. We consulted the lecturer in question and she said okay as long the school approves. The class rep at that time gathered the class signatures and submitted it to our programme manager. The next day our class got a dressing down, the lecturer that agreed to the change was given a stern warning and our careperson (equivalent to form teacher) also gave us a lecture.

I remember lashing out at our very nice (no sarcasm intended) careperson that she doesn't know what the hell she was talking about. I remembered feeling upset for the other lecturer, we shared her tears. She was cornered by the board and penalized for siding with the students. As for our care person, I understood that she was disappointed in us but she just echo-ed the chorus of the higher ups that had given us the exact same lecture.
Pissed off, I stood up to defend the other lecturer, details are a bit fuzzy but I remembered it was about the school being deliberately unreasonable and inflexible, and I'm sure she did it in everyone's best interest. It was a heated debate and I ended up making her cry. It was a personal victory for me. Or was it?

Looking back on the whole ordeal it is rather dumb. I mean at school level, management sort of told us something along the lines of, "You think your father own the school ah?" and told us to go fly kite. Our class, class A lost its appeal against the school, things went back to normal. Well not quite, I became quite known as the one that flew over the cuckoos nest.

Anyway, I see a similar situation brewing in my new class, in attempt to rationalise the whole situation it brought me back to such memories of the past. I hear a lot of loud whispers of unhappiness but nobody thinks of what they want to get out of it, what can be done, when they want it to be done, at what cost, worst still not everybody wants the same thing. Some say change! Some say oh I just wanted to rant, no collective opinion, everything is in a mess.

This reminds me of a t-shirt I once saw that reads.
"No guts no glory, no brains same story."

I am in no way trying to initiate some kind of a revolution or rile up the people. But I criticize the lack of agenda. If I had to pick a role, I'd rather be the political commentator.

Imagine if Obama got up to say: I want change but erm ... i don't know how long it'll take, errrr I'm not sure what I'm unhappy about either I just know that I'm UNHAPPY so all of you peeps who want to be unhappy with me. (Damn that bad rap music) Let's all have a blast being unhappy and angry at the current situation -- Do you think anyone will take him seriously?
Don't even have to go till the extent of using Obama as an example. What about Dr. Chee?

We are communication students FFS. If we cannot advocate change who can?
Taken from WATER7 (uncredited but looks like Banksy's work)

On the flipside of reality, I realised that many people don't have an opinion, again loud whispers I hear. This is the product of an excellent social experiment. If we all can't get along and agree, why bother to change anything at all. Perhaps my ideas are too liberal for my time for my own good.

2 comments:

`duckling said...

i seriously don't get your CP (for being so.. senselessly PC?) and programme management. as long as the class and the lecturer involved are agreeable, with the availability of venue, what's there to oppose to?
in my poly, we change the timetable after discussions as a class with our tutor of that particular subject. there's no need for the school to intervene at all. i guess, my school (or maybe only my course?) culture allows us more flexibility and being autonomous. anyway, so this time round, are you gona do something? or just be another Silent complaint?

Unknown said...

That's really fail.

Shame that the higher ups can't see sense. What better way to discourage the younger generations then to tell them that what their fighting for isn't worth fighting for?
No wonder people are so apathetic these days.

There's a quote I love.
"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
Said by Margaret Mead.