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 | This is more difficult than I thought, but setting long-term vision and plans has a lot
to do with coming to terms with oneself, believing that you're capable, building the
courage and trust in yourself, and doing the right thing, not just the thing right. |
| When I was young (teens), i wanted to become a pilot, and travel the world, flying
people around in a jumbo jet. But I think what stopped me from pursuing that line of
career was my growing interest in information technology and computers. Another reason,
maybe, was my eyesight, which although not bad, requires the use of spectacles; not bad in
that my lens power is only 120 on my left eye and 100 on my right. I've been known to
forget my glasses when driving off to work, only realising that I wasn't wearing glass
when I can't read the roadsigns. |
| Anyway, when I was in the third or forth form (16 or 17 years old), it was my sister,
who was a librarian at that time, that had brought my attention in computing. Being a
sci-fi buff and liking all these electronic-gadgetry, my sister's description of the use
of computers in her library convinced me that computers could be used in such diverse
fields as engineering and medicine to education and publishing. Ok, maybe I wasn't that
farsighted.... I probably liked the idea that you could play wicked computer games and
tinker with programming and make the silly machine perform your biddings. |
| Education in secondary school lead me to believe that our purpose as students was
nothing more than passing exams upon exams to get paper certificates, that would get you
to university, whereupon you had to pass tougher exams, and finally, if you're good
enough, get a job, earn a living, and life would be a routine then. The sad thing was
that, since that was I what I believed in, that was what I got! Nobody really impressed
upon me that education wasn't just about Maths, English, History or Science (in a
compartmental sense), but that it was all that, plus Music, Sports, Arts, Hobbies, People,
Friends, Family, which usually was placed under the "extra-curricular" activity
section (sort of optional, or if you're interested, go ahead, but you won't really get any
marks in exams, blah, blah) but that really everything is related and interlinked to one
another, not compartmentalised, and that all these knowledge and skills would become
useful one day later in life.
 | Nope, it didn't really dawn upon me such essential principles of learning. Not until one
fine morning, when I was in Chemistry class (this was for A-Levels at Malvern College,
England), when we were preparing for the real exams by going through past-year papers,
when my Chemistry Master, Dr. Ferguson asked me to answer the next question on the paper. |
| It was a diagram that had showed the Periodic Table (Table of Atomic Elements) all
blanked out except for a few boxes randomly labelled A, B, C, etc. This was followed by a
series of questions that asked you to identify what the element in box A was, etc. The
question might be something like, "You put element A in water, and bubbles appear. If
you burn element A, the flames are orange in colour. Etc..." |
| And so I asked my Dr. Ferguson, "Wouldn't it be easier for us to just memorise the
Periodic Table rather than try to understand the properties of each element, etc?" |
| And you know what he did? He said, "I've been teaching Chemistry more umpteen years
and still haven't memorised the Periodic Table - but I can write down on the blackboard
all the elements of the Table, based on core properties and what we've done during lab
work, and not only that, you will be able to follow and understand it too" |
| He then proceeded to do just that, and to my amazement, as well as my classmates, we
really could follow him. It was a cinch. I couldn't believe my eyes, but I could then see
how, even I, could write down the whole Periodic Table.
 | You see, at this point, the pin really dropped. It was at this juncture that I truly
believed, that even the biggest problem could be tackled successfully, and confidently,
only if you break it down to its basic properties, and began from the root, from the
beginning. |
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| Like when I was stuck with another question (this was a Maths question, done on a
different day), and I asked my best friend, Mike, my housemate, to help me out, and he
said, profoundly, "If all else fails - read the question."
| Shikes! Was he so right! If all else fails, get back to basic, man. |
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| So, it was only with my undergraduate degree course in Computer Science that I had paid
attention to "the basics" and tried to study and learn the subject from its
fundamental roots. And now, I can safely say, that of all the subjects that I had studied,
this is the one that I had learnt and have any grounding of! The rest, hmmm...... |
| But now, in my life, I'm somewhat like at the beachfront. With the waves of the sea
gently washing the sands and caressing my feet. I am feeling quite alright just strolling
along the seashore, throwing stones into the sea, and watching them bounce over the water,
and return to my tent before the day ends.
| What I need to do now, is to ask myself, what do I what to do next? What do i need
to do next? Do I still want to keep strolling contently on the beach, or shall I venture
out into the deep, blue sea? Explore new lands? Meet new people of varying cultures?
Enrich one's knowledge and share out one's experience? Live life to the fullest?
| It's the question I have yet to answer..... the decision I need to make..... |
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