Today another ess turns 20. Time flies so fast.Seems like only yesterday, she was a bundle of joy who arrived early for Christmas.

What do you give to a young woman of twenty? Gold ring, a dress ?

I would wish her the wisdom to see the difference between love and words of love, between action and inaction between needs and wants.

For soon she would not require the council of her parents but have to face this brave new world by herself. Her parents of course wish to be with her but knows that she will have to walk alone.

Know this that there will always be warm porridge waiting when you drop by.

Spare the rod

My youngest son Anicius, 5, stole a piece of fruit cake. When confronted, he denied that he had done so. Instead he said that his sister Ariel stole the fruit cake.

For this 'crime" he was caned the following times

1. Ten cuts of the rattan for nearly getting his elder sister into trouble
2. Another ten cuts for "arrowing" his sister
3 And finally the last ten cuts for lying.

At each session, it was explained to him why he was caned.

Of course it broke my heart to cane him.

Of course as an educator I would rather use the softer method of counseling, reasoning etc the list of humanistic psychology which Harvey C Bunke describe so accurately as the non judgmental approach in which standards of right and wrong are discarded and the individual is urged to determined his own pattern of behaviour... each must must decided for himself what is right and wrong.

But I have no intention of bringing up my children who does not know right from wrong.

Ultimately, I rather that we parents do the caning rather then wait for the prison or the court to do so.


This article was inspired by what I have read from this blog below
http://uncledicko.blogspot.com/2010/11/its-wrong-not-to-know-whats-wrong.html?showComment=1288887783766#comment-c6478710333698343843

Would you object or raise a ruckus if the Heath Promotion Board (HPB) made a video with graphic depicting how to use a needle safely to inject recreational drugs into your child body on the grounds that everyone is already using recreational drugs and so there is a need to teach the students in secondary school how to safely use a needle?

Yet, I expect many people would condom the action of St. Patrick's School objection to condom video from HPB which promote the use of condom during sex and the graphic depicting on how to use the contraceptive.They would argue that many teenagers are already having sex and there is a need to teach them how to do it safely. Some might even argue that they do not see anything wrong with having sex outside of marriage.

While I cannot claim to have read the letter to the parents nor spoken to the HOD of Pupil Welfare, Nicholas Seet about the reasons for the objection, as a parents of three boys ranging from five to twenty one years old, I can understand and approval of the school’s decision.

By promoting the use of condom, we are teaching our students that the person that they are having sex with is only an object to satisfy a man’s carnal desire. The woman has been reduced to a vessel or a container to receive the male sperm.

By making a stand to object to the condom video, the school is sending a powerful message to the students to treat their fellow human as gift for each other and that a girl is more then a physical object. She is a person with needs, to be treated with consideration, care and respect.

Sex is no longer seen as an urged to be scratched but as an opportunity or a communicate tool to share deeply with someone you are committed for live.

In a world, where the fallacy of ad populum is committed everyday, I am glad that someone has the courage to stand up and fight for the right of woman to be treated as human being.

I would be proud to send my sons to St Patrick’s School.

I have s son who serve as an alter boy in the Catholic Church. Each week, when he goes morning mass, I say a silent pray that he will be in safe hands.

Yes. as a concern mother, sometimes, I do wonder if my son, who is eleven, is in danger of being molested or sexually abused.

I wait faithfully and patiently for the Archbishop to assure us that our sons are safe when they are serving at the alter.

Sometimes, the priest would bring my son for breakfast after mass. I do not jump into conclusion but keep a watchful eye on my son. I can trust the priest in my parish as I observed that they have genuine care and concern for the parishioners.

The issue here is not that the Church has shield the paedophile priests scandal or that many ordinary Catholic seemed willing to forgive the paedophile priests.

The issue here is one of responsibility of the parents. If our child is molested, I would not sweep the issue under the carpet to protect the priests. I would make a police report and demand that justice is made. If parents have established a good relationship with their children, they would be aware when something is a missed with their children.

A paedophile is apaedophile weather he is clock in a cassock or a policeman uniform. This is not a question of forgiveness. This is a simple issue of cause and consequences. If you do the crime, you pay the time

I wrote a letter to the Straits Time this morning. There was a factual error in today Sunday Time. So sad. A similar picture as above was printed on page 2. While it is factually correct, the Icelandic Volcanic Ash is not caused by the subduction zone but the divergent zone.

So sad, we would not be teaching geography by 2013 as it would only be an optional subject. Who will point this out then?

Dear Sir,

I refer to the this Sunday Time (18.4.2010) page two prime where a picture was shown as to how a volcanic cloud is formed. While it is factually correct, this is not how the Icelandic volcanic cloud is formed.The colossal ash cloud is not formed by the subduction boundaries as your picture might have suggested but by the divergent boundaries.

According to the United State Geological Survey, divergent boundaries occur along spreading centers where plates are moving apart and new crust is created by magma pushing up from the mantle.

Perhaps the best known of the divergent boundaries is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This submerged mountain range, which extends from the Arctic Ocean to beyond the southern tip of Africa, is but one segment of the global mid-ocean ridge system that encircles the Earth. The rate of spreading along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge averages about 2.5 centimeters per year (cm/yr), or 25 km in a million years. This rate may seem slow by human standards, but because this process has been going on for millions of years, it has resulted in plate movement of thousands of kilometers. Seafloor spreading over the past 100 to 200 million years has caused the Atlantic Ocean to grow from a tiny inlet of water between the continents of Europe, Africa, and the Americas into the vast ocean that exists today. The volcanic country of Iceland, which straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, offers scientists a natural laboratory for studying on land the processes also occurring along the submerged parts of a spreading ridge. Iceland is splitting along the spreading center between the North American and Eurasian Plates, as North America moves westward relative to Eurasia.

Any geography student worth his salt would have been able to identify the unintended mistake right away.

Yours sincerely

Frances Ong Hock Lin

I do not know if the correction would be printed

This is the reply i got from ST on 21.4.2010

Hello, thank you for writing in. You are right.
We hope to publish the correct version in tomorrow's paper.

Regards,
Angelina Choy
ST Art Department


Cheap thrill for the ess he he

8.4.1982

Manudary Thursday April 8 1982. It was the eve of Good Friday. My Ess and I were teenagers organizing a vigil where we were suppose to pray the whole night. This was because Jesus in the Gospel specifically asked his disciple to stay awake while he went to pray in the garden. However his disciples were tired and fell asleep three times.


At St Joseph's Church(P.M.) my ess asked f anyone would like to watch the sunrise at Fort Canning hill instead of praying in church. Only one "rackless" girl was crazy enough to follow an almost complete stranger up a dark hill.

That morning, the sun never rose. But we discovered that we could talk and listen to each other. Our friendship developed and over the seven years before we got married, there were many opportunities where we could engaged in a sexual relationship. If we did have less self control we would have a child who would be 28 years old now.

I have often wondered why we did not engaged in pre-martial sex. Was it the fear of God that was drummed into these SJI boys? Or was it that he was brought up as gentleman? Often my ess told me that he was tempered but chose not to.

I am so glad that we waited until we were ready and married before we enagegd in a sexual relationship. It is the deepest from of communication between two persons and saving ourselves for each other sever to show that we are disciplined and can be faithful.

Call me old fashion. Call me out dated. I know that many people who are reading this post do not find it wrong or unusual to engage in sex outside marriage. To them having sex is like asking someone to scratch your back. It is no big deal.

But it is a big deal. Sex can be absolutely selfish where one seek one's self satisfaction or sex can be the most beautiful experiences where both partners selfless give of oneself to the other, where the seeking of one's partner's satisfactions is above all else.

Some may argue that we can have sex in the unselfish way even when we are not married. But this cannot be so as sex outside marriage does not entail a committement.

It like the story of the hen and the pig. The hen lays an egg every morning but when the pig provide pork he is 100% committeed.


Come what may. I am gald that I took the change to walk up the hill with my ess. I took the chance and trusted him. I am glad he did not take that opportunity to thrust me.

The act of tempting or the state of being tempted

An MP for Marine Parade GRC, Mr. Lim Biow Chua had this to say about successful men

'Over the years, to me, Jack Neo is a good son, father and also a good husband. Since he is remorseful over this incident, he should be forgiven. Actually, a man who has good career development would find such scenarios unavoidable."


Temptation :the act of tempting or the state of being tempted.

By scenarios, I would infer that he is referring to sweet young thing throwing themselves on Jack or Mr. Lim's feet.

Yes it is possible that a man who has good career development would find such scenarios occurring.

The operative word is unavoidable. It is avoidable. Just because you are tempted, it does not mean that you have already committed the sin.

It is when you give in to the temptation that the act of sinning against your wife have been committed.

By saying that a man who has good career development would find such scenarios unavoidable, he has insulted all the good Man in White who has chosen not to give in to these scenarios.

I know and believe that my brother who is a road warrior is a good son, a good father and also a good husband. I am sure that hopping from one city to another week in and week out, I am sure he would find such scenarios unavoidable.

But he chose to exercise, jog, watch epl or facebook. Presented with such scenarios, he chose like a good man not to hurt his wife and children. Like all man, he would react to beautiful, young voluptuous woman.

However like all great man, he chose his response carefully.

Mr. Lim Biow Chua has insulted all good men who have chosen to remain faithful to their wives.

For those who were unlucky enough to have an ess for a teacher, do you remember the lesson she conducted about sex?

I remember this phrase that I always tell them this. "Man use words of love to get sex while woman use sex to get words of love."

The Jack Neo/Weng Chong saga illustrate this statement very well.

Feeling of love is not real love. Love is a decision, not a feeling. Feeling come and go. A decision is a rational act. Thought would have be considered. Various factors would have to be taken into consideration.

That is why in this saga, the only one who has demonstrated real love is his wife who stand by her man, who lived by to her marriage vow of being a wife for better or for worst.

Shame on those women who condemn the wife. No wonder the divorce rate is so high.

A warning to all sweet young thing out there

This is a warning for all sweet young thing out there who think that they can get away by claiming to be young and innocent. You are not.

You have been taught never to take a toy away from your playmate when you are in kindergarten. You have been punished by the discipline master if you are caught stealing from your friends when you are in secondary school.

Therefore, under no circumstances should you even consider taking the husband away from a married woman. That is stealing, that is cheating and ultimately, if your man is a good man, he will not settle for less. He will not go with the theft.

A good wife will stand by her man.....

even if he prefers watching EPL to going to her mother's house for reunion dinner,

even if he spend more time washing his car then giving her a sponge bath

even if he lost his mind for a while and go for some sweat young thing.

Ultimately, a great wife would know how to win her husband back.

She will give him the freedom and space to fly knowing that he will fly home to her.

And when he asked for forgiveness, she will not rub it into this face and demand ridiculous amount of compensation.

A great wife would be able to handle the hurt her husband has inflicted on her and help her remorseful husband to rebuilt his family and his life.

Remember, she has vowed to take him for better or for worst.


Sadly not many women and be a great wife. Sadly not many women actually love their husband unconditionally.


To all the China song birds who are eyeing my husband, be warned.

My heroes. Most of them have died.

Growing up in the 70's were fun. I was allowed to watch television when men were heroes and women were ladies.

The man I fell in love with the Six Million Dollar man. He was strong with bionic powers. He always used it to save his country or his friends.








Next was Micheal Landon. Not only was he a great actor, he was also a good producer, producing good movies and television series with sound moral values.

Who can forget him as Charles Ingalls, a struggle farmer in the Western frontier, loving but firmly bring up his three children?








And finally there is Jack Lord, as Steve McGarrett, the one who solve criminal cases and always asking his side kick to "Book Them."







In the 70's issues are clear. You are either the bad guys or the good guys. You cannot be both.

I just watched finished a movie called Wanted where the role of the assassin is celebrated and the good guy is actually the bad guy who is actually the good guy.


Yes life was less complicated during the 1970's TV land. How I long to go back to these time.


At least the values that were formed by watching Television series were good values like honour, respect and consideration.

What do we have now? Footballers and golfers who lack self disciple off the sporting arena and sport athletics who only run for the money with honey on their side.


Now do you know why there are no free to air t.v or cable in the esshold?

You have been warned.

Before you sign that paper

Another one bite the dust.
Bred and Angelina.

Will they ? Or will they not?

When you have six children like they and we do, divorce should not be an option.

When a couple break up, it is never just between the the husband and wife.

They are also a father and mother to their children.

When a couple divorce, they rip the children apart.

Their children is torn between the father and mother. It is impossible to separate the two.

If you mix a spoonful of Milo with a spoonful of sugar, you can still separate the two.

However, once hot water is added, the milo is made. Not at all possible to spilt up the milo from the sugar and water.

So if you are planning to walk out of a marriage, remember the Milo is already made.

I wrote a letter in response to an article I read in Today.

I REFER to "My son deserves a second chance" (Jan 6).
My two children were home schooled up to their O-levels. They did well enough to qualify for a polytechnic.

In 2008, while my son was doing his third-year Diploma in New Media in Republic Polytechnic and my daughter was doing her second year in Mass Communication in Temasek Polytechnic, he suggested that they take their A-levels as private candidates.

I was worried that they could not handle this in addition to their poly studies, but they went ahead.

They signed up for English Literature and Geography at A-level and General Paper and Maths at AO level, and studied using the syllabus available from the Singapore Examination and Assessment Board.

Half-way through, they dropped Geography and Maths because of the heavy workload at the polytechnics. They took Literature and General Paper.

My daughter obtained a distinction for Literature and a B for General Paper. My son got a C for General Paper and a D for Literature.

Did sitting for the A-levels affect their other studies? It, in fact, helped with their poly performance. My son graduated in the top 5 per cent of his cohort and has a place in the National University of Singapore. My daughter has not finished her final year yet; so far her Grade Point average is about 3.2.

My reason for sharing our children's education journey is to encourage Mr Vincent Tan to seek an alternative route to further his son's education.

The junior college route is only one of several his son can take. He can take up a poly course or, alternatively, he can complete his A-levels on his own.

I am sure that this experience will give Mr Tan's son the motivation to pull himself together and complete his education one way or another.

More comments on the subject at www.todayonline.com/voices

This is the article that I am responding to.

My son deserves a second chance

Letter from Vincent Tan

05:55 AM Jan 06, 2010

THE new school year started on Monday, but my son, who was in his first year of junior college (JC) last year, will not be attending school this year.

My son qualified for his JC having scored an O-Levels aggregate of 10 points. Except for Chinese, which he failed, he scored either A1s or A2s for his subjects.

However, my son was not a consistent worker. He has the habit of slacking during non-crucial years, only to outperform and surprise peers, teachers and parents alike and make the cut when it matters. At PSLE he topped his school's EM2 stream, with A* in three subjects and an A in Chinese.

Last year, he did badly in his "promo" exams, only getting passing grades in two subjects. Prior to the exam, the school vice-principals (VPs) and his civic tutor (CT) had flagged his "attitude problem" and warned that he would not make it to JC2 if he did not meet the promotion criteria.

Having fared badly in his exams, my playful son was given his report card with a blank under "status", meaning it had not yet been decided whether he would be retained or promoted. The VPs warned that my son was under review and that his performance in the ongoing Project Work (PW) would determine the outcome of that status.

We wanted my son to be given a fair chance and pleaded that his status not be determined and revealed to him until after the PW final presentation was over. However, his CT told him in no uncertain terms that he would be "expelled" and would not even be retained for JC1.

That pulled the carpet from under his feet. For him, all motivation was lost.

A few days after the PW presentation, we were told by the CT to meet the VPs. My son was very happy that day, as the CT had changed tack and told him that he would be retained. As parents we were elated when we were told the news and we went to the meeting with a happy heart.

My wife and I stepped into the room to meet the VPs and were given a report card with the status "retained". As a concerned parent, I voiced out the difficulties we had motivating our son for the PW and we wanted to make sure that in his repeat year he would not face such a setback again. I pointed out that at his young age motivation was a key factor in performance.

To our disbelief, one of the VPs at that point pulled back the report card, said they had made a terrible mistake and asked for our forgiveness. My son was not to be retained, they said - he was being asked to leave.

While my son fared badly at the promos, was it not overly punitive to deprive him of a chance to at least repeat JC1? My son's entire future was at stake.

My son is determined to do JC in Singapore, but when we contacted the other JCs, we were told that they, too, are also weeding out weak students. We have not received so much as a call from any of them.

Back in my school days, some of my more playful classmates used to do badly in non-crucial years only to ace their school-leaving exams when it mattered. Many are eminent members of society now.

Are JCs now too competitive? In their hurry to raise their "value add" quotient, are they pressuring weak students to drop subjects and prematurely weeding out students they deem unsuitable?

I hope the Ministry of Education will look into the school ranking system, which may have seen sacrificial lambs such as my son paying the painful price.

Found finally !!!! The Merdeka Lion

When I was young I remember a bridge which span across the mouth of the Rochor and Kallang Rivers.

My grandfather called it the Merdeka Bridge which in Malay means "freedom" and the bridge represented our fight for independence.


The bridge was built over the Kallang Basin to link Nicoll Highway. Every morning when my grandfather went for his morning walk, he would start from Jalan Pisang which is opposite the Sultan Mosque, walked passed this bridge before reaching National Stadium. He would then turn back and walked towards his home.

He told me that there were two Merdeka Lions with each standing at one end of the bridge.

In 1966, they were relocated to Stadium Walk, near the entrance of of Kallang Park. Many families would go there and have their pictures taken with these lions.

Of course, I pictures taken with the Merdeka Lion but I do not know where these pictures are now.

When I was growing up, I discovered that the Merdeka Lion has disappeared and no one I asked knows where they are.

Therefore, it was a pleasant surprise to discover these lovely Merdeka Lion at the SAFTI MI. We were visiting our eldest son who is in OCS now and when we were touring the grounds, discovered them near the tower.



Needless to say, my children and I proceed to take pictures with these lions just like what my dad did with us 40 years ago.



Something never change.

It is great to allow my children to touch a part of our past. I wonder if these lions should be relocated to a more public place so that more people can enjoy them?