Thursday, October 28, 2004

IPPT targets

My aim for the coming test in Nov:
  • Sit up ( > 38) = 5
  • Standing board jump ( 234) = 4
  • Shuttle run ( <>
  • Chin up ( 8 ) = 3
  • 2.4 Km (11:40 mins) = 3

For SILVER standard.

Hope to make it first time round. Can re-test as many times as u want, my test window ends Jul 05.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Bangkok vacation - international school

I had a chance to visit this International School in Bangkok called Siam International School. It had full boarding facilities for students who wish to experience boarding school life.

Bascially a beautiful campus filled with language labs and computer labs, art studios, sports facilities. It' s meant for Thai students (aged 6 to 15) who wish to master English to learn from their teachers who are mostly from UK or US.

The interesting thing is the children all speak very good Thai but not English.. some are Chinese from Taiwan who also speak good Mandarin and have local Thai friends but all dun really speak Thai.. Once again it shows how easy children will pick up a language when young depending on their exposure.. In this case, these children are encouraged to speak English.. (their parents want them to..) and there are "fines" - 10 Baht for speaking Thai.. But they have to try harder to make the effort to learn English and use English..

I had fun learning Thai from a 7 yr old and I guess she also had to "try" to understand my English / Singlish as that is the only language common to us both..

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Friday, October 15, 2004

Bangkok vacation

First off, sorry for the inactivity.

To continue on this theme of "Life is Good".. My vacation in Bangkok is an eye-opener. The people are warm and friendly, the food is not all that spicy (though the tom yam is) and the shopping is good (if you know where to shop).

Though this trip did not involve going to some more interesting sights (like the floating wet market, other ancient ruin cities, etc.) I saw a side of Thailand which I cannot read or hear about from books or other people. All things are in Thai naturally.. from their PC magazines, the TV shows (they translated Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Thai- imagine that!), to their uhmm.. pop songs, MTVs, etc. They are going through the same kind of westernisation the rest of Asia or even the world is going through.. Yet, things still seem more practical, more user-friendly..

Take for example their eating places, little hawker stores (on boats, in Rang Sit) , cafeterias (in tourist locations like Pattaya) all have this little tissue dispenser on each table. These little dispensers are for customers to freely use of the tissues and I do think it is a nice little thought which Singapore should also adopt.

Gotta go.. more updates soon!