Recess week is here. It's more like a power nap that I try to take(
snigger) but fail either because my room's too sweltering or its becomes a sleeping session...Mid-terms loom ominously next week, together with essay submissions.
Just too many things to read, especially for Metabolism and Regulation. Even to transport an electron from NADH to oxygen doesn't take place in a linear fashion, there has to be a Q cycle in between how Ubiquinone dumps its electrons to Cytochrome C. And the end reactions on how 4 electrons are required before water can be produced with pulling and pooling of protons from the mitochondrial matrix is soo mind taxing. But even in the deepest and innermost layer of the cell, the 'simplest' form of life, there are still so many intricate complexities that are yet to be fully understood. People are still winning Nobel Prizes for accurately describing a cellular process or enzyme structure and function.
Then Physics. The subject that I consider one of my worst among the branches of science. But what I'm taking is more like a general course, so it's largely simplified with a lot of the math replaced with conceptual understanding of how quantum physics replaced classical thought. Even the sheer ingenuity of the experiments performed to justify or disprove an idea astounds. Clearly, the understanding of something as fundamental and integral to our lives as light itself is would be no simple feat, what more the relation between space and time.
While attempting for fathom why Michelson thought that ether was non-existent through his interferometry experiment and how Gauss came up with his 4 principles of thermodynamics, there is the 4500 word group essay to complete. Not to mention the 2000 word essay on bureaucratic corruption based on Singapore. Oh well.
I just received this
article from New Straits Times from my friend who was the past Chairman of the Board of Traffic Wardens in the school. From what it seems, this was brought up to the newspaper by a parent.
"A parent brought up the matter with the New Sunday Times recently when she almost knocked one student who was riding his motorcycle out from the school. Who in their right minds bring up such an issue to the media? Wouldn't the school be a better recipient of such a complaint? Or even the boy's parents if the parent concerned was so thoughtful?
Isn't it like nearly being hit with a flower pot while walking by a college residential area, and instead of informing the college residence management, you go and tell your local radio station? Want to complain also complain to the right person, for God's sake.
That's just the first part.
She blamed the traffic wardens for not being attentive enough."I wonder if this parent with such acute powers of observation knows even the scope of duty of the traffic wardens. It isn't specified where the incident took place, but from the looks of it, it should have taken place either where they parked their bikes outside the school compound, after the duties ended or when there were no duties like when there were exams. If the bike was in school during the duty times, the user will have to wheel their bikes out to the main gate before he/she is able to mount and speed off.
So obviously this parent had a fright, and knowing no one else to blame, just used the wardens as a scapegoat and being most probably too complacent to lodge a complaint with the school, went instead to tell the sob story to any newspaper willing to listen.
The article also highlights other parts like schools deploying students to control traffic, and saying "
it is being done at the expense of the students' safety. "
Really? and how is it shown by this statement that the students are placed at risk? Do they have any statistics to show that students who are traffic wardens being run over by errant drivers, incidents that occurred involving pileups or injury to anyone? NOTHING! It's just like saying you're a fat lump with completely no BMI, fatty tissue percentage, or even plain simple weigh measurements to back what they are purporting.
They can investigate, but hopefully they will come up with the right conclusions. Penang is a small island. SXI is a small school. The carpark is small. Muntri Street is very narrow. A small carpark needs people to direct the vehicles in and out in an orderly manner so as to ease congestion and speed up movement flow. A narrow lane means people need to give way sometimes to allow cars coming out to have clear passage. If the state is willing to pay for a legion of traffic wardens to help conduct traffic around the various exits around school, I'm certain the school would be more than willing to let them do it.
ONE TRAFFIC WARDEN ISN'T GOING TO HELP, NO MATTER HOW PROFESSIONALLY TRAINED HE IS.
