A friend was fiddling with the messaging functions on a new iPhone, sent me some text and asked me whether I received it as an SMS on my 'hp' (meaning handphone or mobile phone) or as an e-mail.

Fond of not giving simple, straightforward replies, I did not send my response as just the mere 'hp' or 'phone' or 'sms' any other similar term referring to the cellular phone. I texted back 'Hewlett-Packard', intending to use its familiar 'HP' initials. My friend thought I meant the PC, and took it that I got the message as an e-mail.

It's like, to most people, ABBA may be the musical group from Sweden that made songs such as Mama Mia popular. But, to me, ABBA is the rhyming scheme of the first eight lines (octave) of a Petrachan sonnet.

As long ago as when the ABBA movie was having its first run, some colleagues on the night shift were in the company-provided transport on the way home. Philip Coorey began a discussion on the World Cup and Surinder Singh, sitting nearest to him, seemed keen on giving his views as well.

After a while, Surinder asked Philip: 'Which World Cup are you talking about?'

'The Cricket World Cup, of course,' replied Philip (a Sri Lankan), to which Surinder said: 'I thought you were talking about the Hockey World Cup!'

Almost in unison, the rest of us responded: 'We all thought you were talking about the Football World Cup!'

It gets worse for those of us who like to use several languages in the same sentence.

My friend, Jacob Idiculas, was once doing his usual round of sending huge drawings (building plans, for instance) for photocopying at Motion Smith's, then in Battery Road. On that particular day, he just wanted one copy each of the plans and told the Caucasian lady boss there so: 'One each, please.'

A few hours later, when he went to collect the copies, he was shocked when asked to fork out double what he had expected to pay. Then he discovered that the shop had made two copies each of the huge drawings.

'Didn't I say I wanted only one each?' Jacob asked the Caucasian lady.

'Yes, you did and that was what I told him,' she replied pointing to her Singaporean colleague, a Malay man, who did the copying of the documents.

'But, ma'am, you said 'two each',' he protested.

'No, I said...' and then she paused for a while and continued, much more slowy, '.... 'satu each'!' ('satu' means one in Malay), and apologised profusely.

One confusion can, of course, lead to another.

I get worried when I see the shorthand used by the wait staff on the order chit to the kitchen. Recently, I ordered barley water in a restaurant and on the chit the waiter had written 'bali'. I know we import water from neighbouring countries but Bali? That seems a bit far-fetched.

On another occasion, in the United States, my family and I were having breakfast and my wife ordered her favourite 'two eggs, sunnyside up'. The waitress wrote '2 up' on the slip she handed to the kitchen.

That taught me a lesson. I will never ever order 7-Up (the soft drink) for breakfast.

I prefer my eggs over-easy anyway.

At first, the task seemed straightforward. Analyse how politicians use social media in Singapore.  Simple enough.

The team had already done "social media scanning” and “thematic analysis” on the Presidential election few months back. Why not use the frameworks and techniques which we had used for the previous project?

Not quite!

Within 20 minutes of brainstorming, we soon discovered that the research project was more complex than we thought at first, and the analysis would need to be robust.

That meant we could not simply rely on technology platforms alone, but would require an overwhelming abundance of “human analytics"; that is the ability to cluster, interpret and analyse sentiments based on social, cultural and political nuances which machines would not be capable of.

The discussion went on for two hours, during which coffee cups were emptied a couple of times. We redrew the mind maps between 15 and 20 times.

From one that looked like a fishbone skeleton, we progressed to a Ishikawa diagram that resembled Paul the Octopus of the 2010 FIFA World Cup fame.

I could see the excitement and apprehension in people’s eyes at the thought of the sheer amount of hard work needed to come up with easy-to-digest frameworks needed for interpretation. We were sure that no one had done a similar study on the scale and scope that our friends at ST had planned.

Over the course of the project, we encountered many "snowballs." Data collection, archiving and coding proved a real challenge.

The more than 5,600 posts, 43,000 comments, 1,600 tweets on the MPs’ Facebook pages and Twitter accounts during the four-month study period from June to October 2011 proved to be manageable data sets.

Key Challenge

However, a key challenge arose when we had to start categorising data into clusters such as negative, positive and neutral. The trends, pattern of usage and response were all derived using programs and algorithms, but to determine the essence of the posts and the sentiments, a different kind of analysis was needed.

A machine cannot detect sarcasm, nor can it ascertain that certain negative words are in fact words of support defending a politician or his position.

The qualitative aspect soon became the challenge and at one point, turned into an organisational nightmare. Unlike typical exploratory and inferential analysis, social media and unstructured data analysis is quite different.

The first step is validating the data sources and the data itself. Secondly, you need to try to have a contextual understanding of the data set and identify all relevant variables needed for the analysis.

Building meaningful dimensions for analysis is the next step and this is the point where the subject expertise comes into play. We started with five dimensions to understand the nature of postings of the MPs initially, which expanded to nine after the preliminary analysis.

Contextual sentiment analysis is the key, but an equally difficult task is to design metrics for comparison. Metrics which are simple yet powerful. The "buzz" and comments to post ratios are all different ways to meaningfully interpret the data and impactful enough for an ordinary citizen. For medium-large scale projects of this sort, you really need a good team.

That said, our teams were up to the task and soon, an army of Bell Pottinger Digital consultants dived deep into hundreds of hours of analytics and data streams, resulting in interesting insights into politicians’ different approaches to connecting with their constituents.

They shed new light on the meaning of digital grassroots, with traditional grassroots campaigning and advocacy work getting exponential amplification through the waves of social media.

Many hours were spent identifying patterns and statistics, and even more hours decoding the trends and behaviours of our test subjects.

As a result, we have the frameworks, indices and measurability indicators to begin to tell the story of how social media is undeniably a permanent part of political life in Singapore.

Avish was the lead consultant for The Straits Times-Bell Pottinger study on MPs’ use of social media in Singapore.

Read also:
http://www.straitstimes.com/SaturdaySpecialReport/Story/STIStory_755282.html

That was the similar reply from two people I met on Friday afternoon, when I visited the wake of Mrs Priscilla Krempl, principal of St Andrew's Secondary from 1996 to 2001 and Bedok Town Secondary from 2002 to 2007. She died on Thursday morning at the age of 66, after she was hit by a stroke and admitted to hospital. She was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer just four weeks ago.

ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN

Mrs Krempl was perhaps best known as Singapore's first qualified female rugby referee. She also coached St Andrew's national title-winning sides in the 1970s and 1980s.

It was a quiet Friday afternoon when I arrived at St Joseph's Church, where the wake was held. Most people hadn't knocked off from work yet.

Allied educator Shamir Muhammad, 27, was one of the few people who turned up. Allied educators work with teachers to nurture and develop every child in school by raising the quality of interaction with every child. But Shamir talked about his time as a student in St Andrew's from 1997 to 2001, with a mix of sadness and fondness.

Affected by family issues in Secondary 3, he did poorly in school and got into disciplinary trouble, and was at risk of dropping out of school. Mr Shamir described that period as his "darkest days".

Mrs Krempl counselled him and tried to bring him back into the fold over the course of a year. She even involved him in hosting two exchange students from Australia, even though he was not supposed to be part of the exchange programme. For Mr Shamir, being involved in the programme reignited his desire to do well in school. He eventually completed his O-levels and moved on to a polytechnic.

ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM

Mr Peter Ching, 32, who works in the oil industry, arrived at the wake later in the afternoon.

He told me that he had a rebellious streak in St Andrew's from 1992 to 1995, and was called into Mrs Krempl's office several times. About half a year before his O-levels, Mrs Krempl, who was then the school's acting principal, called him into her office again, and told him sternly that it was time to stop getting into trouble. The message resonated with Mr Ching, who made sure he didn't get into trouble again.

"As a student, I didn't like her. But it was later on that I realised she gave me a lot of sound advice," he said.

He added that he would always remember the image of her walking along the St Andrew's corridors poised and in perfect posture, while wearing her trademark tinted glasses.

Two former colleagues who worked with Mrs Krempl during her time at Bedok Town Secondary said she paid special attention to students from lower-income backgrounds.

Mr Bernard Low, who was a maths teacher in the school, said: "She understood where the kids were coming from. She tried to build their self-belief...she created a culture of care for students."

Mr Ong Kong Hong, former vice-principal at Bedok Green Secondary, worked with Mrs Krempl in 2007 on a cluster-level project to help Normal Technical students who were at risk of dropping out. "I was struck by how much she focused on the individual. She thought deeply about what would engage these students and how to change their lives," said Mr Ong, who is now principal of Teck Whye Secondary.

Even after she retired as principal, Mrs Krempl's interest in education did not wane. She continued teaching part-time at the National Institute of Education (NIE), training allied educators in topics such as communication and classroom management. She last taught in the July-October course.

Mr Fadzli Shah, 26, who took classes under her in the March-June course, visited the wake with five other course-mates. He described Mrs Krempl as a motherly figure who gave them a lot of encouragement. "Some people don't think too highly of allied educators, but she taught us to be confident of ourselves and our work," he said.

Mr Shamir, the former St Andrew's student, said it was a privilege to learn from Mrs Krempl again when he attended the allied educator course at NIE from July to October. He recalled that she would watch clips of the Rugby World Cup during their lesson breaks, which showed that her interest in the sport hadn't declined with age.

Teachers who had worked under her said she created a warm and caring working environment for them. Mrs Yeo See Wan, who has taught maths at St Andrew's since 1976, fondly recalled the personalised cards that Mrs Krempl would make for her staff every Teachers' Day. "It was just a small card, but we really appreciated her effort," she said.

Her kindness extended to her brother's Indonesian maid, who was well-acquainted with Mrs Krempl. She said Mrs Krempl would often talk to her like a friend, and ask her if she was having any problems back home.

ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM

Judging from the many stories shared by people who knew her, Mrs Krempl seemed to lived by her motto of "Do the right thing, and do it excellently". It was a line she used to tell her St Andrew's students whenever she addressed them, and something she still told her students at NIE.

Mrs Krempl's funeral will be held on Sunday.

Recently, another educator who inspired many, passed on. Mr Gabriel Rao, the operations manager at Regent Secondary, collapsed and died at the age of 48.

Hundreds of students and former students attended his wake and funeral over a few days, and it was testimony to the impact he made on them. Education Minister Heng Swee Keat also posted a letter of tribute from Mr Rao's cousin-in-law on his Facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/notes/heng-swee-keat/a-tribute-to-mr-gabriel-rao/283359898369209)

Learning about how these educators have changed many lives is truly humbling. But it would be unfortunate if their influence ends with the people they have touched directly.

As Mr Shamir wrote to his course-mates at NIE: "Let us carry on what she has done so that we too may live a good and blessed life with all due care for our fellow man and for the children, that we now have to care for."

But now, it turns out, scientists from Nanyang Technological University have found that nanoparticles of zinc oxide, a substance used in many sunscreens and cosmetics, can cause a chain-reaction cascade that leads to cancer in lab-grown cells.

Cue alarm and frantic consumers saying: But I thought it was natural!

So is zinc oxide, that innocuous-looking white smear across a sunbather's nose, really a carcinogen?

The honest answer is: It depends.

Or as doctors might say: It's all about the dose.

The links between environmental toxins and the incidence of disease in real life, rather than in the lab, are some of the toughest in the world to prove. This is just because in real life,  scientists can't track everything that people wear, eat and smear on themselves. (The exception is when there is a very strong link between, say, pregnant women consuming thalidomide and the incidence of birth defects.)

But here are some useful questions to ask about products containing zinc oxide, or any other potentially harmful substance.

How much?

Does the product contain a high concentration or low concentration of the chemical? That has an impact on the level of the chemical users are exposed to.

What size are the particles?

The potential environmental effects of nanoparticles in general are known. Scientists know that at a high enough dosage, free-floating silver nanoparticles can cause birth defects or even kill zebrafish embryos, and that they might be able to enter the human body easily because they are so small.

What's the degree of exposure and what part of your body is exposed?

Are you wearing the stuff all day, every day? Injecting it into your body? Or swallowing it?
As for degree, some nail polishes contain solvents that evaporate into nasty fumes. I like to paint my nails, but I do it in a well-ventilated room once in a blue moon. (But I would worry about the health of manicurists in a poorly ventilated salon, for example.)

Closer to home, vitamin A, that eyesight-promoting vitamin good for your skin and teeth - is poisonous in very large quantities. But you would have to consume enough carrots to turn you bright orange in order to feel the effects of vitamin A poisoning. So I will probably keep saying yes to carrots.

One more thing, about the word 'natural': Just because something is natural does not mean it is non-toxic! Arsenic, for example, is a naturally occurring element that gets into well water in Cambodia and Bangladesh. No one goes around blithely drinking arsenic-laced well water just because it is natural.

Finally, there's one more important question: Which carries the higher risk - tiny nanoparticles of zinc oxide (or anything else, really) in your sunscreen, or skin cancer from going without?

That's one statistic I would like to find out. Again, the answer is probably,  'It depends...'

I beamed happily at Kim. It was the 1990s, when I was still a trainee in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Driven by the desire to have children after 10 years of marriage, and having saved enough money, Kim had come for an In-Vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycle.

Moments later, however, my enthusiasm wavered while I was doing the ultrasound scan. On the screen before me was, not one, not two, but three little fetal hearts.

Uncertain about how she and her husband would receive the news, I called the consultant in charge to convey the news.

To the layman, having multiple pregnancies is a novelty. One usually pictures cute little babies in a row and jokes about the IVF cycle being a case of 'buy one, get two free!'

To an IVF clinician, however, it is a mixed bag. This is because as much as we want our patients to get pregnant, multiple pregnancies bring with it a host of potential complications, spanning almost everything covered in our obstetrics textbook.

Everything in pregnancy is exaggerated in a multiple pregnancy: A higher risk of miscarriage, morning sickness, anaemia, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.

The major concern is that of babies being born way before term, weighing a mere few hundred grammes, needing intensive care unit (ICU) support just to breathe and being at risk of cerebral palsy.

Twins have four times, and triplets up to 10 times, the risk of cerebral palsy compared to a singleton pregnancy. There is also the social and economic cost of looking after two or more babies at once. Most of us struggle coping with just one. Imagine having three!

Over the past two decades, the number of twins and triplets born in Singapore has spiked. But now, a new rule from the Ministry of Health (MOH) mandates that a maximum of two embryos, instead of three, can be implanted in a woman through IVF at any one time. (Hyperlink to http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_694135.html)

It begs the question: Knowing the risks involved, why in the world do doctors want to put in so many embryos in the first place?

When IVF first started, the major goal was to achieve a pregnancy. Just having a positive urine pregnancy test was a reason to celebrate. When we replace more embryos, we increase the possibility that one of them will be implanted. At the same time, however, it increases the risk that more than one will.

But the reason this strategy was chosen was that we couldn’t quite predict which embryo would eventually be implanted. Hence, in order to increase the pregnancy rate, we put in more embryos.

It made sense in those days. Often, even after three embryos were transferred, we would only end up with one foetus.

But as IVF progressed and embryo quality improved, we became a victim of our own success. More embryos successfully implanted and multiple pregnancy rates began to soar. In natural pregnancies, only one in 70 births results in twins. In IVF, however, one in four does.

The burgeoning multiple pregnancies brought with them heavy medical and financial burdens. It was neither easy nor cheap to watch over high-risk pregnancies and babies. And the problems did not end after the delivery, as the sequela of prematurity can be life-long.

Expectations also began to change. Higher standards meant that we measured IVF success with live birth rates, as opposed to celebrating when a positive pregnancy test popped up.

A healthy baby is what couples expect now. It no longer seems like too much to ask.

Kim’s pregnancy appeared to be doing well until the 26th week when her water bag broke. Soon after, she delivered the first triplet.

However, because of extreme prematurity, the baby did not survive. The umbilical cord was cut but the placenta was left in situ. We knew that there was a very high risk the other two fetuses may be delivered soon afterwards, but we also wanted to see if we could keep them in utero for a bit longer.

Kim cried and cried, but dried her tears and decided to do what she could to salvage her two other fetuses.
The next few weeks were a heart-wrenching watch for both Kim and us, her doctors. We were worried about possible infections that could be life-threatening, as well as the threat of premature delivery.

We treated her aggressively with antibiotics and she was sent to the labour ward multiple times for closer monitoring. In those days, complete bed rest was prescribed. (This is, however, no longer the practice as it carries the potentially-lethal risk of blood clot formation, without evidence of benefits.)

Kim was a prisoner on her hospital bed.

Amazingly, her pregnancy lasted another six weeks, one of the rare few that did.

She was determined to remain cheerful and, because she stayed so long, she got to know the doctors and nurses very well. She also downgraded her hospitalisation status from A to C class.

At 32 weeks, Kim went into labour. She delivered safely and afterwards, faithfully went to the neonatal ICU to see the little girls every day, going through the emotional roller-coaster ride that comes with taking care of such vulnerable babies.

Thankfully, after one long month, she went home with two healthy daughters. Kim still comes faithfully with her girls when we hold our annual IVF Babies’ Party.

I admire Kim’s tenacity, but seeing her also reminds me of the physical, emotional, medical and financial burdens of multiple pregnancies in IVF. She had a happy outcome. But for many others, things do not turn out so rosy.

It is hence only timely that something is done to reduce the rate of multiple pregnancies in IVF.
What can be done though?

One may think it is simple enough to just put in fewer embryos. The downside is that there will be a fall in pregnancy rates. For the couple who have never been pregnant before, this may not be a compromise they are willing to accept.

One can talk about informed consent and choice but with IVF being such an emotional experience, and the couples vulnerability, it is hard for them to see beyond the first hurdle.

For IVF centres, the pressure to maintain a good pregnancy rate is also high. It is little wonder that despite it being the right step forward, the adoption of this strategy is slower than expected, especially in countries where many of IVF cycles are funded by the patients.

Hence, it is in countries where IVF is regulated and funded by the government, like in Scandinavia, that this strategy has been highly successful and widely implemented.

It is found that if only one embryo is transferred while the excess is frozen and put in one at a time at another cycle in younger women, the cumulative pregnancy rate is comparable to one single transfer of multiple embryos.

The pregnancy rate for the initial cycle would fall by a few per cent, but the multiple pregnancy rates would fall significantly.

Upfront, the initial cost appears higher because one needs to freeze the excess embryos and come back for subsequent transfers. But if we look at the bigger picture, it means fewer premature and vulnerable babies.

A recent study in Quebec, Canada found that after the legislation of such elective single embryo transfers, the pregnancy rate fell from 42 to 32 per cent, sparking another debate about the cost-effectiveness of this strategy. What they overlooked was this: The multiple pregnancy rates fell from 25.6 to 3.7 per cent.

The debate will rage on for a while. But if we return to the starting point and think about what IVF is about and why couples want to go for IVF, then the way forward is clearly to limit only one embryo transfer, especially in younger patients. It is just a matter of how fast we want to follow.

Dr Yong Tze Tein, senior consultant, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Singapore General Hospital, is an accredited IVF specialist. She has special interests in sub-fertility, menopause, adolescence and female sexual dysfunction. She is an educational supervisor for medical students and house officers and is also the clinical quality chairman, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Singapore General Hospital.

I didn’t even ask for it. It came knocking on my door, in the form of a very courteous and efficient young man.

I was passing through Novena MRT, on an errand, when I was accosted by the said young man from the Stanchart road-show kiosk which was situated in a non-descript corner fairly close to the escalators leading the way out from the bowels of the station to shopping nirvana above. I glanced at the Stanchart logo and paused.

I am one of those people holding multiple credit cards who helped Singapore cross the 6 million credit card threshold last November. I am responsible for a tiny fraction of the total personal consumer loans of $150 billion as at Jan 2011.

But I didn’t have a Stanchart credit card. And I wanted one, primarily because of its advertisements found on the pages of The Straits Times, promising two-for-one and other irresistable dining deals.

So I paused and listened to the marketeer. Barely 10 minutes and a few signatures later, the marketeer told me I would get three cards: a Visa and Master credit card that would each be pre-loaded with $40 I could spend; and a $10 credit in an additional line of credit, which would charge zero interest if I used up to $3,000, but would charge a whopping 17.9 per cent of interest on balances over that.

I have always been suspicious when a bank starts offering me money, but I made an exception and graciously accepted Stanchart’s generosity, because I figured that I could outsmart them.

I reckon Stanchart is giving me money for three things: to get me to sign up for its cards to boost its card popularity; buying my customer information (I belong to the desirable demographic of being employed, aged 25-49, who like to shop); and to put Temptation in my path - Temptation being that line of credit in case I need a quick loan.

It isn’t for nothing that personal consumer loans in Singapore have grown at a faster pace than business loans. Banks here are becoming very good at finding ways to persuade people to borrow. They have an arsenal of economists, and no doubt psychologists, and marketing experts who find new ways to trick unsuspecting people into getting into debt.

But I shall overcome.

Much as I welcome that $90, I will not succumb. I will keep the two credit cards, but continue my practice of paying for all my credit card bills in full at the end of the month. No rolled over debt at 24 per cent interest per annum for me, unlike the owners of the $4 billion in rolled-over debt in Singapore.

But that third card - the one promising an easy loan - will be cut up immediately and go straight into the bin. After I’ve found a way to turn that $10 credit in it into cash, that is.

You see, I am an Informed Customer and I know some of the tricks of banks.

They make debt seem attractive but they don’t call it debt of course. They don't even call it a loan. It’s called ExtraCash, ReadyCredit, CashLine or CashPlus. They dangle various freebies in your face to tempt you into taking up a loan: a smart new luggage bag, or cash. They send over big mailers in glossy paper with cheques written out in your name, making it seem cool and normal for you to get into debt.

My advice: Don’t fall for it.

That line of credit comes with a high interest rate. And even if the bank is smart enough like Stanchart to offer the first $3,000 loan at zero-interest, you have to be super-disciplined and organised to remember to pay it back at the end of the month and to promise yourself never to exceed that $3,000, or else risk paying a high interest rate or a high late payment penalty for a loan you didn’t really intend to take.

Think it won’t happen to you? Well, studies have shown that we always underestimate our own level of stupidity and over-estimate our intelligence.

I must confess that when I started writing, my plan was to deliver three or four clever tips on how to get the better of banks that want to suck you into their debt trap. After all, although I am a borrower, my only loan now is a mortgage. I pride myself on being more of a saver than a spender.

Then, I read some scholarly articles on debt and the types of people who get into debt. From my research, I found a detailed study of debtors in the United Kingdom. What I read was interesting.

People who land themselves in debt aren’t just the poor, desperate, gamblers, or ill-disciplined good-for-nothings.

They are regular folks like you and me, with good jobs, a mortgage, and maybe one or two children to care for.

They enjoy shopping, and aren't averse to rewarding themselves with a gift or two, but they would say they seldom went overboard. They like keeping up with trends (and the Joneses).

So what got them into debt?

First, the attitude that debt isn’t bad, and that debt can counterbalance income flow during difficult times. Apparently, that’s a very common first step towards a life of indebtedness. Certainly modern banks encourage it, urging you to take up a loan for a holiday, to prepare for life’s surprises and what nots.

Second, a flexible attitude towards budgeting, can be seen in rationales like this: “I’m spending more this month, but never mind, I can take up a loan and curb my spending next month.”

Those two factors struck me because many of us would have thoughts like these today.

So I may have to be doubly careful when the cards arrive after all. Keep the credit cards to enjoy dining privileges. But the advance credit line? Forget about using up the miserable $10. Don’t even expose myself to temptation. Just bin it.

What is it that triggers such a huge outpouring of grief and accolades at the passing of a man whose impact on our lives has largely been through the gadgets that we carry - notably the iPod, iPhone and iPad? Mr Steve Jobs was not only a visionary who created a great number of cool devices that millions took to. It was his ‘thinking differently’ that overturned conventional wisdom and led many of us down a path of discovery - about ourselves and the world we inhabit.

To have a user interface that best suits our innate needs instead of doing it the standard or accepted way - whether it is listening to music, talking on the mobile or surfing the Net. This is important as it resonates with our passions, an emotion frequently denied in this world of compromises.

Apple appeals to our hearts, not our minds. And Jobs was the prophet.

The iPod was not the first MP3 portable music player. Yet, when introduced in 2001, it swept the world.

To be so successful, surely Jobs must have seen something no one else did. The same goes for the iPhone (2007) and the iPad (2010). In fact, since Mr Jobs’ return to Apple in 1997, Apple has seen a great number of successful product launches, all due in no small way to his obsessive devotion to doing the right thing, be it design, functionality or the operating system. It is never easy to pursue one's passion so fervently, even if one is predisposed to it.

RESURRECTING APPLE

Mr Jobs did not have it all smooth sailing. The intervening years after leaving Apple in 1985 and returning in 1997, were not easy for him. NeXT computers were not a commercial success and Pixar came much later. Still, he persevered and set the tone for the greater battle ahead - resurrecting Apple.

Having been a Mac fan since 1982 when I first bought an Apple II, followed by the Lisa in 1983 and the first Apple Macintosh in 1984, I would say the period from 1985 onwards when Apple was run by CEOs John Sculley, Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio, were confusing years for the Cupertino company.

A slew of disappointing Macs and frequent policy changes took the edge off Apple's uniqueness and frustrated many diehard followers.

Even today, Apple still behaves like a kitchen Nazi at times and imposes its will on users. However, so long as the products churned out continue to be great, Apple devotees are fairly forgiving. And it is an emotional thing for Apple fans (PC users are just merely users).

At a Macworld keynote speech by Jobs in 2005 which I attended, I could sense the passionate charge in the air . Every time Mr Jobs announced something new, there were cheers and cries of approval. It was almost like a religious gathering.

This was the effect Jobs had on his followers and Apple fans had much faith in the great proselytiser. With him gone, many wonder if Apple will sink back to the mediocrity of the pre-1997 years.

We hope not. The folks at Cupertino owe it to their former CEO and his millions of fans out there, to keep Apple the way it is - an innovative zealot that always stays ahead of the curve.

It would be what Steve Jobs would have wanted.

The feedback, which had to do with his behaviour, came from a fellow parent at his former preschool, whose son was being bullied at the playground.

She said that instead of joining in the act or doing nothing about it, Jason put out his hands to stop the bullies from pretending to claw at her son’s face. She was touched and decided to let my husband and me know about it.

I appreciate this because unlike a piece of art work which he can bring home and show me, such behaviour which I want to reinforce, is intangible and would have been easily missed, had this parent not taken the initiative to let me know.

Likewise, when his teacher gives feedback, I tend not to pay much attention to the fact that he is usually among the first to complete his worksheets.

I’m more concerned about the next part of the feedback – that when he is not the first to finish, he doesn’t handle “failure” well and breaks down and cries.

To me, ABCs and 123s will eventually be picked up. Why insist that he perfect his handwriting at three, read at four or spell at five?

Conversely, qualities like resilience, the ability to handle failure, or having moral courage, may not necessarily be picked up even after he has mastered his ABCs. So I would rather focus on these.

The previous week’s announcement by the Education Ministry that there will be greater focus on values and character education in all schools struck a chord with me.

But to be honest, my immediate reaction was to wonder, isn’t this part of the education system already? You mean teachers are not doing enough of it?

On second thought, the fact that the Education Minister has come out to say it, might mean a renewed emphasis on character education, and that can only be good for the children.

But it is a tough road ahead. Afterall, a primary education review committee had recommended two years ago that there be no examinations in Primary 1 and 2, but some schools still find it hard to part with year-end examinations.
Not surprisingly, parents are the ones pushing for them. They say doing away with exams at the lowest levels may do more harm than good since their children still have the PSLE to sit at Primary 6.

So going back to the renewed focus on values and character education, the first step schools have to take would be to get buy-in from not just teachers and students, but also parents.

Tell parents the focus on character education will not be at the expense of academic results. With the robust education system that we have, driving home the importance of good values will not dilute the essence of the system. It is not a situation of one or the other.

In fact, bright students may learn to accept that not having straight As does not mean the end of the world. Recognising it would not mean a lowering of standards, but an ability to accept failure and move on to achieve other things.

The second step would be to recognise that schools are building on what they are already doing.

Character education is something all schools practise perhaps to different degrees. So it is not about introducing a new subject, but rather how values education can be made more relevant and interesting for the children, or incorporated into everyday lessons.

The final step would be to work together with parents to build on the desirable character traits you want to see in the children.

Parents who play an active role in inculcating values in their children not only make the school’s job easier but also will likely see better behaviour from their children. In fact, the parents’ role is all the more important since values are often caught and not taught.

If I had it my way, I would say, head for the playground, learn to defend your friends or play as a team, because life’s most important lessons are not taught in the classrooms.

Jason recently learnt another lesson at the playground. The day after Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, we walked past the estate playground where we had carried lanterns and lit candles the night before. Looking at the candle wax-covered pavement, Jason remarked: “Uncle will have a hard time cleaning up today.”

He’s not that civic-minded, not yet, anyway. He was just parroting what I said about our estate’s friendly cleaner before we left the playground the night before.

But it’s a start.

That generated comments from one camp which supported what I proposed and the other which threw the book at my audacity to raise such a scenario.

The detractors in this group said it was against the time-honoured spirit of browsing in a bookshop and that the pursuit of knowledge should not carry a price.

Others argued that charging a fee would drive away a lot of customers - but I wondered then, did the bulk of people raiding the shelves for free reads actually went on to buy something?

My take then - and still – is that one should play fair and support a beloved merchant you grew up with.

If you do not want to buy anything, at least help pay for the upkeep of the place, including the cost of maintaining the merchandise.

In my earlier blog, I also said that the $2 fee should be refunded with any purchase.

Reading the reports of Borders’ current difficulties, a comment from a patron caught my eye – he said that the store in Wheelock Place appealed to him because there were so many books and magazines to read.

Yes, for free.

Do you know another business which is as generous with its offerings for public consumption?

Can you imagine, for example, a restaurant letting you sample almost everything on its menu – as much as you like – before you decide whether you want to eat there?

I have always thought that Borders’ business model was hard to sustain when it also had to cope with high rents and staff salaries.

I am at its other branch in Parkway Parade almost every week. Just like its Orchard store, this is always crowded but sadly the folks are often not thick at one spot – the cashier’s.

Instead, they are plonked on benches and comfy armchairs, sometimes with a bunch of books to tank up on their weekly reading needs.

I have even seen some people engrossed in reading thick paperbacks. Maybe they come back another time or two to read the remainder of the book.

The point is - Borders is like a feel-good community library in a shopping mall and almost everyone’s having a whopper of a time partaking of the freebies.

But good times cannot last if no one’s helping pay for the fun.

So we have only one Borders branch still left standing - and last weekend the crowds were still doing best what they have done for a long, long while - reading for free.

But for how long? Do they care?

Could they see some merit in paying an admission fee?

It might still not be too late to save the store.

I had heard about Curry Day about two weeks ago, when several friends on Facebook sent me invites to the Cook A Pot of Curry event. In those two weeks, I had thought about what tolerance, and being Singaporean, means to me, and decided: I wasn't going to cook curry.

I wasn't trying to be contrarian for the sake of it. Nor was I trying to make an anti-Curry Day statement. I just had three simple reasons.

The first is that I was uncomfortable with the origins of the event, which started as a response to an incident where a PRC family complained about the smell of curry every time their Singaporean Indian neighbour cooked curry. It eventually emerged that the incident happened seven years ago, but by then the curry controversy was already on the boil.

Like many Singaporeans, I was unhappy about the PRC family's alleged requests that the Indian family stopped cooking curry (that's like telling Chinese people not to eat rice). I was also unsure about the agreement that the two families voluntarily settled upon, which was that the Indian family only cooked curry when the PRC family was not at home, and the PRC family had to try curry at least once. In my opinion, that left the Indian family shortchanged, even though they had willingly agreed to it.

But, I was equally unhappy about the Cook a Pot of Curry event as a response. To me, its original event description carried more than a hint of xenophobic undertones, dressed up in nationalistic fervour.

One paragraph read thus: ""I hope that every Singapore Citizen/ or true blooded natives can COOK a pot of curry all over the island on this date (21st Aug 2011- Sunday) and let the aroma-therapy of CURRIES permeate the whole nation!! SHOW them we will not be coerced and DUN COME and bully our Indian Malay, Eurasian or Peranakan friends ! Roar!"

"True-blooded"? "Coerce"? "Bully"? Why the defensive language, and why draw a line between us and them?, I thought at that time. By then, more than 5,000 people had signed up for the event.

Then, last week, the event suddenly shifted in its tone. Suddenly, it became "Cook and Share a Pot of Curry" Day. The defensive rhetoric was scrubbed from the event description, and replaced with soothing pleas to include foreigners in the event. Anti-foreigner posts on the event page were also deleted.

I was glad to see that, but still had my misgivings given the original intent of the event.

Nominated Member of Parliament Mr Viswa Sadasivan wrote to The Straits Times Forum page recently, pointing out that the event was not about xenophobia, but rather was directed at intolerance. The organisers have also been quoted in news reports that the event was not meant to drum up anti-foreigner sentiment.

If that was so, then why did it take an intolerant stand at first by wanting to annoy foreigners with curry smells? Whether that stand was intentional or not, I found it pretty ironic that in trying to get foreigners to fit in, the event wanted to literally rub their noses into it.

The second reason why I wanted to cook beef stew was simpler. I'm proud to be a Singaporean, and I have many foreign friends who care as much about Singapore as I do. I'm for encouraging tolerance too, done in a gracious way.

But why do I need to take part in an event to prove it? In fact, why do I need to prove it at all, when I know these things in my heart?

The third reason was the simplest.

I just felt like having beef stew on Sunday. So I cooked it. And I found it just as delicious as curry.